Exclusive LEGO Ideas Voltron Fan Designer Interview!

Monday, July 23rd, 2018 by Brickfinder

I had the chance to have a little sit down with the fan designer of the LEGO Ideas Voltron (21311) Leandro “Lendy” Tayag in Shanghai where he shares his experience working with the LEGO Ideas team, which designs were kept in the final model and what else he would be doing if he was not building Mechas!

I’m also joined by Mocozone, Wooden Duck and Range Show who are just some of the awesome LEGO fan media here in China as we interview the first ever South East Asian LEGO Ideas fan designer!

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BF (Brickfinder): What was your first introduction to LEGO?

LT: When I was very young, we had Fabuland which were these big animal mini figures. We also had the space ships and this pirate castle but when I was around six or so I stopped LEGO totally. I moved on to models and Transformers.

In 2014 my brother introduced me to LEGO again. He bought this big Death Star and from then on I was hooked. But mostly it was because of Ninjago as my kids like Ninjago and the first set we bought was the DB-X.

RS (Range Show): How much spare time do you spend on LEGO?

LT: Normally I do it after work, after being stressed from the day of work. My wife will let me play for a while, build some stuff and my kids will build as well.

BF: So why Voltron?

LT: I like super robots and my mom actually bought me a Voltron die-cast before. Voltron is one of the first toys I had as a kid. One of the first big toys that I had. I like the look of Voltron a lot.

I’ve liked it since then and there were toys that came and gone and I always wanted to get one as an adult again because my old one is spoilt already. It was still quite expensive and since I have LEGO bricks at home and I saw this new Voltron coming out so I tried to imitate that one in LEGO.

RS: What were your 80’s Memories?

LT: 80’s cartoons are so much better than the cartoons now. We had the super robots, we have Transformers, Voltron, GI Joe. Those were the ones that I like and grew up during the time. What is good is that they are all coming back now. The new Voltron show on Netflix is also very good.

WD (Wooden Duck): Why is Voltron so popular amongst fans?

LT: One of the advantage of Voltron is that it was shown in the United States. The US market helped a lot with the popularity. One of the most comments that I receive is that they like the colours as it is very colourful. I think one of the reasons they (the LEGO designers) kept the nice green colour instead of the dark green was to make it more lively.

WD: How were you involved in the final design?

LT: We exchanged emails and we also had conference calls. We had three conference calls, one in early October and another late 2017 and one early this year. They would show me the progression of the model and they are very open to my feedback and they implemented some. That is how they get me involved.

WD: Can you share with us where your input was in the final Voltron model?

LT: You see this white colour? (points to the side of the LEGO Ideas Voltron head). They didn’t have that white colour before. It was all black so I suggested why don’t you put the white colour there as Voltron has that.

They kept this grill (points to the chest piece) as it looks like a ‘crown’ when you look at it from sideways. And you see this cross? They purposely made that in gold as it didn’t come in gold before.

This side of the cheek (points to red lion’s head). Niek the LEGO designer was actually looking at my post in Facebook. He actually followed this part here and you look at how similar they are.yeah, those are the ones that they implemented.

WD: How much did they reference your design?

LT: The overall structure had to be changed because (gently pushes his fan submission and it wavers). Even if I push the LEGO Voltron model, it is quite stable. The overall structure was nicely designed by Niek and Sam. And if you look behind you will see that the foot is very long which makes very it very stable as well. The overall structure is very different.

BF: Was there one moment where the LEGO Designers said that you couldn’t keep a feature that you really wanted to.

LT: They will try it and if it doesn’t work out they will tell me. One example is the head part here. I tried to give them some redesigns but they mentioned that the part here will be quite loose. I tried it out myself and it was indeed loose. They are very open creatively.

BF: LEGO has the ability to print on their elements so for example the mouth piece. yours is brick built and theirs is a printed piece.

LT: It really is the stability. Like in comparison, I can move the head piece like this (moves the face plate up and down) and if I move the one on my model, you can see it is quite loose. The first model I made had an opening mouth but that one was also a bit loose. But I mean not loose but once you start moving it, it will move out of position. They really look into the stability of the model.

RS: What is your Favourite LEGO series?

LT: Ninjago! I like the Airjitsu Temple.

RS: How do you feel that your creation has become an official LEGO set?

LT: It was very surreal. Even now I cannot believe that I’m sitting here with you all and the model. It is very exciting. You know that feeling in movies where they say “pinch me”. This is the very first time I had that feeling. Pinch me please!

BF: What was the most challenging aspect of the whole model to design?

LT: The heads! The head designs are the most challenging. Most of my builds are based on existing super robots so the hardest part is that I need to make it recognisable. Once you have a recognisable face and the body is not that accurate, you will still know that that is that robot.

That’s why I’m quite slow when I come up with my models because if I don’t get the head right, I put it aside. Like this one, I started in 2015 and I couldnt’ get the head correct so I shelved it for one year. And in 2016 I got the head right and started again.

BF: So how long did it take for you to get the head right?

LT: One year!

RS: What is the most difficult aspect when you started to build your own creations?

LT: One of the hardest things is getting the parts. When I first started it was very hard to find the bricks. If you go to LEGO Stores they have the pick-a-brick and the elements there are targeted to modulars. So for Mecha builders like me is very hard to get parts. There is a store called Brick Sanctuary in Malaysia who started bringing in a lot of parts. They really help me a lot with the builds and I will order from them.

RS: What is the difference between LEGO designers and Fan designers?

LT: I think it really boils down to the target audience. What I feel is that LEGO really wanted it to be sturdy so that kids can play with it. My model is specially made for me to display. It translated very well and as you can see they implemented some designs from my model. There was not that much changes which was very nice.

WD: What are some suggestions to mod the official model?

LT: I changed a lot of the official model. You see this part? (points to the side of Voltron’s head). It is actually longer now. And I changed the lion eyes to something more rounded. I do have some changes to it but what I can say is that my changes are mostly cosmetic. I didn’t touch the overall structure. I tried changing the legs to ball joints or different types of ratcheting parts and I found out that it really is not that stable.

BF: This is a question from Peanut: Who are your favourite builders?

LT: There is a very popular builder called Moco. And in BMD (Brick Mecha Division) there is Lu Sim and Kelvin Low (Chubbybots). And there is this one guy who originally was modifying LEGO parts but now he has moved into not modifying parts. Name is Sam? There is another one, Alan Yap.

BF: Would you try other forms of building besides Mecha?

LT: I always wanted to build the Lion Castle. I actually submitted that to LEGO but it was shelved after Voltron was approved.

BF: So I’ll classify that under Architecture?

LT: Yeah!

BF: This is a question from Lu Sim: What part of Mech building do you enjoy the most?

LT: For my case I always draw inspiration from existing robots. The part which I really like is being able to come up with a model that looks like my inspiration. Like Voltron I really wanted to get it exactly like the cartoon. So that is what I enjoy.

BF: What is the most challenging of Mecha Building?

LT: JOINTS! Making it stable. To be honest when I started I really like the details so I would just do them but when I put them all together it alls apart. This experience with Niek and Sam how they did the model I learned a lot. After seeing how they did this Voltron I feel that it is harder for me to come up with something because simple stuff like this ball joint is very loose right (shakes the leg of his Voltron submission), I can’t accept it any more! It has to be very stable.

BF: So some of the LEGO building rules have rubbed off on you!

LT: Exactly! Especially for mechs right, you don’t just stack bricks on top of each other. One of the things that they do is that they stack bricks on top of each other and they have connectors on the side so its very stable. You will see it when you build the black lion. That is something that I learned a lot.

BF: what is your favourite lego element.

LT: Oh there are so many. Just from this set alone, there is this 1 x1 bracket which is very very useful. I like tiles a lot because if you look at what I do most of the time I hide the studs. So from far it doesn’t look like LEGO only when you come closer.

BF: Is there one element that doesn’t exist in the lego library that you would want?

LT: There is a lot! I think one of the ones would be a tighter joint. Sometimes the ball joint is too big it is hard to design some details around it because it is going to bulk up. So if you get the normal sized ball joint, you can build around it. But the problem is that it is too loose.

BF: The lions uses double ball joints which allows them to move left and right but not up and down whereas your model can do a full 360.

LT: Ah yes but mine cannot hold the sword upright.

WD: Do you know why this set does not contain the five mini figures?

LT: I submitted the project without mini figures then I did an update with minifigures included. One of the main things is that it would have drove up the cost. I am surprised that the price of the set was in a good range. I was expecting it to be a lot higher.

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Thank you Lendy for answering all our questions with candour and giving us insight on what it is like to actually get your own creations made into an official LEGO set!

Congratulations Lendy! See you in Singapore!