For decades Stargate fandom has expressed itself in various ways, from fan films to fan art and fan-run conventions. How about LEGOs? Yes, there’s a Stargate group for that, and a few of them are joining us in this episode to show off their projects and discuss their craft. This is a pre-recorded episode.

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Captain Mutant ► https://ideas.lego.com/s/p:075d3c43d6934373a55f33a12492577d

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Timecodes
0:00 – Opening Credits
0:25 – Welcome and Episode Outline
1:42 – Welcoming the Guests
2:31 – Welcoming French Translator Frederick
3:06 – Starbrick
4:16 – Jake Conhale
6:00 – Starbrick’s Stargate Story
7:40 – Jake’s Favorite Stargate Elements
8:42 – Background on LEGO Ideas
9:54 – LEGO Reviews New Content Creators
11:29 – LEGO Ideas Limitations
12:50 – Turning LEGO Pieces Into Stargate Pieces
16:08 – Jake’s Stargates
18:17 – Jake’s Puddle Jumper
19:53 – Ordering Specific Parts
22:46 – How do you create a circle with random LEGO parts?
25:13 – Captain Mutant’s Stargate Creations
28:46 – Inspiration By Peers
31:06 – Finding Rare Stargate Pieces
32:32 – 3D Printing Your Own LEGOs.
36:00 – Getting Jake to 10,000 Votes
37:56 – Giant LEGO Jack O’Neill
41:15 – Help Get the Word Out
42:20 – Gates and Gods
43:40 – May the Best Set Win
44:32 – Thanking the Guests
45:22 – LEGO and Weapons
47:37 – Teal’c as a LEGO
49:34 – Interview Wrap-Up
49:59 – Merchandise!
50:20 – Coming Up on Dial the Gate…
51:52 – End Credits

***

“Stargate” and all related materials are owned by MGM Studios and MGM Television.

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TRANSCRIPT
Find an error? Submit it here.

David Read:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Dial the Gate, the Stargate Oral History Project. My name is David Read. Thank you so much for joining me for this pre-recorded episode of Stargate LEGOs, and the fans who make them. We have a few featured LEGO artists in this episode. I expected an interesting discussion, but this was further than I expected. I can’t wait to get started with the guests here. Before we get started, if you like Stargate and you wanna see more content like this on YouTube, please consider clicking that like button. It makes a difference with YouTube and will help the show grow its audience further. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend, and if you want to get notified about future episodes, click the subscribe icon. Giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops, and you’ll get my notifications of any last-minute guest changes. And clips from this episode will be released over the next few weeks on the Dial the Gate YouTube channel. For this episode, it is pre-recorded so the moderators will not be taking questions for the participants of this show. I appreciate your patience on that. Let’s go ahead and bring in the panelists.

David Read:
Hello, everyone, thank you all for joining me. I appreciate having ya. Linda and I have been looking at the creations that you guys have been making for a while now, and we’ve gotta have them on. So thank you Starbrick, and thank you Jake, for responding to our message. We also have a video that I need to download from… Who submitted this, Linda?

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
This is from Captain Mutant, and it’s great. I watched it earlier. It’s a really nice video. He did a great job with it. I’m impressed. I need to get some film tips from him, I think.

David Read:
OK. Very good. So, I also have Frederick here, who’s gonna help with French translations. Thank you, sir, from Concepts Web. How you doing?

Frederick Marcoux:
I’m doing pretty good, and you?

David Read:
I am well. Starbrick, thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are first, and then we will get to Jake. Frederick, feel free to jump in and help.

Starbrick:
No.

Frederick Marcoux:
Marc, voudras-tu nous parler un peu plus de toi et dans le fond, un peu de ton background.

Starbrick:
Je suis Marc, je suis Français.

Frederick Marcoux:
I am Marc, I’m French.

Starbrick:
I’m 38 today. It’s my birthday.

David Read:
Oh, happy birthday.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Happy birthday.

Starbrick:
Thank you. It’s a nice gift. I’m very, very happy to be with you today. Je parle d’abord en français. Je travaille dans un domaine relativement artistique. J’aime bien tout ce qui est création, je fais [inaudible] de la bâture. Je suis très porté sur tout ce qui est LEGO, tout ce qui est création.

Frederick Marcoux:
So, I work in a domain that is pretty artistic, and I have a lot of artistic hobbies and I like to play with anything that is creative, like LEGOs or anything related to that.

David Read:
OK, that’s great. Thank you. Jake Con– Is it Conhale?

Jake Conhale:
Yes, Conhale.

David Read:d
Welcome, sir. I love your little Back to the Future time box on the shelf there.

Jake Conhale:
Thank you, I built that.

David Read:
Wow, I’m impressed. Tell us a little bit about who you are, where you’re from, and how you got into creating your content.

Jake Conhale:
I have been a lifelong science fiction fan. It started with Star Trek, and after that I was a lost cause. I’ve always had an affinity for math and science and LEGOs, putting things together, figuring out the problem solving and all that. Eventually, during the pandemic lockdown, it came out to be a natural fit that I’d have to do something or else I’d go stir-crazy. My first introduction to Stargate was, my parents rented the movie, and I found it completely boring. I remember that. I even recall seeing certain scenes from it. Anyways, later on I rediscovered the film on the Sci-Fi channel and ended up, at one point, watching it daily for two weeks. And after that I was also a lost cause on that. LEGOs offered the challenges for making Stargate stuff, and it sort of snowballed from there. Started with a gate, and went with the Puddle Jumper, and I’ve got various small gate room setups in various places.

David Read:
Thank you for that, sir. Starbrick, what is your Stargate story? How’d you get into the show?

Starbrick:
J’ai découvert Stargate avec le film d’Emmerich quand il est sorti au cinéma.

Frederick Marcoux:
So, I discovered Stargate with the movie of Emmerich, when it came out in cinemas.

Starbrick:
J’ai toujours été fasciné par l’histoire depuis tout petit.

Frederick Marcoux:
I’ve always been fascinated with history. When I was six, I already knew every Egyptian gods and [inaudible]. So Stargate was just something that worked for me.

Starbrick:
Sans doute. Stargate après surtout, j’étais toujours fan et enfant des années 80, je suis né en 1985, c’étaient les séries L’Agence tous risques, MacGyver, etc. Quand Stargate est sorti en 97…

Frederick Marcoux:
Veux-tu répéter? C’est beaucoup d’informations à traduire.

Starbrick:
Je suis né en 1985.

Frederick Marcoux:
I was always watching those ’80s TV shows like MacGyver and, c’est quoi l’autre que tu as nommé? Agent touriste?

Starbrick:
A-Team.

David Read:
Don’t need to translate that.

Starbrick:
Et Knight Rider, Richard Dean Anderson, je suis un grand fan. Quand j’ai vu la série de Richard Dean Anderson, j’ai dit “jackpot.” Voilà, c’est Stargate plus Richard Dean Anderson, ça ne peut pas être plus bien.

Frederick Marcoux:
So, when I discovered that Stargate was with Richard and Anderson, and I was already a fan of RDA, it was a perfect match. It was jackpot, like he said.

David Read:
Very good. Thank you for that. Jake, what are some of your favorite elements of the franchise?

Jake Conhale:
Honestly, in some ways I think I’m actually more of a fan of the movie than the series. Although I’ve consumed most of SG-1 and most of Atlantis. I couldn’t stay with SGU though. The movie got its hooks into me because it’s… Unlike a lot of films, it seemed to have a genuine sense of wonder and exploration into it. Basically, what is this? What can it do? Not just, “Oh, plot element. Let’s go and have adventures.” There’s a moment, especially when you see the camera pan down, Jackson seen from the conference room, the gate. “What is this?” Then all the potential that lies in there. And the gate going to different worlds and all that. There’s such a potential for storytelling. You never know what you’re going to find.

David Read:
Absolutely. That’s, I think, the nugget of promise that the movie does more than anything so well. Linda, do you have any questions for them before I really dive into their content?

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
I don’t actually have questions, but I thought for our audience, I have a couple sentences on the background of LEGO Ideas, just so everybody understands what it is. Shall I go ahead with that?

David Read:
She’s the LEGO fan on our side of this. So, please, absolutely. This whole thing was her idea.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
I looked up online, and Wikipedia actually has a very nice little synopsis. It says that LEGO Ideas was first introduced as an offshoot of the Japanese company… I’m going to pronounce it wrong, my apologies. Cuusoo, C-U-U-S-O-O. It was produced in collaboration between that company and the LEGO Group, entitled LEGO Cuusoo. The site was at first a beta site, and remained that way until 2014 when LEGO Ideas appeared as a finished product on the Chaordix platform. The idea is that people build a model and submit it along with a short written piece, and then if it gets up to 10,000 votes within a certain amount of time, LEGO looks at it and seriously considers whether they want to produce the model.

David Read:
So they have to examine it if it hits, if it hits–

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Yeah, they’ll look at it if it reaches 10,000 within the time limit, which I believe is two years. Is that right, guys?

Jake Conhale:
Approximately.

David Read:
What’d you say, Jake?

Jake Conhale:
Approximately.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Approximately.

David Read:
So they have… You mean they have two years to look at it?

Jake Conhale:
No. You have two years to get to the 10,000 vote limit. And then, I believe, three times a year they have review sessions where they will consider and either accept or reject yours. Captain Mutant, for sake of history, previously reached the 10,000 vote limit, and his set was rejected with no explanation given. It was just, boom, done. He’s since reached it again. So, here’s hoping it works this time for him.

David Read:
OK, so… And that was a Stargate set?

Jake Conhale:
Yes, pretty much a gate, the embarkation room.

David Read:
Does anyone know if he’s redesigned it?

Jake Conhale:
Yeah.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Yeah, he did. He made some changes to it and resubmitted it. So, fingers crossed. There’s a lot of criteria, which, if anyone goes to Wikipedia, you can read through what all of the criteria is, or of course, if you go straight to LEGO Ideas, it’ll have the instructions.

Jake Conhale:
I can tell you one limitation right off the bat, that you can only submit either an original idea or an approved intellectual property. I tell you this because when I started doing this, SG-1 and the movie were not permitted intellectual properties. I could only do Stargate Atlantis. And that’s part of the reason I got to making my Puddle Jumper, was that all I could do was Atlantis. I did not consider doing SGU-themed.

David Read:
You mean SG-1-themed?

Jake Conhale:
No. I only did Atlantis-themed submissions because those are the only things they would accept at the time.

David Read:
But you said you didn’t like SGU anyway.

Jake Conhale:
I did not like SGU.

David Read:
OK.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
I’m pretty sure that’s because the other brick company in Europe owned the rights to SG-1 and Stargate at that time.

David Read:
Best-Lock.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Yeah. I’m not sure… what their status is on that at the moment. Jenny might be able to help us find out.

David Read:
OK, interesting. That actually answers that. Starbrick, are you with us? Are you following along?

Starbrick:
Yes.

Frederick Marcoux:
Pas trop de problèmes à suivre la conversation?

David Read:
I know you’re here, but are you following along?

Starbrick:
No, ça va. Thank you.

Frederick Marcoux:
He’s fine.

Starbrick:
It’s a little fast but it’s OK.

David Read:
OK, good. What I want to know, and I’m gonna start with Starbrick first, is how do you create… So much of the LEGO pieces are custom. How can you create a Stargate set, or how does anyone create anything so accurate to what it is that they’re trying to make without having customized pieces? Are you allowed to make your own customized LEGO pieces? How does that work, Starbrick?

Starbrick:
J’utilise la plupart du temps des pièces LEGO originales. On essaie d’avoir des torses, des pièces, des pantalons qui existent déjà.

Frederick Marcoux:
So, most of the time, I try to use original LEGO pieces like chests and pants, or pieces like that that are usually pretty generic. Continue.

Starbrick:
Parfois c’est juste des torses que l’on retourne parce que certains versos à l’arrière peuvent ressembler à certains torses de personnages Stargate.

Frederick Marcoux:
Sometimes we just reverse the chest part because the other side sometimes looks like the Stargate uniforms. He’s gonna show us an example here.

Starbrick:
Celui-ci, j’ai Jacob Carter, Tok’ra.

Frederick Marcoux:
So, that’s Jacob Carter.

Starbrick:
En arrière, c’est un Star Wars.

David Read:
So, that’s the back of it.

Frederick Marcoux:
It’s a Star Wars LEGO piece for the chest, but the other side, when you turn it around from the face, it looks suddenly like a Tok’ra set.

David Read:
So chess, is chess a LEGO set? We’re not talking about chess chess, are we?

Frederick Marcoux:
We’re talking about the chest, the body part.

David Read:
The chest.

Frederick Marcoux:
The chest and the pants.

David Read:
My mistake. Thank you. OK, Jake, do you have any input into this?

Jake Conhale:
Yes. LEGO does not permit custom-shaped pieces. However, they are willing to permit custom-designed pieces, that is, with graphics, and icons, and all that. Certain programs, such as the one I use, allow you to actually apply custom graphics to it. In this case, I’ve got this one here. This is me printing onto a transparent envelope label and cutting to size on the LEGO. They permit you to do printing ’cause they’re probably gonna put it as stickers, but you can’t do custom-shaped pieces. It’s not profitable enough to do that.

David Read:
So, what it comes down to is you have to use the existing LEGO collection as it stands to create something new. That’s, I think, reasonable based on what their modus operandi is. So, you have to work within their playset and build, and show your ingenuity. So, can you show us your creation, please?

Jake Conhale:
I’ve been cannibalizing some of them for parts because I’ve had about three separate generations of Stargates here. Here is pretty much the first generation Stargate I had. It’s pretty close to my current one. It’s in 18 segments. It’s built around one mathematical action. Basically, how these two pieces are joined, right here, the hinges, is structurally sound. So this thing can freely stand. And from that I built the entire thing, going with the scale, and it turned out to be about Stargate size, at least an inner diameter of 22 feet. It’s thicker on the other dimensions, but there’s only so much you can do. In the past, I’ve also been able to put lights underneath the colored elements, so I can actually show them lined up and engaging.

David Read:
What is that though, you cannibalize those parts from what?

Jake Conhale:
From the sets. I’ve made other Stargates, and I’ve been taking pieces off of, say, these for example.

David Read:
And what were they originally part of?

Jake Conhale:
For the most part, I design on a virtual designer program, in my case Studio, and then custom order everything I need, because you never have enough of what you need in the specific type and the specific color. I’m sure Starbrick does the same thing. So, generation one. Here’s generation two. The Event Horizon…

David Read:
That’s crazy.

Jake Conhale:
… is more basically a test than an actual finalized thing. This thing is all right, and the size of the gate is a lot closer to what it was on the show. However, it’s not too structurally sound. It needs the event horizon pretty much, or else it’ll sag in there. I’ve also got a third-generation Stargate, which is currently what’s on LEGO Ideas, and I can send you pictures of that. They all have been able to get this thing through it. This is the Puddle Jumper, including a full interior.

David Read:
Nice.

Jake Conhale:
Inside, the top is removable. The engines and weapon pods come out. The engines can be folded up. It’s a little fragile, so I’m not inherently gonna do that. It’s a little low on detail, mainly ’cause this is more proof of concept. I’m always tinkering with it. It’s got a retractable engine, it falls out there and I’m pretty proud of her. I didn’t think that it was actually physically possible to make something minifigure scale with a full interior, including a four-person cockpit and cargo area in the back.

David Read:
Jake, is any glue involved ever?

Jake Conhale:
No. If there’s one thing I took from THE LEGO MOVIE, it’s that Crazy Glue is the devil. Granted, there are some parts of this that probably should be glued on, but I’m always scared I’m gonna glue it down and then go, “Oh, wait, it should be like this. Oh, I can’t get it apart.”

David Read:
That’s too late. That’s it. Wow, what a beauty. Thank you for sharing that.

Jake Conhale:
I’ve also got other things, minifigures with third-party elements for, say, holsters, vests and various things. You can make a whole… I’ve got lights from another third party, you can do a whole lot with it, only so much you can submit to LEGO.

David Read:
That’s fair. That’s fair. Thank you for that. Starbrick, in terms of ordering specific parts, are you in the same situation? Have you found yourself ordering a lot of… Can you tell us about this? I imagine there’s a database online of LEGO where you can order specific things. Can you tell us a little bit about that, if that is the case?

Starbrick:
En principe on utilise l’ancien logiciel que LEGO a remis à disposition s’appelle LEGO Digital Designer, LDD. On peut tout modéliser en 3D. Moi j’ai commencé comme ça le projet, j’ai tout modélisé et après il me donne l’analyse de toutes les pièces et je peux les commander directement chez LEGO.

Frederick Marcoux:
Ah! C’est pratique.

David Read:
Please share.

Frederick Marcoux:
He started the project using an old software from LEGO, LEGO Designer, something like this.

Starbrick:
Digital Designer.

Frederick Marcoux:
Digital Designer, exactly. And in there you can design all your pieces and use all the same already made border plates from LEGO. And then once you’re finished with your design, you can simply order those parts and you can run an analysis of knowing, “OK, I’m gonna need that many chests, I’m gonna need that many pants, that many blocks.”

David Read:
That’s quite crazy. Wow. So, you don’t have to order extra parts?

Frederick Marcoux:
Yeah, basically you need to order exactly what you need.

David Read:
Wow. Now does LEGO provide this? I apologize. If you have more to say, continue.

Frederick Marcoux:
Tu peux continuer.

Starbrick:
Il y a beaucoup de pièces que j’ai récupérées quand j’étais petit, donc j’ai beaucoup de pièces de LEGO en vrac, en quantité. J’utilise aussi mes anciennes pièces que j’ai. Il y a des pièces que customise avec des stickers aussi, forcément. Pour les portes par exemple.

Frederick Marcoux:
He already had a bunch of LEGOs from when he was young, so he’s using a lot of them and sometimes he’s putting stickers on them, like this blaster door, or…

David Read:
Oh my god.

Frederick Marcoux:
… right here are the little Stargate symbols.

David Read:
That is nuts. Wow, OK.

Starbrick:
LEGO n’a pas toujours toutes les pièces en stock aussi, donc des fois on doit s’y prendre à plusieurs fois. Ils changent les pièces disponibles régulièrement.

Frederick Marcoux:
Sometimes LEGO don’t have all the pieces or parts available, so they have to retry and retry and retry until they get actually the parts that they need. ‘Cause they apparently change the availability of parts from time to time.

David Read:
I would think that creating something, Jake, like a circle, would be maddening, especially if you don’t intend to glue it together. How do you expect some of these parts to stay together?

Jake Conhale:
Honestly, over the course of this whole thing, that has been the most interesting part of seeing my designs and other people’s designs, is how do people tackle the ring nature of the Stargate? With my designs, I’ve done a few other things, including an Original Series Star Trek bridge, for example. I always start with a mathematical element and go from there. Although for the sake of Starbrick, I would suggest if he’s having trouble with piece availability, he should try BrickLink.com, if I can mention that on this stream.

David Read:
BrickLink?

Jake Conhale:
BrickLink.

David Read:
BrickLink. Ooh, OK.

Jake Conhale:
It’s a third-party-to-third-party site. Basically, I have LEGO, I’m selling them. Think eBay without auctions. And they also made their own version of LEGO Digital Designer, which has everything up to date, as only fanatical people can keep up to date. Whereas LEGO Digital Designer is no longer supported, it’s no longer kept up to date, all that. If you want all the pieces for something that just came out, like from the new Avatar sets or something like that, they will have it after a reasonable period.

David Read:
That’s just nuts.

Jake Conhale:
As I said, this gate, for example, is all based on hinge pieces around here, you can see them, they’re basically all still standing vertical, all that, which is completely different from how I did the first gate. And I’ve seen other people do things, like Starbrick’s, which are completely different from how I’d even tried it, which, hey, go for it. Captain Mutant was doing something different as well and all that.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
I noticed that everybody had used completely different pieces from each other to try to solve that problem. That’s really fun to me. I like seeing that creativity of how different people come up with the solution.

David Read:
Is this a good time, Linda, for me to pull up Captain Mutant’s submission?

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Yeah, I think so.

David Read:
OK, let me go ahead and do that so we can–

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
See, he gives a nice little walkaround of his model.

Captain Mutant [clip]:
Hey there. I’m known online as Captain Mutant, but you can just call me Cap. This is me in LEGO form, but these are also me. Turns out, I’ve created a slew of characters for my YouTube channel for my own enjoyment, and hopefully for those of others. I think, like many people, I was introduced to LEGO as a child, lost interest as I grew up, then somehow came back into it about six years ago. I had a long dark age period, as they call it, and then proceeded with using my imagination to build various sci-fi-related constructs. Now, when it comes to the Stargate, I was intrigued with the very concept of such a device when the movie came out, but I didn’t fall in love with the franchise until SG-1 and the universe expanded in the most wonderful and imaginative ways. And then, a couple of years ago, I thought, “Why not combine the two?” Now, you’ll wonder how can you create a circle with square bricks. It was definitely a challenge. It took me a few weeks to finalize the design and submit it for the LEGO Ideas contest. It ended up being the very first Stargate project to reach the needed 10,000 supporters, which happened in December 2021. And as of mid-January of this year, it’s also the only Stargate project to have managed that feat twice. And this is thanks to all those who loved my design and voted for it in droves. I can’t thank them enough. As you might be able to tell, I’m very pleased with my creation, so let me show you some of its features. Now, at first glance, you can tell it’s a representation of the Stargate at the SGC, but because it’s designed to be a display model, I’ve distilled it down to its essence, i.e. the gate and the ramp. This means it looks great from any angle, as no walls are there to get in the way. I’m very happy with how the gate attaches to the base, as it looks like it just rests there. But trust me, it’s securely attached. You can see from the back, all nine chevrons are represented, and on the front, the inner ring is adorned with all 39 glyphs. The gate is also designed so you can easily slot a piece of cloth, cardboard, or similar to represent the event horizon. All that’s fun on its own, but you need more from a display set, and I made it so you can have four members of SG-1 at the front, a Jaffa Serpent Guard and a Prior by the gate, and a M.A.L.P. that just rests on the ramp. My set is purposefully small, just under 1,000 pieces, to make it more affordable to fans, should LEGO decide to approve this concept. This means there’s a limit to how many minifigures I can include. To get around that, I use heads printed on both sides and a couple of extra hair pieces to represent either Jack or Cam, or Daniel or Jonas. There’s also the option to give Teal’c some hair, and for Jack to get older. And how could I forget Vala? She’s included too. Under the ramp you’ll find a dreaded Replicator, but also a giant wrench and a pineapple. I’ve also included staff weapons, a naquadah generator, chocolate ice cream, a G.D.O., a golf club, a cap, a book of ancient knowledge, Schrödinger the cat, a bag of loot for Vala, the Book of Origin, and a Prior staff. Essentially, I’ve crammed it with as many Easter eggs as I could. If you’re curious and want to know more, I’ve created many videos about it on my YouTube channel, and a handful even reveal some of the design secrets that make this build possible. You’ll also find vids hosted by other crew members who tackle subjects other than LEGO. It’s a bit of an eclectic channel. Thanks again for this opportunity to talk about my model, and I’ll see you on the other side.

David Read:
Oh, that’s great.

Jake Conhale:
I have to say, a lot of those things also apply to my set, but I could not match that eloquence, at least not so quickly, on that.

David Read:
There’s a certain amount of showmanship. You can’t build that out of a set. He’s clearly a good cameraman and everything else, so that’s great, especially with the time that I gave you guys to respond. Jake, how often are you inspired by peers?

Jake Conhale:
To be honest, I’m not too familiar with other people’s work. For the most part, a lot of these things are designs I either come up with or want to tackle. For example, sometimes I’ll get an idea in my head, and it’s almost like a red-hot poker sticking into me, like, “I must go and test this out, try this out, and do this thing.” Also, a part of it is that I want to try and keep my stuff original, and that I don’t want to, say, see Captain Mutant’s stuff and then go, “Oh, that’s a great idea. I should do that as well,” to avoid plagiarism. My Puddle Jumper’s rests on a similar stand. That’s more for the sake of compactness and all that. It’s not meant to be a reference or inspired by his work. To some degree, I may take concepts from people, like, “Oh, Stargate” kind of concept, but for the actual mechanics, I try and keep everything I do for myself. Maybe I’ll find a better technique for a small piece or whatever here and there, but the overall design, I try and keep original to myself.

David Read:
OK. Starbrick, do you have a similar approach?

Starbrick:
Après les cinq Stargates, on avait sept projets au moment, il n’y a pas eu beaucoup. Il y a beaucoup de créateurs hors-Stargate, il y a énormément de choses intéressantes.

Frederick Marcoux:
Yes, actually, really often. I get inspired from other creators, not only Stargate ones, but any kind of LEGO creators.

David Read:
Frederic, do you have any questions at this point, having watched all this stuff? Are you intrigued?

Frederick Marcoux:
Yeah, I’m actually really intrigued, ’cause I was a big fan of LEGOs when I was younger. I had a whole box filled with them, like Starbrick, who had them in bulk. And I was building cities to then go around in them with my Mechanix, if you know what those are. Those are pretty old toys. But that was something I was doing. Every time I see a Stargate with round pieces or wheels and things like that, those didn’t exist back when I was using LEGOs. So that’s fascinating to see.

David Read:
Linda, any questions at this point?

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
You’re using BrickLink to find pieces. I’d gone on there a little bit to try to find the right pieces to put together SG-1 for myself, but I was noticing the prices were really scary in places.

David Read:
Really?

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Yeah, because they were a discontinued piece, or there’s a little flak vest that I was trying to get and I was having trouble with those. Any recommendations for other places to look for those rare pieces, or is it just persistence that’s finding those?

Frederick Marcoux:
eBay.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
eBay, OK.

David Read:
Jake?

Jake Conhale:
I’m curious about that too. For example, I’ve got this piece right here, it’s an Anubis from one of their Egypt sets, makes a perfect Jackal Guard from the movie. Costs about 30 bucks per figure. I made the staff weapon, that’s all me. But the figure itself is $25, $30, so Captain Mutant tied it up by doing other things from the Chima line, I believe, for some of their headed serpent guard kind of Jaffa. But sometimes it’s a matter of how much you’re willing to spend or how creative you can get.

David Read:
I’m gonna get creative and get myself a 3D printer to make some of these things.

Frederick Marcoux:
I was exactly thinking it’s sad that LEGO don’t allow to create custom pieces or not original pieces, ’cause with a 3D printer you could do pretty much anything you could need.

David Read:
I think that’s what they’re afraid of. I think that once someone starts down that road, what’s to keep that person from completely cutting LEGO out of the loop and no longer going to them to order anything? Once you start that off, that community can get out of control. I’m sure the 3D printer technology scares the hell out of them. I would.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
You could just print a whole gate in sections and take it apart and put it together.

David Read:
Starbrick, not for LEGO Ideas, but for creating LEGO sets, has 3D printing ever crossed your mind?

Frederick Marcoux:
Est-ce que l’impression 3D a déjà passé par ta tête pour faire soit des sets LEGO ou peu importe quoi d’autre qui est créatif?

Starbrick:
Non, l’impression 3D, j’ai voulu essayer, je ne suis pas encore lancé. C’est vrai c’est quelque chose qui m’intéresse beaucoup. Je pense bientôt.

Frederick Marcoux:
He’s not using it right now, but he’s thinking about it really seriously.

David Read:
See? Any creative person, I think, would at least consider, OK, what can this tool do? Because what it comes down to is it’s a tool, what can this tool do for me?

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
It would find those really expensive pieces that…

David Read:
That’s the thing.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
… exist in the LEGO canon. If I could print up those vests, I know they already have them, but I just can’t find them.

David Read:
I’m talking about an outdated piece. Under those unique circumstances, “I can’t get this thing and I’m sure there are designs online, I’m sure someone has scanned these things into a computer.” Jake?

Jake Conhale:
I honestly, because I’ve been so focused on LEGO Ideas, I’ve never really considered using the 3D printer for LEGOs. Although a coworker in Maryland did actually 3D print me some glow-in-the-dark bricks, which honestly, I do not know where they’ve gotten to. Although I have done some other projects with a 3D printer, this is a timer from the show Sliders, for example. With working electronics, it works. It doesn’t actually generate a wormhole, but…

Frederick Marcoux:
It looks like an old Motorola.

Jake Conhale:
… lights up and does all sorts of things and all that.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
That is so cool.

Jake Conhale:
Or the Back to the Future clock.

David Read:
This is the micro naquadah generator. This is the series that’s on top of the big fricking gun from “Bounty” and from Continuum. And then its brother, the larger one, is being shipped to me in the next few days here. But this is a 3D print. And it’s completely self-contained. The creativity in the community is extraordinary. What you guys can pump out and create is nuts.

Frederick Marcoux:
Just imagine what they could have done with Stargate if 3D printers existed back in the ’90s.

David Read:
That’s certainly the other thing too. Jake, how far are you from getting to 10,000? What can we do to push you further?

Jake Conhale:
I’m at about 2600, which, considering how long I’ve been on there — I think I started even before Captain Mutant even submitted the first time — I’m at 2600 out of 10,000. I’ve got a ways to go. I’ve never really been… I’m more of a Steve Wozniak than a Steve Jobs. I’m good at making things, I am not so good at the advertising portion. How people can find or contact, say, actors from the show, like Corin Nemec or whoever, to actually endorse their sets. I’d love to know how to do that. It’s one reason I’m so–

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
We’ll talk.

Jake Conhale:
I’ve been doing that. Also, I’ve got a webcomic based on Stargate that I’ve been working on. If you’re familiar with Darths & Droids, I’m doing the same thing with Stargate called Gates and Gods. Not just to plug my own stuff. It’s all about the LEGOs right now, but–

David Read:
No, it’s part of why you’re on. It’s fine.

Jake Conhale:
Any tips I would gladly take.

Frederick Marcoux:
Tweet at them.

Jake Conhale:
The time’s running out. By all means, I’d love to compete with Starbrick and Captain Mutant here, although, not proven, I suspect that Stargate Atlantis may be a separate intellectual property for LEGO, and we might be able to get two sets, if both go through there. Because typically they only permit one set per intellectual property.

David Read:
I can tell you, dealing with MGM, you can approach them for one of the series, or all of them at a discounted rate. I think, as far as this particular piece of merchandise goes, I would suspect they are each on their own. That’s really cool, man. Thank you so much for coming. Starbrick, any thoughts that you would like to share before we wrap this up?

Frederick Marcoux:
As-tu quoi que ce soit d’autre que tu voudrais partager ?

Starbrick:
Il y a choses particulières, après, ben, enfin rien de spécial. J’ai réalisé ce gros bonhomme qui est juste là.

David Read:
My gosh.

Starbrick:
OK. C’est un original. C’est un LEGO original que j’ai récupéré dans un vieux magasin et j’ai tout refait, j’ai peint, j’ai même fait le gilet.

Frederick Marcoux:
So it’s an old original LEGO that he grabbed in a store and he repainted it all and made a jacket for it. And you can see even under.

Jake Conhale:
Wow.

David Read:
Wow.

Frederick Marcoux:
Il y a des LEGO gros comme ça ?

Starbrick:
C’est des maxi figures souvent commerciales. C’est dans les magasins de jouets, souvent c’est pour faire la publicité.

Frederick Marcoux:
So, those are actually store shelves presenting stuff. They’re not–

David Read:
They’re promotional.

Frederick Marcoux:
They’re promotional. They’re not actually for sale usually. Wow, that’s fascinating.

David Read:
How did you get your hands on that? Did you buy it or did you five finger grab it? Kidding.

Frederick Marcoux:
Est-ce que tu l’as trouvé dans un magasin ou c’était une petite trouvaille de poubelle ou de coin de rue ?

Starbrick:
Non, c’était dans un magasin de jouets, effectivement. Je suis passé, ils voulaient le jeter à la poubelle, en fait, quasiment. Après, ils l’ont bradé pas très cher. Donc j’ai récupéré très peu cher. Par contre, il était dans un état assez abîmé. Donc j’ai tout refait. Je l’ai poncé, j’ai repeint, et cetera. Il y a beaucoup de gens, maintenant, qui font des impressions 3D de bonhommes de cette taille-là. Et ça, c’est un original officiel de LEGO.

Frederick Marcoux:
Wow. So he grabbed that in a toy store that was about to trash it. And it was in a pretty bad state, so he got it for a pretty low price and then sanded it down, painted it, varnished everything, put it back to a clean state.

David Read:
Wow, that’s really cool. Well done.

Frederick Marcoux:
Apparently those are nowadays 3D printed instead… those are rare and actually original LEGO pieces.

Starbrick:
Et les cheveux n’existent pas, donc en fait, ça c’est du silicone.

Frederick Marcoux:
So, the hairs are silicone. ‘Cause hairs don’t exist for LEGOs.

David Read:
That’s silicone hair?

Frederick Marcoux:
It’s actually silicone ’cause they don’t have hair for LEGOs. So, he just put some silicone on it and painted it.

David Read:
That’s crazy.

Frederick Marcoux:
And that’s what it looks like.

David Read:
Does anyone notice we also have similar set design? Yes?

Starbrick:
The same?

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Yeah.

David Read:
From “Window of Opportunity.” That’s really cool, man. Thank you for sharing. So how far are you from 10,000?

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
He’s there.

Frederick Marcoux:
Tu as combien, dix mille ?

David Read:
So, you’re there.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
He’s there.

David Read:
All right. OK, so Starbrick and Captain Mutant have both hit 10,000? All right. Is there anything else that we can do to help promote you guys?

Jake Conhale:
Help get the word out. I’m sure you guys have got a good viewing base. I’m not asking you folks to go out of the way. But I’m open to suggestions.

David Read:
But the LEGO Ideas portal, you can vote for free. You just have to create a login. Am I right about that, Linda?

Jake Conhale:
Yes.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Yeah.

Jake Conhale:
There’s no cost obligation. They’re just trying to see if there’s enough people interested in the set that if they made it, they could sell it, is my understanding.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
I go on about once a month, and I vote on all the Stargate projects that are up, ’cause I want to support the whole community. And then I’ve sent emails to everyone on there. Not everybody’s replied to me, but a lot of times people will. And if I can help them out at all by reposting on my Facebook feed, I’m happy to do that. You know me. If it’s Stargate, I’m there.

David Read:
All right. And Jake has submitted gatesandgods.net, and this is a comic that you created, Jake?

Jake Conhale:
Yes, and I’ve fallen a bit behind in updating. But basically, it reimagines the movie as if it were a bunch of people playing a Dungeons & Dragons session. That is, Stargate doesn’t exist in their universe, except for what they’re creating. It’s very similar to the concept of Darths & Droids, which treats all of Star Wars as a tabletop game. Just thought I’d mention that.

David Read:
OK. Wow. All right. This is really cool. So, how long have you been working on this?

Jake Conhale:
About a year. I recently moved and had some time between jobs. Since I’ve gotten the job and bought a new house, I’ve fallen behind in updating it. I do intend to at least get up to the point where they walk through the Stargate. Not sure if I have the stamina for the entire movie, but why not make the attempt?

David Read:
I see. OK. Wow. This is really cool. All right, we will definitely share this. This is great. All right, guys.

Jake Conhale:
Although, I have to say, as much as I am into Stargate, I am beaten by Starbrick and Captain Mutant. Hey, may the best man and best set win, all that. It’s not my only thing up there. I’ve also got a Jeopardy set, which might be the way to go.

David Read:
Really?

Jake Conhale:
Appeal.

David Read:
Of the stage? Of the set itself?

Jake Conhale:
Yep. I won’t go into too much detail on that. That’s not the subject matter. But still, may the best set win.

David Read:
Absolutely. And it’s not like it’s one or the other. We can all vote on all of them. So, I think largely and not exclusively, because creativity does have a lot to do with it, a lot of it’s just exposure. And really, really getting out there and selling your set. So that’s really, really cool. Starbrick, thank you so much for coming and joining us.

Starbrick:
Me too. Thank you.

David Read:
I appreciate you dealing with the language barrier. And thank you, Frederick, for coming on and helping to translate.

Frederick Marcoux:
My pleasure.

Starbrick:
Merci traducteur.

David Read:
And Jake, thank you as well. It was a pleasure to meet you, sir, and share some of this creative energy with the crowd. So this has been really cool. Do you guys–

Starbrick:
Je veux juste ajouter une chose?

David Read:
Yeah, Starbrick, go ahead.

Starbrick:
C’est pas qu’on a eu les 10,000 votes que le projet sortira. Si on est en compétition avec deux projets très bons, on ne peut ne pas être choisis.

Frederick Marcoux:
So what he’s saying is that even though they reached the 10,000 votes, they may not win, ’cause if there are many Stargate sets that all reach the 10,000, they’re probably gonna make one, maybe two, not all of them. So, it’s literally like Jake said, may the best set win.

David Read:
OK. I understand. And at the same time, it’s whether or not they’re interested in the property.

Jake Conhale:
There’s that. LEGO has certain things they don’t like, military things, for example. So, Stargate may have a strike against it just from the get-go. Though they could do Star Wars, they don’t like guns, they don’t like military. But again, if you don’t try, then you can’t win.

Starbrick:
But in the Indiana Jones set, you have a gun or military figure.

Frederick Marcoux:
He’s saying in the Indiana Jones set, you actually have a gun for the characters, so–

Jake Conhale:
They have guns, yes, and I’m saying that they don’t tend to go for military things and all that, or things that are excessively violent. That’s at least in their rules and submission guidelines, all that.

Frederick Marcoux:
An explorer with a gun is less worth than military people, I guess.

David Read:
I thought so too. I went to an ice sculpture set of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the 1964 animation, and Yukon Cornelius was deprived of his sidearm. I get it. But at the same time, come on. That’s a part of that character’s identity. And they removed it from the exhibits, or they didn’t add it to begin with because it might say X, Y, or Z to someone coming through the exhibit. So, that’s the direction that we’re going, and I think that will have a large part to play in whether or not LEGO produces any kind of military creations, paramilitary or otherwise. So we’ll have to see. It’s a legitimate point.

David Read:
Hey.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
They do have the police characters in the City set though.

David Read:
That’s true.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Of course, they’re…

Starbrick:
This is the zat.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
… policemen with dogs, and I’m not sure whether or not guns are included.

David Read:
You don’t know if they’re armed. Little guy.

Frederick Marcoux:
They’re probably going case by case with lawyers and stuff.

David Read:
I would suspect.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
I bet.

David Read:
Is that a zat? What’s in his right hand?

Frederick Marcoux:
C’est quoi qu’il a dans la main droite? Un zat?

Starbrick:
C’est un zat customisé. J’avais essayé de faire un zat en fondre une poignée de sceau mais LEGO n’a pas accepté la création. Donc j’ai essayé de trouver le plus accurate possible pour faire un zat. C’est vrai que j’ai pas d’armes dans mes LEGO. J’ai que des armes extraterrestres. J’ai la lance, j’ai le zat. Pour moi il n’y a pas de militaire dedans, mis à part l’uniforme.

Frederick Marcoux:
So, it’s a zat. And it’s based on the most close piece that he could find ’cause he tried doing one with a melted piece, and LEGO didn’t accept that. But apparently, in his set there’s no actual guns. There’s only aliens’ weapons. So, the zat, the staff weapon, probably the Prior staff as well, but nothing Earth-y.

David Read:
Interesting. There we go.

Jake Conhale:
I’ve been debating trying to do mini figures my own and I’m wondering if I could include Ronon Dex because that gun of his, part and parcel.

Frederick Marcoux:
I want that gun.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Indiana Jones, you can just put him with his whip.

David Read:
He has some form of defense.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
But then Ronon would be difficult.

David Read:
It’s very Earth gun-like. So, all right, folks, thank you so much for joining us. Linda, thank you for arranging this.

Linda “GateGabber” Furey:
Always.

David Read:
Fredrick, thank you for translating. This has been…

Frederick Marcoux:
No problem.

David Read:
… a pleasure.

Starbrick:
See you on the other side.

David Read:
I appreciate everyone who contributed to this episode, particularly Linda Furey, my producer, “GateGabber.” She’s the real LEGO fan of the crowd here on my side of the production table. This episode was really as much for her as it was for everyone else. So, thank you, Linda, for making that happen. We have got… You know what? It’s been a while since I’ve shown off the merchandise. Dial the Gate is brought to you every week for free and we do appreciate you watching, but if you wanna support the show further, get yourself a T-shirt or a mug. We now offer a number of different items in a variety of sizes and colors at dialthegate.com/merch. And check out and see what we’ve got over there. You’re supporting the show when you do and I really appreciate it. Coming up on Dial the Gate, we’ve got Anna Galvin going to be joining us at 4:00 PM Pacific Time today, Saturday. And then joining us this Wednesday, midweek episode, 12:00 PM Pacific Time, Tor Alexander Valenza, he’s responsible for a number of Stargate episodes. Let’s go pull up his profile here. You can tell I’ve been pulling for Glynis’ profile next week. Alexander Valenza, let’s see which episodes he’s responsible for. “Spirits,” “Holiday,” “Legacy,” and “Point of View,” “Past and Present,” “Urgo,” and “Divide and Conquer.” And he was also story editor for SG-1 Season Two and senior story editor for Season Three. So, he’s going to be joining us Wednesday, February the 22nd at 12 noon Pacific Time. Morris Chapdelaine, actor and Asgard puppeteer, him and his team are responsible for Thor, Saturday, February the 25th at 10:00 AM Pacific Time. And, as you probably guessed a moment ago, Eli’s mom and Catherine from 1969, Glynis Davies is going to be joining us Saturday, February the 25th at 12 noon Pacific Time. Hope you enjoyed our LEGO discussion. We’ve got a lot more heading your way. Wormhole X-Tremists heading your way tomorrow with the “Serpent’s Lair” and “In the Line of Duty” over on our Wormhole X-Tremists channel at 12 noon Pacific Time. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate. I appreciate you tuning in, and I’ll see you on the other side.