Interview with an AFOL: lego.adwind, LEGO Home Alone Designer

Hello everyone! Today we have another interview in our Interview series! We’ll be talking with lego.adwind today, who is a big LEGO fan and the creator of LEGO Ideas Home Alone project!

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Can you explain your Instagram username to us?

Hi everyone, thank you for inviting me! I’m 29, my real name is Alex but among the AFOL community I am known as Adwind. This nickname appeared years ago when I was still in school and played WoW! “Ad” stands here for adventures and “wind”… well, no surprise  – for wind 😊 In my head it was supposed to mean something like the spirit of adventures. You can hardly call playing PC games an adventure but back in the days, it seemed so ha-ha.

Nowadays my main hobby is Lego! Although there is not much time after work and family, I’m still trying to create fun projects regularly and even starting my YouTube channel which is still at the setting up stage now, but I’m going to upload tutorials and instructions for my custom designs there.

How did your journey with LEGO begin? What was your first LEGO set? 

There’s no surprise that as someone whose childhood was in 90’s my first LEGO theme was “Pirates”. It was started with set #6237, honestly, I still can’t get why they’ve put a leaf piece in there ha-ha. Anyways, it was fun and it something that made a spark inside!

Image from Brickset
Did you have the dark ages? If yes, is there any set from that time you didn’t buy then but regretted that decision now?

I definitely had the dark ages and that was quite a long period. I missed so much great stuff! Probably one set I regret I can’t buy today is The Emerald Night. I got back on the hook only in 2016 – when I had the pleasure to buy a Winter Village series set – Santa’s Workshop for Christmas. My wife and I bought it just for fun and I never thought it is so addictive!

What do the people around you (friends/family/spouse/children) think about your obsession?

I never faced any criticism about my hobby from people around me. Some of my friends are AFOLs, some of them not, but no matter what everyone likes to come to our place and check out our Winter Village display during the holidays season 😊

What is your favourite LEGO theme and why? 

Nowadays I mostly enjoy “Creator Expert” sets or should I say “18+” now? I really love modular buildings, amusement park sets, LEGO Ideas sets and some technic stuff too. Most of all I appreciate complex techniques, lovely details and minifigures, functionality and completeness. So 18+ sets is pretty much an obvious choice for me!

Who has been an inspiration to you?

If we’re talking about designers, I’m a big fan of Mike Psiaki’s works. Frankly speaking, there are so many talented builders out there, that I’m afraid the list is going to be too huge!

Do you have a signature figure?

Nope!

How many sets do you have? According to Brickset or your personal estimation?

I just realized I never count them! Having a very limited space for displaying I have to sell some stuff after a couple of years but constantly there are around 20 sets on display.

What do you collect? Sets? Minifigures? Rare parts?

Aside from sets, I like CMF! Not only because they are cool but also because of the fact that they are always the main source for brand new minifig utensils which I collect and a bit obsessed with 😊 I also find LEGO dogs being super cute so always try to keep my collection up to date with all the new breeds!

Image from Brickset

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What is the most expensive set or figure from your collection?

I guess Assembly Square is the biggest and accordingly the most expensive one, but if we’re talking about aftermarket then looks like Parisian Restaurant is a record holder!

What has been your biggest challenge in acquiring something you want?

It’s funny, but there’s always something you want to get that only one seller has and that seller always on the other side of the planet 😊 I remember paying like 5 times more for shipping than my actual order was, I think I was looking for rigid hoses 18 studs long or something like that!

You are active on LEGO Ideas too. Can you tell us more about your projects? What was the inspiration for them? 

Absolutely! Ideas is actually a great platform and it occupies a huge part of my LEGO hobby. My most famous LEGO Ideas project is Home Alone, McCallister’s House and to be honest this was one of the first MOCs I ever made! Third or fourth I don’t recall exactly, but can you imagine how happy I was when I saw all the great support it got back in the days when I just posted it? Still over the moon with its success!

Another very special to me project that has a strong nostalgic connection is Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers! Those who are about the same age as I probably remember how great this show was and I’m so happy Disney+ is streaming it nowadays for young generations! I think there is a great parallel between all Gadget’s inventions, her builds and LEGO in general! This idea is gathering support now and almost halfway there, I would be extremely grateful for your support guys 😊

My advice to all those who are trying to succeed on LEGO Ideas is probably quite obvious, but this is really what it is about.

  • Make sure your idea is either unique or based on IP that has a wide appeal
  • Make sure you have a good build, it is catchy and looks neat
  • Brilliant level presentation
  • Promotion campaign. The most important is the first week – this is when you can get into TOP.
lego home alone
Rescue Rangers! project GIF from LEGO Ideas
You are currently working with LEGO designers on the Home Alone set. Is there anything not confidential about the process you can say to us?

There’s not much that I’m allowed to share with you guys, I can just say that I’m very happy with how the meetings with a design team are going. It’s always fun and productive, I really like my team and it’s cool that they are just as passionate about the project as I am! I’m sure fans won’t be disappointed!

lego home alone

I think it’s always worth it to repeat this, so please, can you tell our readers how they can support your project on LEGO Ideas? Is supporting free?

Totally free and simple 😊 You can easily sign up with your Google or Facebook account, browse around and hit that yellow support button on the project you would buy!

Last question, how you would motivate our readers in one sentence to support your projects?

Ha-ha could you guys add a GIF with a Shrek Cat here or would it be considered cheating? 😊

 

Thank you so much for your answers!

If you have some questions for our guest, please let us know in the comments section! You can follow him on Instagram and LEGO Ideas for amazing LEGO-related content!

Until next time,

studbricks

 

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