I got an interview with popular space builder Pierre E. Fieschi. I asked questions and he responded. Here's the interview...
To start off describe yourself to the readers...
I’m a 22 year-old French student in architecture, doing a master’s degree in Project Theory in Paris France, where I live. Lego’s have been a passion since I was 4 and I didn’t really bother with other toys at all (except Micro Machine which were really quality toys at some point).
I did have a rather long dark age mostly when Lego started making all these super easy 4-piece sets at the end of the 90s. My dark age ended with the Titan XP set and the discovery of Soren Robert’s work and the MOCpages community. I then started building again, discovering techniques (snot, friction…) that were new to me at the time. MOCpages had great builders back then, they’re probably still there but the average quality of builds has deteriorated (along with the picture quality and server speed) beyond repair. I recently stopped using MOCpages even if my page is still up. I can also be found on brickshelf (Kero40) but that page has also been inactive for a while. So I now use Flickr which has some great features and amazing builders.
Also as a follow-up to the first question, what communities or sites can you be found on? Where are you LEGO hangouts? Are you inspired by any other builders in the community? Maybe works of other that aren't LEGO even?
Switching to Flickr early this year really re-boosted my Lego enthusiasm; I discovered many great builders ( Shannon Ocean, Dasnewten, Karf Oolhu… just to name a few) that build so many inspiring things, so much NPU and sharing of ideas. The fact that Flickr isn’t only about Lego also helps a lot to get inspiration from other universes, concept artists, photographers etc…
Your mostly known for you works in the Sci-fi genre, but have you ever veered off and tried other themes?
Very early as a kid I was attracted by both the Space and City themes and microscale… it’s pretty much unchanged today although I have recently been tempted by sky-fi and super-bikes, many things remain to explore: post-apoc, steampunk, atlantis-ish stuff… The only line I dislike building in is Castle… perhaps that will change?
You build creations at an astounding speed, how do you manage to build so quickly? Also where does your inspiration for these creations come from?
I build at extremely varying speeds. But I usually have a precise idea of what I want including most of the assembly details. If I am bored in class I sometimes draw some of the details or perhaps the entire mechanism like I did for The Panzerspinne (you can see the draings in the back of the video) . Building it only took a few hours. I also have a sorting system that suits me well – perhaps that helps? Inspiration comes from wherever really, other builders are of course very inspiring, but video games, movies, things from everyday life can trigger an idea for a build. Homeworld games have particularly inspired me both for Lego and Drawing with their original sci-fi aesthetics.
In addition to having fantastic creations you all have excellent presentation. How do you manage to come up with some of the video presentation ideas that you use?
Until very recently my pictures were taken with a phone. As I came on Flickr I invested in a cheap, but efficient camera and a small tripod. Presentation is very important and it took me a while to realise that.
To be honest I’m still not 100% satisfied with my pictures but as I look at what I’ve photographed since February, they seem to be improving. I take my pictures in day light, on a white Plexiglas sheet to have a reflexion on the floor. I then tweak the contrast and lighting under photoshop which luckily is an every day tool for my studies too.
As for the videos I use a very cheap editing program trial (Muvee). I use a preset meant for sport videos that works well for giant cranes and mechanical spiders. I’m in the process of learning to use Adobe After-Effect to get a bit more out of moving Lego models! But the way I do them now, I have no particular idea of what the video will look like, I just load everything into the program and try my best to make it fit to the music.
If you had to pick a favorite creation of your which do you think it would have to be?
Tough question! There are so many amazing ones. One that recently blew my mind in particular is Dasnewten’s Naganata (the blue one ;) ) It shows off a whole new level of starfighter-building (which I usually find repetitive) and very clean photography.
Do you have any plans for your LEGO building future? Can we also expect any new projects from you in the coming days, weeks, months, etc.?
Oh yes I have more plans than time to build them, because of exams coming *sigh*. Many sketches have been drawn yet and I don’t know what I’ll start with but here is some of the stuff I should get into in 3 weeks:
-A giant shipyard that will hold the Sobani Command Ship under construction and feature pneumatics…
-A Blacktron II tank with a functioning automatic secret weapon
-A (another) microscale Mobile ground docking platform
-A diorama for the Stealth Strategic Bomber with a working elevator…
-Some kind of sky-fi radar dome plane?
That’s all I know so far… The order in which I will give a try at these is still unsure; I’m tempted to start with the shipyard ;)
And on a final note is there any building advice you can give to the readers along with any other tips you have?
Hmmm tips... tips… the only thing I can think about is advising not to sort by colour but rather by type or even groups of types. It encourages funky ;)
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