Simon Liu: The Life and Legacy of a LEGO Leader
Today’s guest article comes from Casey McCoy, an AFOL from Chicago. You can find him online on Flickr and Instagram.
Introduction
In what was conceived to be a singular, lengthy, and robust reflection on the life and LEGO career of the preeminent AFOL Simon Liu, this article has morphed into a trilogy. This is the last part - seriously.
In parts one and two, we covered Simon’s early childhood and education, his defining moment at Brickworld 2012, all the crazy things he’s done and built since, and more. If you haven’t yet, catch up by reading them here and here. Now let’s bring it home by analyzing his building influences, style, and legacy.
Who Influences the Influencer?
As we reflected in part one, the person who initiated Simon into the hobby and got him “up to speed” was Iain (~Ara~). But who did he look up to when he first got into the hobby? Simon’s two biggest influences when starting out building MOCs were Tyler Clites and Nannan Zhang. This is a common story for many: both of these builders were titans in their own right back then and even more so now. But Simon recalls one specific moment from his first Brickworld (2012) that really moved him:
“Back in the Westin, there was a coordinator suite. The Westin gave them a penthouse - it was actually kinda cool. That’s where we drafted, and it was hilarious. Nannan and Tyler were doing a draft and invited me and Nick Della Mora, and I’m like, ‘wait, I get to pay $20 and I get to spend an hour with my two literal heroes and I get to keep LEGO bricks afterward!?’ It was that monster set with the wolverine claws from that 0ne werewolf thing [9463: The Werewolf].”
“No idea what pieces I got, but I remember Call Me Maybe popping up as the music we had going during the draft. It’s one of my core memories. You know the anxious uncomfortableness around your heroes? More so than other people, with those two people in particular, I just broke down into fanboy mode. For most people I feel like I can keep my composure. With them? I had no chance.”
Thankfully, he made it through that interaction in one piece and felt welcomed and accepted by those who had come before.
Simon and Nannan c. 2014, pictured right, amongst other AFOLs of TBB (with a Nerdly-bomb?)
Fast forward a decade later, and now, one of the largest places Simon looks for inspiration and influence for MOCs may surprise you. It’s LEGO set designers! Simon speaks about how he looks to official sets and their creators:
Simon and Imagine c. 2015!
“They are so good and so inspirational despite the fact that they are limited to the fact that they are building a set. That’s how good they are. That’s like being the best builder with limitations placed upon you that we don’t have. And when those limitations are off, they can do anything. LEGO designers have to stick within a product environment and are still giving us these incredible things.”
Simon lists some of his AFOL friends-turned-designers like Markus Rollbühler, Chris Perron, Imagine Rigney, and Carter Baldwin.
“The fact that they need to build it for mass consumption in the context of a fixed set with costs—that is a whole new level.”
His list of inspirational designers would extend to include “anyone on the Speed Champions team.”
As for Simon’s AFOL inspiration today in 2024? He can’t nail down just one person and even has to break it up by category.
For greebling? Simon Leoff (@simonmocs), Tim Goddard (@tim_goddard928), Peter Reid (@legoloverman), and the other “British Crew of Classic Spacers.”
For crazy NPU? Jonas Kramm (@jonaskramm) and SimonNH.
For the “Master of Character Building Whimsy?” BrickNerd’s Markus Rollbühler (@moriartus).
For “incredible builders?” @inthert_builds, Thomas Jenkins (@thomas_jenkins_bricks), and the current cast of Iron Builders.
And for those that are community leaders: Markus (@moriartus), Micah B. (@hacimbricks), those running the Builders Improvement Initiative, Isaac Synder with Summer Joust, and Jeff (BetaNotus) with SHIPtember.
So how have all these influential AFOLs, past and present, sculpted Simon’s past work and builds to come?
Style and The Rule of Cool
As the LEGO community has continued to explode in popularity and global reach, we’ve seen a similar expansion in AFOL diversity and specialization which has cascaded down to increasing MOC diversity and building styles. This expansion has worked in tandem with the explosion of new parts, recolors, and their increasing availability. As such, it’s become easier and easier to spot a builder’s style and signature flourishes as well as carve out your own niche.
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Zachary Cube, Eero Okkonen Figure, Jeff Friesen City, Loke’s Food, Steven Howard Bust, Markus miniland-plus.
Examples like Eero Okkonen’s (@eerookkonen) signature poseable figurines, Steven Howard’s (@ghalad) character busts, Zachary Steinman’s (@steinmanzachary) cubes, Jeff Friesen’s (@jeff_works) incredible micro cities, Loke’s (@byggli) mutilated fruits and vegetables, or Markus Rollbühler’s (@moriartus) curved-wedge miniland-plus statuettes come to mind. And while it’s hard to try and boil down a builders’ work that is expansive, spans a dozen years, and has grown and evolved, we will certainly try today with Simon!
It is especially difficult to attribute a particular signature style to Simon’s work as he tends to follow his “rule of cool” which can be anything from castles to spaceships and as small as a greebling touch-up to as big as a grandiose spaceSHIP. And the genres he has covered are much more diverse than what you may assume to just be spaceship, spaceship, spaceship!
However, I do think you can pull on a consistent thread throughout his best and most iconic work, which can be broken down into two categories. What I’m calling “tonal irony” and “visual contrast.” Let’s start with the former, as that one is absolutely silly and more fun.
Tonal Irony
A lot of Simon’s builds fall into what I would describe as a “ridiculous premise” predicated on tonal irony. You typically would not see cute animals piloting war machines of death, amphibians preparing to invade foreign lands, or tank-driving babies combating Cthulhu babies. All of these derive from an absurdist sense of humor, a refusal to take himself too seriously, and a willingness to not let a zany idea go to waste.
Commander Carrots’ Exosuit (2017)
That ethos has been unchanged in his build portfolio going back to the early ‘10s. The first, most iconic, and longest-running is Simon’s FrogPod and related factory, which would kick off/continue the Brickworld Master tradition of leaving micro-builds on all displayers’ builds Saturday night.
Some very exclusive FrogPod variants…
Of any technique used or invented, Simon says that the frog pilot seated in between a Plate, Modified 1 x 2 with Bar Arm Up and Brick, Round 2 x 2 x 1 2/3 Dome Top is truly his own.
“To shove that rod up that butt was so clever to get that frog in the perfect place. That is the only technique I can say beyond any doubt I invented—no one else has ever thought of that—because no one else had to because it’s so stupid. So that one I’m quite proud of.”
This would go on to become Simon’s calling card, and he is still building new variants to this day.
Simon’s love of dramatic irony and tonal dissonance goes back to 2012 and is longstanding and unabating. If anything, any time a new LEGO animal element is released, Simon dreams up a new way to have that cute, little animal pilot a mechanized weapon of war. Usually a mech suit:
Other highlights include a Duplo rabbit piloting a mechanical suit, Oscar the Grouch in his own mech suit, Santa Claus himself, or one of my personal favorites: this elephant. In a “How to Build Mechs Workshop” at Bricks in the Six 2023 in Toronto, Simon coached the workshop group to focus on a pilot for the build. And of course our source pilots to choose from was either a Friends turtle or salamander. I don’t think this is going away any time soon.
Granted, any builder can take an animal element (or baby or historical figure) and put it in a mechanized weapon of death, call it ironic, and be on their merry way. However, Simon’s mechs have no expense spared with his signature greebling—packing every square centimeter (he’s Canadian, so I have to use metric) with some of his favorite parts—droid bodies, neck brackets, regular brackets, and anything. That and frogs. A lot of his builds have frogs:
While this “obsession” with tonal dissonance, cute creatures, and complex engineering may stand out from the AFOL pack, I also think it’s in lockstep with the spirit of LEGO: the limitless possibilities allow you to do something so ridiculous. I think it gets to the heart of “why LEGO” for Simon as an artistic medium (with the space genre adding fuel to the fire). But a similar kind of juxtaposition of the cute and the deadly, can be seen in a broader sense with the visual way Simon’s builds standout with color contrast.
Visual/Color Contrast
This pattern in Simon’s work has emerged in earnest with the last half of Simon’s catalog and continues to become more common (as he’s amassed a lot more of these colors).
RZ - Atlas (2023) - Dark Azure and BLO!
Simon has developed quite a few “tried and true” favorite color schemes which include teal (dark turquoise) and BLO (bright light orange); dark azure and BLO; and olive green and orange—all of which provide a striking color difference. Examples include the TriPerron - Nomad Explorer, the RZ - Atlas / RZ Pleiades, and the Operation Olive Branch lineup, respectively. The oranges in each color scheme dramatically stand out against the other colors and provide visual interest to the observer.
This contrast between warm and cool or bright and muted is the real meat and potatoes of Simon’s best work (usually dressed on a bley or dark bley framework). Other gems include Cloud Rollier (2021), V42-Osprey (2020), and the aforementioned FROG Family (2023).
MC Escher - Rainbow Falls (2020) & MC Escher - Ascending Descending (2020)
Another noteworthy use of Simon’s love for color contrast really came to the forefront during his COVID pandemic output which included a detour into LEGO homages or replications of famous M.C. Escher artwork. Examples include Rainbow Falls (2020) with a singular colorful rainbow standing out against a sea of light bley or Ascending Descending (2020) with white microfigs standing out against a similar backdrop, all highlighting his key understanding of focal point as an art principle.
Even the previously showcased Commander Carrots’ Exosuit exemplifies this “visual contrast” simplistically, with its principal pilot in red dramatically standing out against its monochromatic machine. He doesn’t clutter the frame with all sorts of hues, dithering, or gradients. It’s a simple artistic principle, but Simon used it to great effect. And with such a unique way of setting the tone and visual language of his builds, it is a lot to be proud of.
Simon Reflecting on the Community
While Simon’s build output has been stylistic, expansive, influential, and doesn’t show any sign of stopping, Simon’s proudest aspect of being an AFOL extends to the way he’s seen the community build and grow. It’s almost as if all the previous accomplishments and builds fade into the background.
“The building up the community, the building up the people. All the other stuff is fun, but that’s what I’m proud of. The friends we made along the way.”
So we don’t repeat ourselves, go back to parts one and two to see all the community events, LUGs, conventions, and collaboratives Simon has had a hand in impacting. Now a baker’s dozen years in, Simon reflects on how the community has changed significantly since he first got into the hobby:
Simon’s beaming smile c. 2014, blissfully unaware of Flickr’s inevitable downfall…
“I think once I found Brothers Brick and found the communities, I was locked in. That’s one of the key things that’s missing currently: the ability to find the community. It’s fractured. The golden age of Flickr (2011-2014/5) allowed for discovery a lot easier than it is today. Now, I feel like the photo hosting platform is a combination of Flickr and Instagram. A lot of the community has spread to Discord or other places I can’t see. Versus before, it was very much an open policy.”
This is not to say the growth of the LEGO community hasn’t come with positives as well:
“There’s so much new blood. The classic time to prove yourself has seemed to change quite quickly in the last couple of years. If you take me for example, I was probably the first generation where proved myself very quickly. Compared to before that, it took time to get established, time to get rapport, and time to become well known. So you’re seeing all these kids that are finally given a chance to prove themselves and are just kicking butt. I think that might be another thing that has shifted with the changing of the guard. Forget your age. Can you build or not?”
And speaking of new builders getting on board…
Reflecting on Simon
On a personal level, I met Simon along with the rest of ToroLUG in 2013 at Brickworld Chicago. And while we had interacted briefly, I was pretty much starstruck. I’ve always struggled with meeting my LEGO heroes, who I’d followed online for years and who made jaw-dropping models that inspired me. Sound familiar with Simon and his heroes?
Little did I know that I would receive a FlickrMail message in July 2014 after we had interacted at Brickworld again with these out-of-the-blue words of encouragement that would floor me:
This message rocked my world as an aspiring TFOL that a builder of such caliber would come down to my level. I’ve never forgotten it. That experience has naturally led me to wonder who else has received small but significant private words of encouragement from Simon throughout the last thirteen years.
As time went on, we interacted more, and Simon became my “AccountaBuildiBuddy” (aka LEGO mentor). Many cross-country road trips, impromptu conventions, escape rooms, challenges, and collabs later, I couldn’t have gotten so far (and had so much fun in the process) without him. However, one of the most important lessons imparted to me by Simon is the responsibility that comes with your tenure in the community to shepherd and encourage the next generation. I hope to live up to that, and I’m so grateful for my LEGO sensei!
Don’t take my word for it! I’ve polled a few of Simon’s close friends to talk about his impact and legacy in the LEGO fandom and their own personal lives:
Micah Beideman, @hacimbricks, reflected:
“Simon has been a true blessing in my life ever since I met him ten years ago. As a young TFOL looking for my place in the LEGO community, Simon was a mentor in many ways: helping me with making connections, navigating conventions, and running collabs and contests. Along the way, he has also become a dear friend. From watching movies to doing escape rooms to celebrating birthdays (just mine, he still won’t tell me his), Simon is one of my favorite people to hang out with.”
Markus Rollbühler (rolli), @moriartus, added:
"Having been a part of the AFOL community for as long as I have been, you see a lot of people come and go. Life has a way, and people move on. Not Simon though – he’s the one constant in all those years, that guiding star in (not just) my AFOL sky, the inspiration behind why I do what I do. He introduced me to the LEGO castle community with Guilds of Historica, gave me a home in OrphanLUG, and pulled me into BrickNerd – talk about being a catalyst. From the times where I barely knew how to use Flickr to us hosting game nights at Brickworld or bringing back Iron Builder for a competition-starved community on COVID hiatus, Simon was always there—always striving to give back and to do better. And he still is, and will be, likely for decades to come – and I can’t wait to see how much more impact on the community this frog-loving, space-building, spike-haired Calvin to my Hobbes will have."
Evan Johnson, @iterativebricks, commented:
“My first interaction with Simon was him commenting on an Instagram post of mine where he called my small build of a motorbike an ‘amazing master class in tiny building.’ He had no idea who I was at that time—and, because a well-known, respected builder in the LEGO community left these kind words, I instantly felt overwhelmingly welcomed. Unknowingly at that time, I would become closer to Simon and his comment would lead me down an exciting path of amazing people, places, and experiences. He is always someone I can count on to motivate (pressure?) me to keep building, share a love of chicken with, and definitely most importantly, share frog emojis with. No matter how many badge bricks he has me design for him, Simon has become a sort of mentor and one of my closest friends in the LEGO community.”
Nerd-in-Chief here at BrickNerd, Dave Schefcik, @davechef6, closes with:
“Simon Liu has a way of bringing people together, fostering creativity in others as much as in himself. What stands out to me is his tireless dedication to the LEGO community—whether it's mentoring new builders or pulling together massive collaborations, Simon is always leading by example. He makes the complex look effortless, and his infectious passion for both building and the people around him is a huge part of why our community is as strong as it is today.”
And while I could have polled many others - you get the point. Also, we gotta wrap this article up already!
The Legacy and Future of Simon Liu
Throughout this article and the last two, I hope some of the curtain has been pulled back on this frog-obsessed, Ferrero Rocher builder you keep on seeing pop up everywhere online and in person. There’s even more we could have discussed, but we can only info dump so much! So what’s next? Simon has effectively flown to the moon and back by achieving nearly everything there is to achieve for a LEGO hobbyist. And made it look effortless in the process! Well, Simon doesn’t plan on stopping building anytime soon:
“There’s so many things I still want to build. So many things I want to build with other people. And now, I feel the freedom of building what I want versus chasing awards. I ask myself, what makes me happy? If that’s building fifty more stupid FrogPods of the exact same thing from ten years ago with different color schemes because I can give it away to new people, that’s good for me.”
But what I (and I think many other people) expect from Simon in the future are more community events, personal connections, and mentorship moments which will last longer in the hearts and minds of builders than a new MOC, a different SHIP, or another work of art will. Simon reflects on his legacy thus far:
“It’s my ‘LEGO children.’ It’s my friends. I feel like I have at least fostered, in some degree, people who I really care about in different stages of their life - LEGO and onward. The community is not as abstract as it is. It really is a family. The community and the people matter to me more than just a hobby.”
Maybe world domination is next?
With all the generations that Simon has brought up and will come after, it’s a beautiful legacy to have. It’s something I’m grateful for and has changed my life in ways in which I can’t even know that it’s changed me. Simon has that legacy to be so proud of.
If anything, he’s just getting started. See for yourself! Tune in to Simon’s keynote speech today at BrickCon 2024 in Bellevue, Washington where he’ll share more about his influences, life, and legacy!
Have you ever met Simon? Did he ever place a frog on your display? Did he seem to be in several places at once? Let us know below!
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