Designer insight: Mark Stafford
Posted by Huwbot,
Many LEGO set designers use our BrickLists feature to maintain a list of the sets they've worked on and often provide interesting insights about their involvement.
Once a week we publish an entry from one of their lists on the home page to increase awareness of this information and to encourage more designers to create them.
Mark Stafford wrote this about their work on 75929 Carnotaurus Gyrosphere Escape:
This one is partially based on what we knew of the plot of the new movie and also some pictures we got from the set. I can talk about it a little as the trailer reveals there is a volcano and Owen has a truck. We didn't have a Mercedes license so I got creative and used the movie truck as inspiration for this LEGO truck which looks quite different but should allow kids to play out whatever the other one is put through in the movie. We don't know if any of the old park rides will appear in the movie but we know one of the Gyrosphere balls is in it so I used the first Jurassic World Gyrosphere scene as inspiration and made it overgrown with jungle plants and had lava tip over it!
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17 comments on this article
It seems really crazy how little the designers know about the subject prior to developing IP sets. It must be quite frustrating!
He's back!
What is this, Groundhog Day?
@StyleCounselor said:
"He's back!
What is this, Groundhog Day?"
Groundbeef Day
Carnotaurus mean flesh eating bull so beef would be more appropriate.
Unrealistic gyrosphere is unacceptable.
I miss trans. neon orange. Trans. orange is just not the same :/
(the 2x2 bricks round are that color)
9448-1 Samurai Mech is sooooo good! I bought three part-sets to make mine complete, and it was well worth it.
@Huw - it's possible the server move may have caused a wee problem here. We already had Mark Stafford's Designer Insight earlier this month.
@thor96: Yeah, just look at 4856. Mary Jane is wearing a different out from the movie, and Harry Osborne is there in a speedboat for some reason. The building not being accurate doesn't count though, as the reasons for that are explained on @Bjarke's Bricklist, though. At least the Iron Man 3 sets varied so much from the movie because there was a deliberate misinformation campaign on the part of the filmmakers. 4856, though...
@ComfySofa
There have been several repeats already, several designers with different sets highlighted.
Oh wow. I always thought they had a bit more cooperation from movie licensing than that. No wonder LEGO movie toys always look so wonky.
It was the same with the toys for the original Jurassic Park film, which were designed before the actors were even cast. The Dennis Nedry figure looks like a Ghostbuster.
Mark has some iconic sets on his resume.
@ComfySofa said:
" 9448-1 Samurai Mech is sooooo good! I bought three part-sets to make mine complete, and it was well worth it.
@Huw - it's possible the server move may have caused a wee problem here. We already had Mark Stafford's Designer Insight earlier this month."
It's not the designer that is picked randomly, but an entry on one of their lists. So designers with bigger lists are more likely to be picked more often.
And, designers have to opt in to having the items in their list featured which of course narrows down the options.
@EtudeTheBadger said:
"It was the same with the toys for the original Jurassic Park film, which were designed before the actors were even cast. The Dennis Nedry figure looks like a Ghostbuster."
So much so that Kenner re-released the human figs with improved likenesses in a later wave. As a very pedantic 10-year-old, I really appreciated them doing this and I actually can't think of an earlier example of a toy company doing such a thing. (I pretended the first-wave figures of Grant, Ellie, Nedry, Tim and Muldoon were unnamed park employees)
The biggest offenders of this sort of thing, in recent memory, has GOT to be the STAR WARS sequel trilogy sets. We've got Kylo Ren's non-folding shuttle, the First Order Snowspeeder, and of course the horrific First Order AT-ST.
Lego seemingly chose to avoid similar mistakes with THE RISE OF SKYWALKER by basically only doing Malibu Stacy New Hat versions of classic vehicles, which seems to have been wise given the woeful set ratings sported by the two new vehicles, the Sith TIE Fighter and the Knights of Ren transport ship.
@ComfySofa said:
"9448-1 Samurai Mech is sooooo good! I bought three part-sets to make mine complete, and it was well worth it.
@Huw - it's possible the server move may have caused a wee problem here. We already had Mark Stafford's Designer Insight earlier this month."
Got it, thanks for clarifying ;)
@yellowcastle said:
"Mark has some iconic sets on his resume."
Definately, 70315: Clay's Rumble Blade being my favorite.
Oh, I stil got to get one of those spheres...to use as Booster Gold's "Time Bubble"...or a Legion of Superheroes' one, either is good:D
On BrickLists in list 'Pirate Ships, 1989 to present!' is missing the last one 21322