Dominic, Noah and John Watts, along with their brother William, built a large Lego display for the 2024 Eltham Brickshow. Photo / Ilona Hanne
Dominic, Noah and John Watts, along with their brother William, built a large Lego display for the 2024 Eltham Brickshow. Photo / Ilona Hanne
Everything was awesome in Eltham over Taranaki’s anniversary weekend when the Eltham Brickshow came to the town hall.
The show’s reputation, which is a fundraiser for Eltham AFC Football Club, is building each year with Lego fans coming from all across Taranaki and further afield to see the creations on display.
Image 1 of 12: Road workers were taking their lunch break in one of the detailed scenes featured in a display by the Watt brothers of Hawera at the 2024 Eltham Brickshow. Photo / Ilona Hanne
Exhibitors themselves had travelled from across the North Island to share their love of Lego with all who came to the show, which attracted hundreds of people over two days.
A model of Stratford’s glockenspiel that debuted at last year’s show was on display again, and while it was still a clear favourite for visitors to the show, it was a certain astromech droid that was attracting the most fans this year.
Barny Thorpe from Ōtaki brought his 1:1 scale model of R2D2, the popular astromech droid from the Star Wars franchise, to the 2024 Eltham Brickshow. Photo / Ilona Hanne
Barny Thorpe had travelled from his home in Ōtaki with his R2D2 model, which took him “about 18 months” to build.
A big Star Wars fan, he says the idea of building R2D2 came about after a visit to the Christchurch Brickshow.
“I wanted to go back to that show as an exhibitor, but the models I normally exhibited weren’t really easy to pack down to travel long-distance - I needed something that could be more portable. A model of Hoth or something doesn’t really fit in the car with all the luggage and a daughter, so R2D2 it was.”
Last year, Barny visited about six Brickshows with R2D2, and says the droid has progressed each time, as he continues to add on and develop his ideas.
R2D2 isn’t just a static 1:1 scale model. He can also move - powered by an Xbox controller and Raspberry Pi for the coding, and with plenty of lights and authentic sounds - ensuring a steady stream of visitors over the two days.
“I had some people coming over saying they had heard Artoo as they lined up at the door to come in, and they immediately knew what they were hearing.”
The model is around 95 per cent Lego bricks and gears, says Barny, with the remaining 5 per cent electronics and bolts that Lego doesn’t make.
“I don’t want to think about how much I have spent on this build, ordering all the bricks, getting all the parts.”
While Barny is a seasoned exhibitor, others at the Eltham show were sharing their love of Lego for the first time.
Hāwera-based brothers Noah, 14, John, 12, William, 10, and Dominic Watts, 7, had been encouraged by regular exhibitor Frank Averes to have a go this year.
Frank, who comes to the show from Levin each year, says last year the siblings chatted with him about all things Lego.
“I said they should have a go at exhibiting, and told them the important thing is to have a story, have your models tell a story, and they took that and ran with it.”
Noah was more than happy to share the stories of their Lego exhibition, taking the time to guide visitors to their table through the various scenes, which included a birthday party at a park, an airport scene complete with some “robbers and other baddies” on a plane, a pirate ship and sea monster attack, and plenty more details to spot.
Storytelling makes sense to Noah, who enjoys making Lego stop-motion movies for his YouTube channel.
“It’s a lot of fun, but it does take a lot of time and practice. I like it because it’s the closest thing to movie-making I can do. You think of a story, and then take the photos and line it all up.”
Noah was the project manager for the display put together by himself and his three brothers.
“It would have been chaos otherwise. We had to make sure we told a story through it all.”
