The healing journey of a widowed, unschooling badass in Delaware.
Over the last year, my sons and I have devoted a lot of time to building various aspects of the One Piece universe in Lego.
This post is an attempt to document all the builds that didn’t fit into a particular project or contest.
The bulk of the pictures are characters Westen and Isaac worked on. Isaac is our subject matter expert and Westen is the master of the minifig.
I used to be an alcoholic. I could stay up all night drinking at a party, with a partner, or solo if I really didn’t want to deal with my own humanity.
Part of the problem was my natural energy. I was capable of holding together an apparently functional life because I could drink all night and still show up, at least physically.
Not drinking was the easy part. Finding homes for that seemingly useless drive wasn’t all that difficult either. My life is filled with people and activities and I’m passionate about being my best.
I still wrestle with compulsion. I can get obsessed, but I’m learning to direct it.
Yesterday was the last day for me to build our ship for Kalmar Nyckel’s Lego Shipbuilding Day. My sons had contributed their expertise in minifigures and One Piece lore, but I had a lot of boat to finish.
I stayed up until past 2am to get the Going Merry ready and it paid off. We won 1st place in the 16+ division against some impressively large ships.
That strange energy carried me through a busy day and I’m looking forward to a well-earned sleep.
Westen is almost 15 and tries to play it cool around Lego, but he is still creating some very cool builds.
My Going Merry is coming along and I want to give credit to another builder who created a main sail that I leaned on for inspiration.
Build_MOC has a very nice ebay store where you can find his Going Merry and much more.
My Going Merry build is going slowly, unlike the rate at which the Kalmar Nyckel’s Lego Brick Shipbuilding Day is approaching.
They posted this pic of Isaac (in red) and I’m excited to see how all our builds do in competition.
The Kalmar Nyckel Lego Shipbuilding Day is coming and we are busy creating ships and hosting other families who want to join in the fun.
We hosted a couple families for Lego building and had wonderful exchanges about our various home education journeys.
Catching up on all our builds!
This year, my sons and I committed to creating a Lego One Piece build every day for the month of October.
This was our most collaborative year participating in Delaware Fun-A-Day.
My eldest son (Westen, 14) and I don’t know much about my younger son’s (Isaac, 12) favorite manga. Isaac was our guide in choosing subjects, finding referencing pictures, and providing narrative context. It was encouraging to see him take on the role of project manager while also putting together a couple of our most impressive Lego scultpures.
His first build was The Red Force, captained by Shanks, mentor of the main protagonist, Monkey D. Luffy.
Westen’s specialty is minifigures and scenes. One Piece has many wild ships and islands, but the characters bring the world to life.
I thought a “raft” would be a simple build, but Blackbeard’s Raft grew into one the month’s largest.
Capone Bege captains Nostra Castello, an amphibious castle.
The Big Top was a fun challenge from the color scheme to the main tent and clownish insignia.
Westen completed the build with an almost-to-scale Captain Buggy.
Westen’s imagination shined on his dynamic depiction of a One Piece game feature.
Isaac’s re-creation of Torino Kingdom is one of my favorites. His waterfall effect is exceptional.
The following builds were from my own imagination. When I was stuck on a One Piece build, I would clear my head with another nautical build.
The orange hydrofoil came out of a challenge to use Lego separators and a single color. I had to bend the rule for a couple bushings.
These two grumpuses are not going to be happy at the Delaware Fun-A-Day Opening!
The Canary Camel was also born out of a challenge to only use the classic Lego yellow.
I made this island oasis when I was intimidated by the more complicated One Piece designs.
I don’t know a thing about Blackbeard, but my son said he had a raft and I thought that might be a simpler build.
The flag, angular sail, and rigging were all significant challenges.
I’m very happy with the result, but I have got to build smaller. We have a limited amount of space at Delaware Fun-A-Day.
Dracule Mihawk carries an absurdly large sword and captains one of the smallest ships found in the world of Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece.
The Hitsugibune is coffin shaped and adorned with green-flamed candles. This was the last detail I added and was an extra joy as we own just two green flame elements. I’ve never seen much use for them, but they are perfect in this build.
The mast is a scaled-up version of the hilt of Mihawk’s sword. That sword may also appear in our Delaware Fun-A-Day exhibit.
