We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gregory LeBlanc. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gregory below.
Gregory, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Alright – so having the idea is one thing, but going from idea to execution is where countless people drop the ball. Can you talk to us about your journey from idea to execution?
This part is actually still very much in the work-in-progress stage. The first step for me was realizing that there is potential in the designs that I make. When I had that eureka moment that people actually enjoyed my models enough to buy them is when BrickshipsDesigns went from fun hobby to potential company. I joined an instructions company back in 2019, OmahaBricks, which really allowed me to start building my own base while participating with a great group of people. After that I went off to join another now defunct company, which was yet another great group of people. Not too long after that I felt ready to launch my own website and company, which is all my own designs at the moment. I’m currently trying to achieve a major shift in focus, from purely digital files for my models to actual instructions and kits. One thing I have learned is that there is a HUGE amount of setup for kits; I’ve been working on it for the last year and a half and I’m only just now getting to the point where we’ll have them available. We’ll be launching physical kits hopefully in the next 2 months, but it’s been a doozy getting here. Getting instructions, boxes, everything sorted out, and of course the printed tiles and/or stickers has been a pretty big undertaking. Of course I’ve learned a lot along the way and have refined the process a fair but since I started, but it has been a really interesting time seeing what works and what doesn’t.
Gregory, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I got into the industry of third party LEGO models in early 2017 as an escape. I’ve always enjoyed history and LEGO, and was getting back into LEGO pretty strongly at the time. I got really frustrated at the lack of warships at the time, so I decided to do something about it. My first trio of models I was proud enough to show off were the USS Lexington (CC-1) battlecruiser, Georgios Averof Greek armored cruiser, and the good old USS Texas. The last two are still very dear to me, and have seen so many refits and redesigns over the last 6 years it’s not even funny.
I think what is going to set BrickshipsDesigns apart from others is the carving out of my own niche. When I started out, as far as I remember I was the only one doing ships at around 1/500 scale. Now there are a bunch at around that scale. Recently I’ve been focusing on 1/72 scale vehicles, which is kind of an expansion from the 1/80 scale you would see before. By no means am I taking credit for the growing 1/72 scale crowd; it seems like a natural progression to match up with plastic kit scales. But I have embraced it heavily and standardized it as my main scale for vehicles.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect to me is seeing my designs come to life. I design everything digitally using Bricklink’s Stud.io, so it’s always fun seeing something go from my screen to physical bricks. And it’s even more rewarding when I can see others enjoy it too. The first time I had a model built by someone else was one of the coolest yet weirdest feelings I’ve ever had. I came up with this idea for a model ship that was nice enough that someone else wanted to build it, and then actually went and bought the parts to do it at their own expense, because it brought them enough joy to make it worth it. That’s a pretty cool feeling.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Honestly, the best way is to piggyback off of someone or find an established group of people willing to help you out. That’s how I started off. Shout out to OmahaBricks, and especially @cbrickstutorials and @grasshoppersquadron for really getting me started and helping with getting me started there.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.brickshipsdesigns.com/
- Instagram: BrickshipsDesigns
- Facebook: BrickshipsDesigns
- Other: Flickr: BrickshipsDesigns