Blacklight Galaxy Squad: A Strange Glow In The Dark

At an exhibition in France near Bordeaux (organized by Brick Team Aquitaine), I was impressed by a diorama using the properties of some LEGO colors that react to a UV blacklight. I thought that this strangely fluorescent approach to LEGO colors could be the subject of a great interview so I reached out to Cyrille Bouquinet who built this glowing Galaxy Squad diorama.

Sam: Hello Cyrille, could you introduce yourself?

Cyrille: I am 46 years old, and I am from Rochefort in France. I've been playing with LEGO since I was three years old, and I can't tell you which set I got first. It must have been a Fabuland set but I was quickly attracted by Classic Space. I also got hooked on the Castle range in 1984 and since then I’ve remained faithful to these two ranges. The Middle Ages and science fiction are my two main areas of interest. I’m a bit of a set collector (Space, Lord of the Rings, City, Ninjago, Winter Village) but I’ve mainly made MOCs for seven years now.

I started MOCing by participating in contests on Brickpirate’s forum then I started participating in exhibitions in 2018. Since then, the urge to create has only grown.

Sam: How did you get the idea to use blacklight on LEGO pieces?

Cyrille: I saw some MOCs on the internet where the trans-neon parts stood out. And then doing some research, I found some 100% UV lit realizations. I invested in a UV bar and when I tried it in the dark over my bulk, I was immediately amazed at how many bricks gave off light in the dark.

Sam: For those who might be unaware, here is a quick description of blacklight:

“Blacklight or Wood's light (named after the inventor Robert William Wood), is a light composed of violet (with a slight peak around 405 nm wavelength but not very illuminating) and near ultraviolet (main component around 375 nm) in a quasi-continuous spectral band. This light is absorbed and re-emitted as visible light by fluorescent substances, whether artificial or natural (corals, for example).”

Sam: Which LEGO colors react particularly well to blacklight?

Cyrille: The colors that are particularly reactive include the following transparent fluorescent parts: Trans-Bright Green, Trans-Neon Green, Trans-Medium Blue, and Trans-Neon Orange. Obviously, the glow effect on the White Glow in the Dark pieces is at its best under UV light. It also works with the newer Coral and Vibrant Yellow colors too.

I noticed a slight neon effect with Transparent and Trans-Light Blue colors produced since 2021. Here are pictures of parts reacting to UV with and without blacklight.

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Sam: The diorama you made features 2013’s Galaxy Squad. Did the buggoids particularly inspire you?

Cyrille: I wanted to make something on a hostile planet with luminescent vegetation and I had a small handful of buggoids in my storage. That’s when I thought that the Galaxy Squad theme would be perfect to support the story.

Sam: What about Galaxy Squad stood out to you?

Cyrille: Galaxy Squad was the last theme in the LEGO Space line that was offered to us (Nexo Knight doesn't count for me—it's a hybrid). It was really a very good theme and under-represented in exhibitions due to its short life span (sadly only 10 sets were released in 2013). For me, it was an opportunity to revive the theme if only for a moment through this diorama.

Sam: What is the story of this display? Some areas were animated with movements like the plants or the reactors of the ship.

Cyrille: In the future, earthlings start to colonize habitable planets. But on one of them, the fauna and flora are particularly hostile. A terrestrial patrol falls into a nursery of buggoids. It is quickly spotted and is thus attacked. The squad leader then asks for air reinforcements which arrive quickly to clean the zone.

Sam: Thanks for the story. For our readers, here are some of the animated plants:

Sam: And the the reactors on the ship:

Sam: This was not your first creation based on using blacklight—you also made a race track earlier, right?

Cyrille: When I started to accumulate parts, I found myself with a lot of orange trans-neon parts—the Nexo Knights theme was often sold out wherever I went ;-) and that color is not necessarily easy to re-use. Then there was a contest on the Brickpirate forum where you had to use a brick separator in the creation.

I had the idea to use several of them to make a futuristic road surface. The blacklight was perfect to bring an atmosphere and to make the orange and trans-neon parts used to light it more luminescent. I built a small diorama featuring futuristic motorcycles on a lighted track and found the result magical and wanted to make it much bigger.

Sam: You also built Tech Noir. Could you tell us more about that?

Cyrille: After my little futuristic racetrack dio, I went back to Tech Noir (a nod to the bar where the Terminator picks up Sarah Connor in the first film). This second MOC has the same elements as the first one—a lighted road and futuristic cars in front of a dark city with its bar "Tech Noir", a terminal with a train and a control tower, and a cyber punk atmosphere.

Cyrille: To showcase it, I built a structure to support UV projectors and to accommodate a background to create a futuristic atmosphere and make the dio darker so that the fluorescence comes out better in front of the public. This is the first dio I presented under UV light to the public in 2018. I had a lot of positive feedback that encouraged me to continue to making MOCs under UV light.

Sam: I can't help but mention your superb Scooby-Doo creation too. Did you need a break between your games with the blacklight?

Cyrille: Yes, I like science fiction but when LEGO released the Scooby-Doo line in 2015, I thought I should make a diorama featuring the famous team on one of their adventures. I wanted to be as faithful as possible to the spirit of the 70-80s show.

In the MOC, the team arrives at a mansion that seems haunted but is, in fact, a disguised building to scare away any curious people and cover up a counterfeiting operation. There is nothing paranormal in this story, it is just automatons and bandits in disguise that give the illusion of a haunted house. Everyone knows how the story ends; Fred, Daphne, Vera, Sammy and Scooby will put an end to this activity (those are their names on the show in France).

Sam: Thank you Cyrille! I will conclude this interview with a picture of us both in front of your diorama at the Leognan Exhibition in October 2022. It’s time for me to pop to another artist!

Cyrille: Thank you, Sam!

Best of BrickNerd - Article originally published January 17, 2023.

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