Former Milwaukee resident Todd Elliot, posted a LEGO recreation of the Milwaukee Brewers’ famous racing sausages on the Milwaukee Reddit page. The post quickly went viral with Elliot providing a blueprint for each sausage.
This isn’t the first time Elliot’s architectural skills gained traction, his rendition of the Milwaukee Art Museum in LEGO also went viral and almost became an official set. But, the racing sausages were more than a quick claim to fame.
“I lived in Milwaukee for three years until I moved to Philadelphia and made a few models of mascots here, but I was looking for another opportunity,” said Elliot. “I thought back to my time in Milwaukee and the racing sausages, it just felt like a natural extension to try to build those.”
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A viral Reddit post wasn’t enough, Elliot wanted to take the project to the next level. He submitted the sausage blueprints to the Lego Ideas website, a platform dedicated to fans posting their original concepts and seeing if they can become an actual product. However, despite receiving a lot of votes and the Brewers themselves supporting the project, Lego turned down the submission, not accepting anything involving mascots.
Luckily, he had another strategy to share his creations with others after this roadblock.
“I put the instructions out on a website called Rebrickable, I made them free for people to just download,” Elliot remarked. “If they do build them, they can put a picture to the Rebrickable site so I can see it.”
Letting readers construct these sets for themselves by simply ordering the specific pieces through the Lego website or a third-party company, further expressed Elliot’s desire for the community to come together
In his highly decorated office with countless marathon ribbons and more Lego sets of structures from around the world, he showed off his poseable rendition of the Milwaukee Art Museum, complete with moving wings.
“Eight years ago or so, there was a gentleman who designed the Milwaukee Art Museum with Legos, he put it on Lego Ideas and it got enough votes that the company reviewed to see if they wanted to make it an actual set; unfortunately, they decided not to,” said Elliot. “I was always hoping that he would put the instructions out somewhere, but he never did, so I just took time one week and reverse-engineered what he built.”
Instructions to build both the Racing Sausages and Milwaukee Art Museum can be found on Elliot’s Rebrickable profile for free and with helpful guides showcasing each step.
“I probably have tens of thousands of pieces, I just think of Legos as another medium of art, I don’t paint or do photography, but it’s still a way to be creative.”
