I have been building with Lego bricks since I was around 5 years old.  My name is John Canepa (a.k.a. Professor Brick Maker - PBM) and I’ve always had a deep love of miniatures and designing and building with Lego bricks.  My Lego renaissance happened when I received the original Forest Hideout as a birthday gift.  Years later I saw the movie “Toy Story” and again my mind was blown.  I had to know how to animate characters like the ones I saw in that incredible movie, so I left my family business and began researching animation schools in Northern California.

I studied Character Animation at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and got a job with an awesome game studio called Munkyfun.  While working as an animator I began a company called Brick Brigade, prototyping and kitting Lego military models to sell online and at conventions.  At my very first convention in 2010 called Bricks by the Bay in Fremont, I made great friends, sold a bunch of kits and met Dan from Brickmania.

After having great success with Brick Brigade, in 2017 I decided to join forces with Brickmania and went to work with Dan and his awesome crew in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  I contributed my abilities to the success of Brickmania and over the years have designed and prototyped lots of building kits for the company.  I was known for adding a bit of whimsy to the kits that I designed and some on-screen silliness during the taping of the Brickmania's "at the designers desk" videos.  After about two and a half years working for Brickmania at their headquarters in Minnesota, I returned to California and continued to design prototypes for the company.  I also attended several Lego fan conventions and other Lego related events as their representative, promoting Brickmania and their stores.  While attending Lego events, I was often asked, “How do I get started making Lego Prototypes?”.  So I began creating these courses for Lego model building fans. Those that want to take their designs to the next level.  While most of prototyping involves one’s individual vision, there is some very useful information and techniques I’ve gathered along my journey that I look forward to sharing with all of you.

My hope is by sharing my knowledge, I can help inspire you to build more precise, historically accurate and awesome minifig scale models made from the bricks we love.