While we still have a three month wait for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the wait for new LEGO set information is drawing to a close. USA Today revealed two new sets, and Entertainment Weekly revealed the first buildable figure (Possible mild spoilers). The new sets should be available beginning September 30, 2016.
75152 Imperial Assault Hovertank
385 pieces, £34.99 / $29.99 / 39.99€
Our friends over at Brickset have just shared new photos of a previously rumored new Death Star, as LEGO Store employees in Arundel Mills, Maryland build the set in advance of displaying it in their store. We’ll share the usual high-res photos and press release once we have them from LEGO, but in the meantime, here are the first photos of 75159 Death Star.
Click through to see more photos of 75159 Death Star, including the minifigs
The new animated show Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures has only gifted us with two sets, despite being a TV series based on LEGO. Those sets are the 75145 Eclipse Fighter and this, the 75147 StarScavenger. This sets portrays a vehicle used in the show to collect space salvage. The first time we see it is during an X-Wing / TIE Fighter battle as it flies around scooping up debris.
But how does it translate into LEGO?
Starting off with the build and it’s not a particularly exciting one. There’s no real innovative building techniques and most of the set is mirrored. If you decide to pick this set up, skip ahead in the instructions and build both sides simultaneously, you’ll save yourself time and unenjoyable building. Once it’s done you get a moderately-sized set that looks very respectable as a space freighter or otherwise utilitarian spacecraft. What you build is divided into three parts: a forward cockpit, a hollow containment area for storage, and a mech.
The cockpit, complete with “wings”, is probably the best part of the set. It looks great, walking the fine line between futuristic machine and tough workhorse. Inside the cockpit you’ll find a small printed console piece and enough room to fit two minifigures. It’s a bit tough to get them in but it’s far-removed from the puzzle you needed to solve every time you wanted to get two figures into the cockpit of the 75105 Millennium Falcon.
Let’s play a simple game: How fast can you count all LEGO sets that contain a model of a T-47 snowspeeder? Well the problem is that there are too many snowspeeders — not only in official sets, but also built by a huge number of talented fans. And each time I see a new iteration of this iconic spacecraft, I tell myself “It can’t get any better, this is perfect!”. But somehow Brickdoctor made his own snowspeeder too outstanding to be mistaken for any other build.
It’s not the choice of pieces or the shape of the speeder, but its awesome wings that make it so cool. Bricks placed with their studs not on top (a technique commonly referred to as SNOT) doesn’t make the wings look heavy, but tiny gaps between the pieces create a stunning pattern as if the speeder is covered with reflective armour plates. If you’re interested in how this T-47 looks inside like, visit the builder’s Flickr stream.
Korean building team OliveSeon has revealed the first views of their massively impressive Imperial Star Destroyer. Built by Hobbyinside and designed by ByeongSoek Kim, this 2.2m long slice of shiny grey starship uses approximately 42,000 bricks and took around 1000 hours to build. At present, only the main side views have been revealed, but the group promises that more detailed views will follow. This ship has a beautifully smooth, aerodynamic SNOT design, with the LEGO studs well hidden beneath a lot of hours of design and building work.
The ship measures 2200 mm x 1300 mm x 610 mm (that’s 7′ 3″ x 4′ 3″ x 2′ for you Imperial readers) and weighs in at 50 kg (or 110 lbs). And if you need proof of just how large this Imperial Star Destroyer is, check out the size of white board needed for the photograph of the final ship (actually I think they need a bigger board).
Building massive Imperial Star Destroyers is not a new concept, and these creations that we have blogged previously are definitely worth a second look:
Giant 5ft-long LEGO Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer “Tyrant” features incredible interior
Crashed LEGO Star Destroyer from Star Wars Episode VII
The ultimate Imperial Star Destroyer built from Lego, measuring over 2 meters long
Last summer, British publisher DK added to its extensive collection of LEGO books with the Build Your Own Adventure series, starting with a pair of Ninjago and Friends themed adventures. This summer, the series continues with two new volumes that explore the themes of City and Star Wars.
LEGO Star Wars: Build Your Own Adventure is an 80-page hard cover book that comes with an exclusive 73 piece LEGO set and minifgure. It follows the exploits of Rebel pilot Zin Evalon as he journeys through familiar locations from the Star Wars universe, on a mission to recover a set of lost data cubes.
Following the established BYOA format, the book’s pictoral story is spread over several chapters, each covering a different location including Hoth, Tatooine, and Endor. The environments and vehicles in the story are illustrated using over 50 ‘inspirational’ LEGO models that were the work of fan builder (and Brothers Brick editor) Rod Gilles.
We’ve seen a number of official LEGO Star Wars AT-ATs over the years, but they’ve all shared one fatal flaw: They’re just not as enormous as the menacing, walking beasts that first strode across the screen in The Empire Strikes Back. Mechanical engineering student Noah has built a properly scaled, 5,000-piece LEGO AT-AT that — at 2 feet tall — towers over minifig Snowtroopers and Hoth Rebel troops alike.
Noah tells The Brothers Brick that it took him about a year to build his AT-AT — a bit longer than it might have taken if he hadn’t been at school.
You can see a walk-around video that Noah posted on his YouTube channel, where he also has in-progress videos showing the internal structure.
We asked Noah whether his schooling in mechanical engineering helped him build such a large model. He tells us that the AT-AT’s head is particularly heavy, causing a moment of force, with the head extending far out from the AT-AT’s main body and affecting its center of gravity, which he solved by integrating Technic beams into the neck.
The German-language LEGO Star Wars forum Imperium der Steine is hosting its annual “MOC Olympics” at the moment, and with the release of the full trailer for Rogue One this past week, we’re seeing a lot of great entries inspired by the forthcoming movie. TBB regular and all-around talented builder Cecilie Fritzvold has recreated the mysterious character Chirrut Îmwe in LEGO, centered on the scene in which he battles Imperial Stormtroopers with nothing more than a staff.
Cecilie says that she created the Stormtroopers first, since she thought they might be the hardest. Creating enough detail on the troopers’ helmets to make them recognizable at this scale is no small feat. Cecilie completes the scene with some solid forced perspective, including a minifig-scale Stormtrooper in the background (though she gives him taller legs to bring him into the same shape as the brick-built ones in the foreground).
It’s the third week of August, and we’re ready to give away another copy of LEGO Star Wars Build Your Own Adventure, signed by TBB’s own Rod Gillies, who designed all of the models in the book. To win the third copy we’re giving away, click here.
We’ll also send each winner a snazzy TBB T-shirt and other cool swag, but thanks in particular to Rod and our friends at DK for the books!
Kenny Baker, the diminutive actor who played R2-D2 in all Star Wars films except The Force Awakens, died peacefully in his sleep today. The 3′ 8″ actor operated Artoo from inside, sealed up “like a boiled egg.” In addition to R2-D2 Kenny Baker also played Paploo the Ewok in Return of the Jedi as well as key roles in movies like Time Bandits and The Elephant Man. To honor this actor who had such a huge impact on Star Wars, here’s a roundup of some of the best LEGO R2-D2 models we’ve featured here on The Brothers Brick over the years.
One of my favorite LEGO Artoos is this small LEGO R2-D2 by Jeffery Kong.
Rogue One continues to inspire new Star Wars LEGO creations. Check out this fantastic beach battle scene, lifted from the Rogue One trailer and “chibified” by Boba-1980. The microscale vehicles are really good — I particularly like the versions of the U-Wing and the TIE Strike Fighter.
Aside from the good landscaping and figure posing, there’s a whole ton of action packed into a tight space in this diorama — justifying the builder’s choice to go with an unusual scale for the vehicles. Nice work.
So the first full-blown trailer for Rogue One has been out for all of a few hours, but that hasn’t stopped Vaionaut building a cool LEGO version of the new U-Wing ship which looks like it will be ferrying our intrepid heroes across the galaxy.
This sort of thing is why I’m getting pumped-up for Rogue One. I’m looking forward to seeing new ships and vehicles and characters and planets, all for the first time, yet all carrying that unmistakable whiff of Star Wars. However, we’re not featuring this model just because I’m excited — it’s a smart build in and of itself. It captures the lines and colors of this interesting new spaceship design, and features some nice details, particularly around the rear and the engines.
