A planet-sized Classic Space layout that’s overflowing with incredible rovers and spaceships

At 96×168 cm, this sprawling space layout is a phenomenal build. Creator Dale Harris notes on his harrisbricks blog that the display is a personal love note to the Classic Space theme’s limited colour palette and retro tech aesthetic.

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The base mixes some great rockwork landscaping with integrated architectural elements. This provides the perfect backdrop for a whole host of vehicles and play features, while also serving as a nod to the LEGO Group’s epic 1980s promotional photographs. Dale has clearly studied his subject matter, and possibly those old catalogue shots too, dropping in the requisite radar dishes, robots, rovers and other spacey goodness.

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The interior of the base is a fantastic build in its own right, with spacemen and mini-rovers darting everywhere.

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We also get several distinct spaceships to dock at the base’s various landing pads.

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However, my favourite components have to be the portable pod base units, which provide a sense of realistic space exploration to the build.

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8 comments on “A planet-sized Classic Space layout that’s overflowing with incredible rovers and spaceships

  1. Brian H.

    Sweet layout! I can’t help but think, take away the minifigs and you have a great Warhammer 40k Terrain piece to battle on… Space Marine Legion Vs. a Tyranid Horde!

  2. Purple Dave

    Hey, grey vehicles! I had lots of white and grey Classic Space vehicles, but the one that was blue was absolutely none of them. I really don’t get the fixation on that one solitary color scheme considering the entire line was a pretty clean 3-way split. Of particular note is Benny, who is the very first blue Classic Spaceman to ship with a blue Classic Space set.

  3. David Stelzer

    That is one impressive build! I was never the best at building SPACESHIPS!, but man do I love a great base. To use some Benny phrasing, “BASES!!!”.

  4. Håkan / Wakuran

    @Purple Dave

    Well, all the gray can come across a bit bland, I guess. But there are surprisingly few White/ Trans Blue Moc:s…

  5. Håkan

    @Dylan cloud

    It doesn’t appear ‘that’ difficult, technically, although you’d need some patience and a sizable lot of parts…

  6. Purple Dave

    @Håkan:
    It’s not as simple as it looks. I’ve seen lots of attempts ranging from stuff that puts this to shame, to stuff that’s downright cringeworthy. I’ve made a few MOCs that involve much smaller amounts (the majority of them being vignettes), and even at my best I don’t expect to hear any comments on the terrain itself. Maybe on my worst examples, but only then for the wrong reasons.

    As for the MOCs, I can definitely see how grey vehicles on grey moonscape may be less appealing to build than something that’ll show up, but part of me thinks the reason why the blue/trans-yellow color scheme is so firmly entrenched as _the_ Classic Space color scheme is because AFOLs with money to burn liked to show off how much trans-yellow they owned at a time when it had long ago stopped being produced for much of anything but basic bricks and plates. Now it’s not as much of a challenge, as several sets in the last decade have featured trans-yellow windscreens and such.

  7. Tom Boucher

    One please. Man I’m still disappointed that even after the success of The LEGO Movie that the space theme wasn’t resurrected and given it’s glory. These ships are amazing

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