Star Trek creations are seen all too infrequently in the LEGO fan community (compared to other sci-fi worlds, say, from a galaxy far, far away). Another LEGO fan once told me it was impossible to build a convincing Enterprise. Perhaps he just wasn’t bold enough to go there, because that’s exactly what Chris Melby has done. This model is huge – 6 feet long and almost 3 feet wide. It’s so big that he built a custom aluminum stand for it.
There isn’t really a great place to hold on to the model, so the custom stand seems like a natural decision to display it. At 30000+ bricks, I don’t want to guess what it weighs, again convincing me of the genius of the custom stand. When looking at the pictures, it’s hard to really grasp how big it is, so he was nice enough to put himself in one of the shots for scale.
Another way to really get a sense of it is to look closely at the pieces used. Click on the photos to enlarge them and you’ll see what I mean. Using that many pieces allowed to Chris to achieve both the gigantic size and minute detail.
Building it so large helps to achieve that level of detail, as each piece is a smaller part of the whole. As you get bigger, difficult shapes are easier to sculpt — circles, for example, are easier to build the bigger the scale. That’s not to belittle this build, but rather to commend Chris for choosing the right scale and having courage to follow through.
For the details that weren’t possible with bricks, custom decals have been expertly used to make a Constitution-class starship capable of exploring strange new worlds or seeking out new life and new civilizations. Be sure to check out more details and angles below.
