Tag Archives: Shuttle

Massive 100000+ piece MCRN Donnager Hangar

Spaceships and LEGO are partners to the end. Fans have been dreaming up their own versions of their favorite ships, fictional or real, since before LEGO picked up Star Wars. Builder Mocking_brick combines their love of The Expanse with LEGO to create massive, minifigure scale ships from the series. Though these spacecraft are already immense on their own, Mocking_brick felt like pushing the limits of the building program, Stud.io, by making gigantic scenes as backdrops for their creations. This scene exceeds 100000 pieces all on its own, showing off the hangar bay of the MCRN Donnager prior to its destruction. Housed inside this minifigure-scale creation are the damaged Knight shuttle (which held the survivors of the Canterbury ice freighter) and the MCRN Tachi (which would become the legitimate salvage, the Rocinante).

211220_MCRN Donnager Hangar 1-45 B ft_02_7

While James Holden and his rag-tag crew of rebels caused issues for the Martian crew of the Donnager, their seized shuttle sat in the hangar with the formidable frigate that would become the Rocinante. After digitally building these ships to minifigure scale, Mocking_brick created separate renderings for the different parts of the background. The background was fleshed out first, as it was a repetitive but satisfying element for the builder to develop.

211220_MCRN Donnager Hangar 1-45 B ft_02_1

After building out both walls and partnering them with the Tachi, Mocking_brick moved on to the base and the maintenance rig. Already at 63,000 pieces, this next section added another 40,000 pieces and tested the limits of the Stud.io program and their computer.

211220_MCRN Donnager Hangar 1-45 B Floor ft_13_1

This builder has an unmatched dedication to this fandom and I, for one, am here for it. I mean, the attention to detail that Mocking_brick puts into their ships goes above and beyond anything I’ve seen. I can’t wait to see what else they manage to finish. Given the size of their creations, it makes sense that they jump around projects for a little while. Patience is a virtue, though, and these builds are worth the wait.

“Careful with my ship, Wrecker...”

Continuing his line of midi-scale LEGO Star Wars ships, FlyInSpace has built anĀ Omicron-class attack shuttle. Specifically, it’s the Havoc Marauder – the flagship and mobile base of Clone Force 99, the Bad Batch, which LEGO also released as an official set, 75314 Bad Batch Attack Shuttle. There is nothing Bad about this fan-built model though! A singular wedge element is used upside down for the angular cockpit, and it’s the perfect piece for it. There’s some great texturing in the wings and body of the ship as well, with ski poles, ingots and roller skates used to give some added detail at this small scale. The edges of the solar panel wings are very well done with clips and bars (albeit with some fragile-looking connections). Perhaps that’s why Wrecker needs to be so careful with it!

Havoc Marauder - Main View

LEGO Star Wars 75221 Imperial Landing Craft revealed [News]

Today we’re getting a first look at another of the upcoming Star Wars line. LEGO Star Wars set 75221 Imperial Landing Craft features the troop carrier landing on Tatooine. It’s a scene not pictured in the films, as Obi-Wan Kenobi and R2-D2 fend off the Imperial Sandtroopers. This is the second LEGO Imperial Land Craft, following a similarly scaled but less accurate version in 2007, 7659 Imperial Landing Craft. The set includes 5 minifigures: a Sandtrooper Squad Leader, Sandtrooper, Imperial Shuttle Pilot, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and R2-D2.

Click to see more images of the Imperial Landing Craft

NASA’s workhorse: the Crawler Transport

It’s 3.5 miles from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launchpad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. It was quite the feat to figure out how to transport a moon rocket from point its assembly point to the launch site, since rockets weigh QUITE a bit. The solution? The crawler-transport. This workhorse of NASA’s fleet moves a stunning 1 mile per hour, and uses over 100 gallons of diesel fuel per mile when fully loaded. The crawler transport goes under the mobile launch platform; the vehicle is assembled on top. Then the crawler goes on its merry way to the launchpad, and off it goes.

These beauties are massive, and dorian glacet brings us his fabulous version along with a modified orbiter from 60080 Spaceport. He’s extended the shuttle, fuel tank, and boosters, which give the whole build a better sense of scale.

Shuttle 01