In a Star Trek world of Enterprises and Klingon Birds of Prey, sometimes it’s the little ships that mean a lot. Take this LEGO Shuttlecraft built by Horace Worblehat for example. It’s expertly crafted and certainly takes me back to classic Star Trek episodes. This little craft has taken these two crewmembers to parts unknown. What will harangue them next? Will it be a ferocious Gorn or a hideous Salt Vampire? One thing for certain is one of these guys will escape by the skin of their teeth and the other will die a horrible yet amusing death. It’s the Redshirt, by the way. It’s always the Redshirt.
As intimidating as the Borg can be in Star Trek, the Next Generation, I still recommend lowering the shields for this gorgeous LEGO transmission by Pandis Pandus. It’s a stellar example of what we in the brick-building business call “greebling.” But unlike the Borg, don’t let this technical lingo scare you. Think of it as a “technical texture,” all pipes and tubes and grills serving some nondescript purpose on a spacecraft. And unlike the smooth exterior of a ship like the Enterprise, all these bumps and ridges don’t play nice with aerodynamics and the need to enter a planet’s atmosphere. On fact, you should use it on your next build -no, on EVERY build from now on. Assimilate. Assimilate.
Set your phasers to positively delighted because LEGO builder Kevin J. Walter has a duo of 1:1 scale Trek tech for you to dork out over. First up is a Tricorder used to sense data, record data, and analyze said data. Star Trek medics use special Tricorders to help diagnose diseases and collect bodily information about a patient while the engineering Tricorder is used for…well, engineering purposes. Captain Kirk mostly used his to categorize hot space babes that he made out with. I like the attention to detail here and it looks as if you can fold it up and stow it in your Star Trek uniform that somehow had no pockets.
Next is a Type II Phaser for shooting space baddies who were not cool with Captain Kirk or anyone else (especially Kirk) making out with their babes. Unless you count a smartphone and a taser, we have to wait a couple of centuries until we can have such cool tech. In the meantime, check out why Kevin J. Walter continues to impress us dorks with his masterful LEGO work.
When you’re looking to join the Federation, be sure to ask for Tim Goddard‘s USS Goldsmith by name. This Overture class starship’s crew specializes in first contact and related negotiations. It also specializes in some high-grade LEGO building techniques to create the seamless front saucer section and iconic nacelles. One of my favorite details are the Technic gears just barely visible under the transparent neon orange domes, a nice nod to the classic Enterprise model’s visual effects.
Okay, Star Trek fans, yours truly (Christopher Burden) here with something fresh! For the last few years my best friend Capn.Brickard and I have been exchanging custom models for birthdays and holidays. We love giving each other a challenge, and this year I had my work cut out for me. Out of three options that he gave, I chose to take on La Sirena from the 2020 Star Trek spin-off Picard. Honestly, as soon as it was revealed, I wanted to build it, but at the time, I wasn’t quite ready to take it on — all the different angles and slopes, not to mention that accursed command deck.
This new LEGO creation by Mikael Montelius features all your favorites from Star Trek: The Next Generation. From left to right we have Wesley and Beverly Crusher, Captain Picard, Data, LaForge, Riker, Troi and Worf. There aren’t many parts here but the likeness to each character is uncanny. I like that each shoulder is touching the next but is slightly askew. The base and the whole presentation makes for a handsome display that could adorn any desk or office. The formula is simple, yet brilliant. We’ve been smitten by Mikael’s work before but I can see this setting a trend for other builders to follow. Think about how this formula of characters on a neat linear display could work for other fun franchises like Star Wars, Marvel, DC Comics, Harry Potter or…The Human Centipede. Sorry. I’ll just let myself out.
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.
Ok, so not quite, but it is approximately eight feet in diameter, and I am only a little over six feet tall, so it is bigger than I am. And if I curled up around the central core between the docking pylons, I could probably fit. Thus, the title is not entirely hyperbolic. But I could wax hyperbolic about the eponymous space station from the Star Trek series Deep Space Nine, built by Adrian Drake from over 75,000 pieces, including an absurd amount of dark bluish grey. It took over two years to build, and I can see why.
NCC-2112 USS Jefferies may not be based on any particular ship in the official Star Trek canon, but it probably should be canon. I particularly like how Ben Smith designed the placement of the auxiliary engines swooping forward like a Klingon Bird of Prey instead of the traditional Star Trek ships we typically see. Points also scored for a primary hull that’s closely shaped like a saucer, as that’s as good as it’s going to get with the limitation of a LEGO build angles.
And if that isn’t cool enough, Ben’s made a secondary starship made for planetary exploration and landing.
There are many amazing Star Trek LEGO creations out there, as can be seen in our Star Trek archives. One would expect a proportional amount of average creations in the theme, but they seem to be very scarce, as if Star Trek attracts great builders like a magnet. Today’s magnetically charged builder is Kevin J. Walter, whom you might remember as the builder of a certain huge and nearly perfect Klingon Bird of Prey.
The build is stunning, capturing the shape of the iconic starship (especially the saucer!) perfectly, while simultaneously packing a lot of cool details. All the complex angles are done so cleanly, one would imagine the bricks were made for them. There is a moderate amount of photoshop included as well, notably the lit windows and the deflector. And if you want to put it into some context, here is a photo of the Enterprise encountering Kevin’s Bird of Prey.
The title doesn’t lie, because although this vessel by the name of USS Fontana may look like it flew straight out of one of the many Star Trek screenplays, Ben Smith has built what no man has built before, because this ship is actually of his own design. Complete with working lights and custom stickers, the builder has done an excellent job capturing the Star Trek aesthetic. The signature round body of the ship is expertly built; take note of the beautiful tan and sand green stripe around the bridge, which I imagine wasn’t easy to accomplish.
The back of the ship is fully detailed as well, with a hanger bay for research shuttles to launch from and explore the unknown planets below.
We’re probably gonna see more Trek builds than usual this year, it being the 30th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Such as this minifig scale Type 6 shuttle designed by Jerry builds LEGO, which captures the lines of this iconic vessel perfectly, thanks to deft use of some canopies probably from a Star Wars set (I’m not even gonna check, I assume it’s a Star Wars set, since there’s not exactly a shortage of those to choose from).
As an added treat, Mr Builds With LEGO has even put together this neat instructional video, showing you how to build one of these for yourself. I like the format of this video, in which each step is shown being built so you can easily follow along. The video doesn’t show which sets you’ll have to rip apart to get those lovely canopies, or how far you’ll have to search to find matching STNG minifigs — that’s an exercise left for the viewer.
Of course in the Star Trek universe, transporters are method of choice for getting from point A to point B. But if you think really hard about it they’re actually just giant death machines and the entire franchise is just the story of hoards of people (and their subsequent clones) willingly stepping into oblivion. So it’s no wonder there a few characters in the show actually opt to travel exclusively by shuttle craft. Slower, and more tedious, but at least it gets to you your destination without being bloody vaporized.
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![NCC-1701-A - U.S.S. Enterprise [Refit]](https://live.staticflickr.com/7874/46626519005_f694fb6db2_z.jpg)
![NCC-1701-A - U.S.S. Enterprise [Refit]](https://live.staticflickr.com/7825/46818268474_d9da058995_z.jpg)
