We’ve often remarked that you don’t have to have a lot of pieces to build great LEGO creations, and this microscale Millennium Falcon and Cloud City from Star Wars by gGh0st are perfect examples. They’re also an excellent use for those cloud plates, which look much more realistic here than they usually do, and help integrate the two different scales of the ship and mining colony to create a forced perspective scene. I would love to see LEGO release little sets like this for $10 or so.
When it comes to making LEGO Star Wars builds, one of my favourite things to make is the smaller, one-man craft. Partly because it’s less parts-intensive (and therefore usually cheaper!), but also because of the challenge. Making an accurate model while retaining a modicum of structural integrity is not always easy. And on top of that, they need to fit a minifigure pilot! Or a battle droid, in this case. This is where parts like the wands from Harry Potter sets come in handy. Once I picked up a couple of those and the candle-stick pieces to form the cannons of these Single Trooper Aerial Platforms (STAPs), the rest of the build flowed quickly from there. It’s funny how one or two pieces can dictate the entirety of a build, even small ones.
General Grievous’s ship from Star Wars gets some love in this great LEGO build from Fuku Saku. Known as Soulless One, the ship is a customized starfighter that features some slick lines. This build makes plentiful use of curved LEGO pieces and tiles to keep the shaping true to the ship’s design. The clean appearance allows our eyes to pass over the ship’s lines with ease. The orange and yellow details draw us to them, breaking up the overall grey of the ship. I particularly love the construction of the orange and yellow sections that join the wings to the main body. These are typically more muted, but in this build they’re brighter, making the ship feel a little bit like a hotrod. Looking at this build, the ship looks sleek and fast–I’d love to see this thing with some racing upgrades for a galactic contest.
Take a quick peek inside the cockpit to gander at Grievous’s controls. It’s a truly spectacular culmination of angles creating that cabin-sized cavity.
While it is true we all soiled our collective Beskar pants at the awesomeness that is The Mandalorian’s new hot-rodded N-1 Starfighter, it’s nice to see someone show a little love for the original version. Ciamosław Ciamek has rendered a handsome LEGO N-1 in its original yellow and gray (chrome if you squint) color scheme. Artoo sits in his Astromech station while cute little Anakin pilots the craft before he got all huge and brooding. It’s certainly one of the more stand-out designs from the Clone Wars era.
Season three of The Mandalorian dropped about a week ago. And to celebrate the return of our favorite perma-helmed hero, Jez Williams has provided this slick remake of Mando’s helmet in LEGO bricks. The lines are very clean here, despite being more compact than the official LEGO set. It really shows a mastery of all kinds of curved slopes and tiles. The half-plate offset to the ridge over the top is most impressive, as are the cheekbone insets in the face that match so well with the rest of the model. But my favorite part, intentional or not, is how much the base reminds me of the Armorer’s forge from season one.
One of the great things about the podracers in Star Wars is that it’s quite easy to put a creative spin on it. Two massive engines, link it to a cockpit with some flimsy cables, and voila! Having said that, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an Imperial podracer like Rubblemaker‘s here. Using the TIE fighter’s signature ball cockpit as the pod is really clever (and probably safer than the open cockpits some other podracers have). The engines also take some design cues from the Empire’s main starfighter. Like the cockpit it just seems like such a natural design choice, but I’m not sure I would have thought of it!
I think there’s a strong case to be made that no vehicle has been built in LEGO form more than the Millennium Falcon. There are dozens of official sets and countless more custom creations, but very few of them look as smooth as this Midi-Scale rendition by FlyInSpace. This near-studless Star Wars spaceship achieves it’s look thanks to plenty of overlapping panels connected via lots of clever Studs Not On Top construction. This is an especially impressive feat when you consider how thin the model is. And, while this ship might not be large enough for a minifigure crew, it still contains plenty of functionality, including landing gear and an openable boarding ramp.
These micro vehicles by Fuku Saku really make me nostalgic for those mini kits in the classic LEGO Star Wars games! There’s just something about small Star Wars spaceships that brings so much joy. It’s probably how unique the ship designs are, especially from the Clone Wars era. Take for instance the Naboo starfighter (the bright yellow ship), with its sleek and shiny look. Then there’s the Wookie catamaran (the second ship in the top row) with its more natural appearance–quite unique! Now, not all of these are spaceships–some are planet-side machines like walkers and cannons, but they’re still standouts in designs. Their colors help with that! I’d love to see all of these vehicles set up in a big display or diorama.
I’ve seen a lot of Star Wars LEGO creations over the ten-plus years I’ve been writing for The Brothers Brick, and after awhile many of them start to blur together. This little diorama by Abe Fortier caught my eye though, and not because of the urban industrial architecture (which is well done) or the carefully textured base (which is also well done). Instead, it’s the graffiti that covers the walls of this Imperial base on Lothal. The brick-built portraits of a Rebel pilot and bloody stormtrooper are perfect pieces of Rebel propaganda that are so rarely seen on screen.
LEGO builder Tim Goddard proves you don’t need a metric ton of bricks to present an epic scene from Star Wars. Here this cute little N-1 Starfighter has equally cute Vulture Droids on its tail. It’s a dicey predicament to be sure but I have faith in the N-1 pilot (is it Anakin?) and their ability to get out of any sticky situation. Tim Goddard has gotten into plenty of sticky situations as of late and somehow most ended up tiny and cute. Click the tiny and cute blue link to see what I mean.
Greg Dalink is a builder on a mission. For the last couple of years, Greg’s been outfitting the bounty hunters from The Empire Strikes Back with themed mechs that would make Tony Stark swoon. Greg’s latest proved to be a bit of a challenge. Unlike his fellow bounty hunters, Dengar isn’t a Mandalorian, or a lizard person, or a cool droid. He’s just some dude with some bandages on his head. So Greg kept to Dengar’s color scheme, but let the build move beyond the usual “giant robot version of the character.” The result is a Dieselpunk-style walker with an incredible arsenal on its back – everything from missiles to a couple of old pirate cannons. Now I kinda regret calling Dengar “just a dude with some bandages.” No hard feelings, right, Dengar? Old buddy? Pal? Yikes…
In a LEGO Star Wars universe of Endor, Andor and lovable robots, Stuart N takes us off-off-off world to a lesser-known location with this diorama called The Assault on Kobaria. Kobaria, as we all know, is from that one…thing we really, really like. It features that one guy we love and the other guy, too. And let’s not overlook that one hover-tank-spaceship-y thingie that I’m definitely not drawing a blank on—so don’t get that idea in your heads! Kobaria is home to the Kobarian swamp dogs so that certainly clears everything up. OK, you got me. Look, maybe I’m not as well-versed in the Star Wars expanded universe as I can be but even Wookieepedia wasn’t much help here so you can’t blame a guy for trying. Still, I know a cool LEGO creation when I see one and this is pretty cool. So either show me up on your extensive knowledge of Kobaria in the comments or take a deep dive into our Star Wars archives, whichever floats your hovertank.
