One of the fascinating new craft flying from the latest Star Wars film is Kylo Ren’s personal starfighter, the TIE Silencer. Mirko Soppelsa built this intimidating, TIE Interceptor-like craft in similar scale to official Ultimate Collector Series LEGO sets like the Millennium Falcon and Slave I. I’m confident Kylo Ren would be pleased with this simply amazing model.
See more photos of this large-scale LEGO TIE Silencer
The classics are always a favourite of mine and they never go out of style. Star Wars fan Miro Dudas takes a pick of some of the famous characters from various scenes of the original trilogy to build medium scaled versions of their minifigure constructs. We’ve got the whole family together, and then some, from Lord Vader, to the twins Luke and Leia, and the dynamic duo Han and Chewie. My favourite of the lot is controversial scene of Han Solo and Greedo showdown, what’s yours?
Click here to see the rest of the characters!
Star Wars celebrated its fortieth birthday last year, which was when this beautiful forced perspective by Jme Wheeler was built, within a 40-part series of builds for the Blocks magazine, telling the whole story of A New Hope.
I love the colours in the sky and the micro version of Mos Eisley is beautiful in its simplicity. The angle on the Millennium Falcon flying away is very expressive, with stormtroopers looking up at it, completing the scene.
Darth Vader is probably one of the most iconic fictional villains. Constantinos and Petros Nicolaou have built their own life-sized LEGO version of Darth Vader’s head. The brothers used 2712 bricks to construct the head of Darth Vader, complete with his instantly recognisable helmet with its triangular breathing apparatus. Building mainly in black is usually a trademark for Batman, but the brothers used curved and straight edge slopes to sculpt a great many details, despite the limited colour scheme.
I think this would be an ideal sculpture to be displayed in the hallway of your home, if you enjoy frightening visitors.
The finale of Rogue One involved the heist of the Death Star plans from the vault in the Scarif Citadel Tower. The building is an impressive spire of Imperial tech — recreated here in LEGO bricks by Paul Trach. This huge model is no less than 1.8m tall, and took six months to complete. What could have been some big slabs of dark grey is enlivened by excellent texturing and details, and Paul has lavished as much attention on the base as the towering structure itself — the central circular plaza and its asymmetric bridges are beautifully done.
I like the way Paul has placed plenty of minifigures around the model, creating the impression of a bustling Imperial outpost. Do I spy a lonely Director Krennic all the way up at the top there? I think I do. And this view of a trooper squad shows the nice variety of figures employed, and gives a closer look at the excellent brickwork involved in creating Scarif’s signature tropical beaches…
Of all the awesome and hilarious mashups LEGO builders have brought us over the years, my favorite just might be the Fabuland/Star Wars mashup by Terovision, whose Fabuland Millennium Falcon we featured last year. In this latest scene, police bulldog flies a blue and yellow TIE fighter Inspektor Dogge chases down Clive Crocodile, who looks to be making a worthy escape on a jet-powered hover-board of some sort. The icing on the cake of this brightly hued treat is the hand-drawn backdrop.
Star Wars fans who wish to purchase 2018 sets should be aware that Amazon.com have 20% discount on selected Star Wars 2018 sets. If you are uncertain about which set to buy, we have already reviewed 75202 The Last Jedi: Defense of Crait and 75201 First Order AT-ST.
The following sets are showing 20% discount when purchased from Amazon.com:
75197 First Order Specialists Battle Pack $11.99 (RRP $14.99)
75198 Tatooine Battle Pack $11.99(RRP $14.99)
75199 General Grievous’ Combat Speeder $23.99 (RRP $29.99)
75201 First Order AT-ST $31.99 (RRP $39.99)
75202 Defense of Crait $67.99 (RRP $84.99)
The 2017 game Star Wars Battlefront II allows players to experience Star Wars battles unlike what is seen on the big screen. First Order Lego captures a snapshot of such freedom with a diorama of the Battle of Crait. The layer of salt carpeting the red soil and crystal underneath is textured well, with cracks and unevenness throughout upon closer look.
Click to see more of the Battle of Crait
I love me a good micro build, especially from the Star Wars franchise. This microscale T-47 speeder is one build that seems like it was transformed by a magical miniaturisation ray-gun that hit the 75144 UCS Snowspeeder. This makes me feel like building a bunch of these just to take down an AT-AT. Well, wait no more, because here are the engineering plans graciously shared by Rebel leader Jme Wheeler.
See step-by-step instructions to build your own tiny snowspeeder
LEGO online store is showing that 75192 Star Wars UCS Millennium Falcon is back in stock and available to order once more for UK and EU customers, but expect the set to be gone quickly. Stock of the UCS Millennium Falcon has been limited since its launch last year, sadly it is still showing as out of stock online for our US and Canadian readers. This announcement is for our UK and EU readers!
For customers in the EU, just set your region to your country after clicking the link above. All EU countries are showing the UCS Millennium Falcon to be in stock currently.
Unsure whether you want to drop £649 on a LEGO set with 7,500 pieces? Check out our hands-on review of the new UCS Falcon.
I’ve always loved LEGO microscale building. It’s all about challenging yourself as a builder to find the simplest and smallest expression of something that remains immediately recognisable. Whilst not exactly regular “microscale building”, I set myself the same challenge with these creations, trying to depict iconic characters in a “minimalist domino” style, using as few pieces and colours as possible. I thought the heroes of the Rebellion would make for an appropriate line-up and I’m pleased with how they turned out…
Once I started building in this style I just couldn’t stop — it’s fun, but surprisingly challenging to capture the essence of well-known characters in so few pieces.
Click to see more minimalist characters
As part of an ongoing mini-tour to support our Ultimate LEGO Star Wars book from DK, Chris Malloy and I will be guests at the Powell’s Books location in Beaverton, Oregon next Saturday, Jan 20th at 2:00 PM. We’ll be doing a panel discussion moderated by one of our LEGO friends from PortLUG, a Q&A, and book signing.
Andrew at Powell’s City of Books in downtown Portland. Andrew and Chris really need to get a photo taken together…
Powell’s Books is the world’s largest independent bookstore, and I’ve been buying books from Powell’s in Portland my whole life. It’s a little surreal to be doing an author event with Chris there now! You can read all of the Beaverton event details on Powells.com, including a pre-order of a signed copy.
For LEGO Star Wars fans closer to our home base here in Seattle, Chris and I also be doing author events at two Third Place Books locations in Seattle (Ravenna and Seward Park) in February, so stay tuned for more details.