Tag Archives: The Expanse

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.

Remember the Cant

Fans of the TV show The Expanse will recognize this sleek vessel. Named by James Holden after Don Quixote’s horse, described in the book as a “stubby black wedge of metal” and visualized in the show as a lean, mean fighting machine, the Rocinante is a former MCRN Corvette Class ship previously known as the TachiJulie vanderMeulen had been mulling over building a LEGO version since seeing the show earlier this year. She decided to go with 2/3 minifig-scale to make it a nice, even 100 studs long.

Roci over Jupiter

As a proof of concept, she built the drive cone and then shelved it for a while. When she finally decided to give it a go, it just so happened to be the same day SHIPtember 2017 was announced, so she ended up speed building the whole model — and it is gorgeous! Julie has captured the Roci in all her glory, heavily armored and heavily armed — every detail has been stunningly sculpted in LEGO.

SHIPtember 2017: Rocinante

In the words of James Holden, “As long as we’re living and breathing, there’s more we can do. We just have to be strong enough.”