The newest addition to the grand list of Coolest Things Ever is being unveiled in New York today: the Lego X-Wing, the largest Lego model ever built. The model of the classic Star Wars fighter being unveiled in Times Square has a wingspan of 44 feet and comes complete with R2-D2 and a full range of sound effects. It’s a super-duper-sized version of Star Wars Lego starfighter set #9493 and was made with 5,335,200 Lego bricks. That, according to Lego, makes it the largest model ever built, eclipsing the Lego robot at the Mall of America by some 2 million bricks. This replica of the Rebel Alliance dogfighter is 42 times the size of the Lego version we’ve all built and a bit bigger than a real X-Wing. (Yes, yes, we know they’re not real. Just go with it.) The X-Wing Luke Skywalker and his fellow rebels flew was about 41 feet long, 2 feet shorter than this Lego masterpiece. The X-Wing was built at the Lego Model Shop at the company’s facility in Kladno, Czech Republic. It took 32 “master builders” (Note: This is a real job, and we’re preparing our resumés.) 17,336 man-hours to construct the X-Wing.
Plans for the model were created using Lego’s proprietary 3-D design software, and the construction team had to work with a team of structural engineers to ensure that the model was safe, master builder Erik Varszegi told Wired. “This has been a wild and exciting project for us, and it’s taken an international team of designers, engineers, structural consultants, model builders, and logistics personal over a year to bring this model from a conception to reality,” Varszegi said in an email. “In one respect, designing it was the ‘easy’ part, as we were creating a scaled version of an actual toy construction set.” Once completed, the model — which weighs 45,980 pounds — was broken down into 34 pieces to be shipped to New York by boat (the voyage took two boats two months to complete). Lest the West Coast feel left out, the starfighter is coming to Legoland California after its tenure in Times Square and will remain there until the end of the year. Twenty-three tons is a whole lot of anything, especially Lego bricks, but much of the model’s weight lies in the model’s steel skeleton, which it needed in order to withstand the vibrations from the subway that runs beneath Duffy Square in Manhattan and any seismic activity it could face in Southern California.
While a slightly larger-than-lifesize Lego X-Wing would be awesome even if were made for no particular reason at all, the model was built to celebrate the forthcoming premiere of the latest Lego Star Wars series The Yoda Chronicles — a three-part animated miniseries launching on Cartoon Network next Wednesday. That’s the official reason this was built, but we wouldn’t be surprised if Lego made this thing just for the thrill. “My fellow Master Builders and I are always looking for a challenge — and for projects that push our skills to the next level,” Varszegi said. The team chose the X-Wing because it “is one of the most iconic vehicles in the Star Wars universe and the sheer size and scope of the building and engineering challenges was one we couldn’t resist.” We’re awaiting the day these Lego master builders create a Death Star for this X-Wing to annihilate.By Ramón and Amador Alfaro Marcilla.Contact 1: The Millennial Celebration of the Eternal Choir at K’al Yne, Odan (2013).
By Mike Doyle.Guardian Heavy (2011). By Aaron Williams.Hello (2013). By Chris McVeigh.Victorian on Mud Heap (2011). By Mike Doyle.The Doll (2008). By Ramón and Amador Alfaro Marcilla.CubeDudes [Abe Lincoln] (2009–2010). By Angus MacLane.Bradley the Blue Jay (2012). By Thomas Poulsom.Cetanclass Baseship (2012). By Garry King.Flower Petal Study (2002). By Katie Walker.Three Story Victorian with Tree (2011). By Mike Doyle.Harley Davidsons (2011). By Dennis Glaasker.Mirage (2012). By Nannan Zhang & Tyler Clites.LEGO Treats (2010). In his new book, Beautiful LEGO, Mike Doyle has curated more than 200 pages of the world’s best Lego art. From museum-ready sculptures to indulgent geek references, the book highlights the impressive evolution of the legendary toy. “Every year this stuff gets more and more intricate and the technique gets better, so I thought it would be great to celebrate the merits of the medium,” says Doyle, who is also a Lego artist and includes some of his own work in the book.
A graphic designer by day, Doyle re-discovered Legos four years ago after visiting Legoland with his two sons and then cruising around the internet to see what other people were doing. After a lot of research on technique, he tackled his first project. It was 2009 and the housing crisis was in full swing, so he decided to make an abandoned and decaying house. It took him hundreds of hours to complete, but he was hooked. Now he spends months building larger and larger houses that have an increasing amount of detail and several hundred thousand pieces. The appeal for Doyle is the ability to “go beyond the medium.” At some point, he says Legos stop being the subject, and instead just become a tool. Like a painter seeing beyond the paint to envision the painting. He calls it a kind of “transcendence.” Much of the other art in Beautiful LEGO also breaks boundaries, not getting hung up on the bricks themselves. One artist, Nathan Sawaya, uses Legos to create Dali-esque statues that are intricate and perception-bending.
Katie Walker builds mosaics like the kinds you might see on the floor of the Alhambra in Spain. Earlier this year Lego built a life-sized Star Wars X-Wing fighter from 5,335,200 individual bricks. It was 11 feet tall, 43 feet long 44 feet wide, and weighed almost 46,000 pounds. It was an amazing feat of Lego construction, but the artists featured in Beautiful LEGO show that finesse can be just as impressive as scale. In his series CubeDudes, Angus MacLane keeps the pieces to a minimum but builds beautiful portraits of famous figures like Abraham Lincoln, Smokey Bear or Spock. Like clever 8-bit art, MacLane boils these figures down to their essence and in doing so makes them immediately recognizable. The same is true for Thomas Poulsom who builds simple but elegant birds and for the artist known as MisaQa, who made an entire series of snails with just a handful of pieces. On the technical side, there are artists like Dennis Glaasker, who builds chrome-covered replicas of Harley Davidsons and old hot rods that would make car and motorcycle enthusiasts drool.
Arthur Gugick has taken on the gargantuan task of using Legos to recreate historical and fictional structures like Angkor Wat or the Tower of Babel. Doyle called for submissions from around the world. Since he couldn’t send a photographer everywhere, he asked artists to submit their own photos, which he then cleaned up. “I often brought in a colored backdrop which gave it an atmosphere and created a uniform look,” he says. For Doyle, photography is essential to his Lego art because his creations are often just temporary. He’ll build them, make a nice photograph and then tear them down so he can start on the next. This is because large structures can get exorbitantly expensive. (an eBay for Legos) but each one costs between five and ten cents and you can do the math if each house features several thousand bricks. Doyle says the book, which is out now, is by no means completely comprehensive, just his view of the contemporary Lego art world. It acts as a historical document, and judging by the breakneck pace of Lego art, it will be quickly outdated.