18,000-Piece LEGO Enterprise is Smoother Than Captain Kirk

StewShearerOld

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Jan 5, 2013
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18,000-Piece LEGO Enterprise is Smoother Than Captain Kirk


LEGO builder Chris Melby has created an 18,000 piece version of the Starship Enterprise with a studless hull.

One of the things that you generally have to accept when working with LEGO bricks is that most everything you build is going to have a healthy layer of plastic pimples covering it. That being the case, there are some LEGO builders who endeavor to conceal the studded nature of their building materials. Take, for instance, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/lego>LEGO fan Chris Melby. A veteran builder, he recently released a series of photos showcasing off his recreation of the Starship Enterprise as seen in the J.J Abrams <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/7335-Star-Trek-Into-Darkness>Star Trek films.

Utilizing an estimated 18,000 bricks it measures 68 inches long, 29 inches wide and 32 inches tall when set on its base. The saucer portion of the ship is also 29 inches in diameter. As impressive as its size is however, its niftiest quality is easily how smooth it is. Through hard and careful work, Melby was able to completely conceal the model's studs so that its exterior more closely resembles the sleek look of the Enterprise as seen in the recent movies. The key to its overall success according to Melby, was layering. "I realized that to truly capture the essence of something complex with bricks, it would have to be with layers," he wrote in <a href=http://www.zmasterbrick.com/enterprise.html>a blog post. "So, with that idea in hand, I slaved back and forth...until I was finally satisfied I had represented this iconic vessel."

According to Melby, it took "about 8 months" of concentrated build time to assemble and complete his version of the Enterprise. We feel safe in saying that it was work well spent. While perhaps not <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134987-Star-Wars-Star-Destroyer-Recreated-in-40-000-Piece-LEGO-Build>as epically mammoth as some of the other space ship builds we've seen, this take on the Enterprise is impressive in its own unique way. If nothing else, it certainly beats the hell out of the <a href=http://www.amazon.com/KRE-O-U-S-S-Enterprise-Construction-A3137/dp/B00A88B16Q/ref=sr_1_2?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1422911047&sr=1-2&keywords=kre+o+star+trek&pebp=1422911052144&peasin=B00A88B16Q>KRE-O version the famous ship.
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Source: <a href=http://www.zmasterbrick.com/enterprise.html>ZMasterBrick


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flying_whimsy

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Dec 2, 2009
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I didn't quite understand the scale of the thing until I got to some of the close up pictures and started recognizing individual pieces. Holy crap that is a lot of lego. I would love to see how that thing was built.

Still doesn't beat that star destoryer, but that the smoothness is a feat in itself.
 
Sep 14, 2009
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flying_whimsy said:
I didn't quite understand the scale of the thing until I got to some of the close up pictures and started recognizing individual pieces. Holy crap that is a lot of lego. I would love to see how that thing was built.

Still doesn't beat that star destoryer, but that the smoothness is a feat in itself.
yeah those first pictures are really difficult to tell scale wise, but once you look up close and see the picture of him tweaking it towards the end it really shows how big this thing is.

quite impressive with the smoothness indeed all things considered, another 2000 dollar lego set I'll never have :p
 

Lightspeaker

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flying_whimsy said:
I didn't quite understand the scale of the thing until I got to some of the close up pictures and started recognizing individual pieces. Holy crap that is a lot of lego. I would love to see how that thing was built.
Yeah I wasn't sure either until I plugged the dimensions into google. Then my eyes popped out at seeing that that thing is more than five and a half feet long and two and a half feet high.
 

CrystalShadow

don't upset the insane catgirl
Apr 11, 2009
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Lightspeaker said:
flying_whimsy said:
I didn't quite understand the scale of the thing until I got to some of the close up pictures and started recognizing individual pieces. Holy crap that is a lot of lego. I would love to see how that thing was built.
Yeah I wasn't sure either until I plugged the dimensions into google. Then my eyes popped out at seeing that that thing is more than five and a half feet long and two and a half feet high.
That's about the size of the actual Enterprise D model they used in TNG for filming...
And they made a smaller one because it was too hard to work with... XD


It's certainly an impressive piece of construction, getting it to look like that. Very hard to do.
(Also am I seeing things or are the front of the warp nacelles not actually lego? Looks like a pair of those rubber bouncy balls shoved in there...)
 

StewShearerOld

Geekdad News Writer
Jan 5, 2013
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CrystalShadow said:
Lightspeaker said:
flying_whimsy said:
I didn't quite understand the scale of the thing until I got to some of the close up pictures and started recognizing individual pieces. Holy crap that is a lot of lego. I would love to see how that thing was built.
Yeah I wasn't sure either until I plugged the dimensions into google. Then my eyes popped out at seeing that that thing is more than five and a half feet long and two and a half feet high.
That's about the size of the actual Enterprise D model they used in TNG for filming...
And they made a smaller one because it was too hard to work with... XD


It's certainly an impressive piece of construction, getting it to look like that. Very hard to do.
(Also am I seeing things or are the front of the warp nacelles not actually lego? Looks like a pair of those rubber bouncy balls shoved in there...)
Those are actually micro-scale planet Endor pieces from a LEGO Star Wars set.
 

CrystalShadow

don't upset the insane catgirl
Apr 11, 2009
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StewShearer said:
CrystalShadow said:
Lightspeaker said:
flying_whimsy said:
I didn't quite understand the scale of the thing until I got to some of the close up pictures and started recognizing individual pieces. Holy crap that is a lot of lego. I would love to see how that thing was built.
Yeah I wasn't sure either until I plugged the dimensions into google. Then my eyes popped out at seeing that that thing is more than five and a half feet long and two and a half feet high.
That's about the size of the actual Enterprise D model they used in TNG for filming...
And they made a smaller one because it was too hard to work with... XD


It's certainly an impressive piece of construction, getting it to look like that. Very hard to do.
(Also am I seeing things or are the front of the warp nacelles not actually lego? Looks like a pair of those rubber bouncy balls shoved in there...)
Those are actually micro-scale planet Endor pieces from a LEGO Star Wars set.
Oh, those. Now that you mention it, I do remember all of those tiny star wars sets that came in these mini planet spheres...