Feb 5, 2008 09:30 AM
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Instead of building a huge Millennium Falcon out of thousands of LEGO pieces, Tim Goddard decided to use a thousands of LEGO blocks to create 200 Star Wars mini-sets, from Star Destroyers to TIE Interceptors and Snow Speeders. He then uses these mini-scale make famous movie scenes, including the Battle of Hoth, the Millennium Falcon inside the Death Star and the race through the tunnels of Death Star II. The level of abstraction while keeping "apparent" detail is amazing at this scale. Interview and huge (I mean, HUGE) galleries after the jump.
Jesús Díaz: How many of these constructions do you have? It looks like a gigantic fleet.
Tim Goddard: I've got about 200 mini vehicles of varing size. Most of the stuff I'm building right now is in a scale of 1cm : 2m so it's mainly starfighters and Imperial walker type stuff. I've built 6 dioramas in plastic domes to this scale to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars last year, one for each film.
I've also got a fleet of capital ships at a scale of 1cm : 6m. These battle ships have been inspired by (and to fight against!) the official 'Ultimate Collectors' set made by Lego of the Imperial Star Destroyer.
JD: LEGO has some old Star Wars micro-sets like yours... do you think they should release more of this micro-scale sets for creating vast squadrons of spaceships, to create "tin-soldier"-like dioramas, like you do? I'm thinking in a massive Death Star trench here...
TG: That would be great! Unfortunatley LEGO isn't making any of these sets right now, but there are rumours that we will see the return of this line in the summer. I think there would be a big market for mini Star Wars LEGO... who wouldn't want Darth Vader's TIE dogfighting with an X-wing on your desk? And there are loads of fans who would love to have some dioramas, there are so many classic moments from the films just waiting to be made.
JD: How do you reach to these super-simplified constructions? Do you do some planning first or you go straight for it?
TG: Just go for it! Well, mostly. Loads of reference pictures are essential and I often use an architect's ruler in the scale I'm working in; making the dimensions as accurate as possible is key to getting the look (but you can't help a bit of chunkiness, this is LEGO after all!) It can take ages to get the smallest model to look just right, endlessly taking it apart and putting it back together again.
JD: Yeah, I can imagine... how long have you been doing LEGO?
TG: Pretty much all my life. Space Lego was my favorite as a kid, and when they released Star Wars LEGO it was a match made in heaven! I've been making my own custom Star Wars stuff for maybe 5 years but I've always enjoyed building.
[Flickr via Brothers Brick]
Send an email to Jesus Diaz, the author of this post, at jesus@gizmodo.com.
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