Book Review: EA Lego Space Projects. Jeff Friesen.
Images from the PDF
When I got the news of this new book my mouth watered remembering the Micro Cities book that I enjoyed so much delighting in those small but so accurate details. This time it will be about the book Lego Space Projects by the same author Jeff Friesen.
Let’s remember that building with Lego is something so creative that many of us affirm without fear of being wrong that it is a means of expression and infinite art. As the author rightly says at the end of the prologue, quoting a few words of the artist Maya Angelou:
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
But when we talk about the micro scale? Oh friends, everything gets very complicated! Creativity is not exhausted, of course, but the way in which we can execute it is limited by the scale itself, size matters. That’s where those masters of the micro stand out and amaze us time and time again with their delightful constructions. Jeff Friesen is undoubtedly one of those masters of the micro scale. At the beginning he makes a brief analysis of spaceship design, introducing concepts such as Greebles, or winged models, as well as those retro-futuristic models that many of us grew up with when we saw a comic drawing or a scene on television.
In addition to the references of parts used in its models, it introduces an emphasis on those "big bricks" to obtain such successful designs.
After all this Jeff guides the reader who may not be AFOL (Adult fan of Lego) where to buy bricks to start designing, playing and ultimately experience this world that has us hooked. Bricklink.com, Lego.com… Then we get down to business. 52 detailed models of spaceships, some of which are inspired by real models as well as others in science fiction models. Two very clear examples of what we can find that you can see below:
I don’t think it’s necessary to point out which of them is based on a real model and which is not :). It should be noted that each model is indicated with a difficulty level ranging from Easy to Tricky, the complete exploded view, the construction steps and a table of data in which appear for example, the type of ship, how many crew members are in it, the type of propulsion, if it has defenses and armament, even who is the manufacturer! It’s a book that can be a visual entertainment book as well as a “work” book, to get hands-on and enjoy building your models. I especially loved building the model on page 24. A sort of Moon Buggy with the ability to become a drone in a very clever way, it is not trivial the precise choice and accuracy of these pieces to achieve the final model. All the models are along the same lines.
Building something so beautiful, and above all playable seems particularly amazing to me. I love the resolution, the pieces used, as well as the lines obtained.
To top it all off, he shows us a “greeble” model which apparently seems to have a lot of pieces and yet it only has.... ¡18!
Amazing addition of the Bounce Buggy to the Greeble Guru. There are no words.
To purchase this publication we can do it on the website of the publisher. We will find the possibility of buying it in paper or in pdf format.
https://nostarch.com/lego-space-projects
We thank No Starch Press for sending the pdf for review in this review. Of course the opinions expressed in this article are ours alone and are therefore not shared or endorsed by No Starch Press or the LEGO Group.
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