Interview with Star Wars helmet designers
A few days ago LEGO announced a new Star Wars™ product line aimed specifically at adult fans. The first sets in this line are Star Wars helmet building sets. HispaBrick Magazine was offered the opportunity to interview the LEGO designers who worked on the Star Wars helmets. Specifically, we talked to Niels Mølgård Frederiksen, designer,Jens Kronvold Frederiksen, design director, creative lead, and César Carvalhosa Soares, Designer. We teamed up with James Burns from Jedinews to ask them a few questions about the design process.
HBM: Why?was it?decided to create an adult line for LEGO Star Wars?
Jens Kronvold Frederiksen
Jens: Even though we primarily make LEGO sets for children, we know that there are a lot of adults that appreciate Star Wars and LEGO Star Wars.
We have always offered special products mainly targeted that audience, like our Ultimate Collector Series and Master Builder models. But we thought it could be great to add to this something as iconic as these helmets.
HBM: How did you settle on the helmet concept?
Jens: We experimented with several model concepts, but early in the process we saw that this helmet concept had a huge potential.
The Star Wars stories are character driven, and many of these characters wear cool and iconic looking helmets! And with the scale and size of these LEGO Star Wars helmets, we can make highly detailed models that are easy to display.
HBM: Why?did you choose these three?particular helmets?
Jens: We picked these three helmets out of a series of prototypes we developed. We wanted to make three helmets that were well known, worked well as LEGO models and were visually different in both shape and color.
HBM: Would you revisit Darth Vader’s?helmet at some point? Very few people were able to get the Celebration/Target exclusive set from 2019.
Jens: We know of course that Darth Vader and his very recognizable helmet is a popular subject. As you might expect, we cannot say anything about future products, you will have to be patient and wait and see!
HBM: What challenges did you encounter during?the design of these helmets?
Niels Mølgård Frederiksen
Cesar: In the Stormtrooper helmet it was the eyes. They needed to be in the right shape but also angled across the sides of the face. In the TIE Fighter helmet the most challenging was the hoses. We really wanted to incorporate them in the model and so we used train wheels and flexible tubing to achieve the final result. But I would say that, in general, getting the correct shape and proportions of all the helmets was very hard because of their organic nature.
HBM: No new elements were?created for the helmets; did that pose any issues??
Cesar: no, not at all. Actually, it is more fun and challenging to me personally to try and find solutions with existing pieces instead of relying on new elements. Of course, that there are instances were a new element is really needed, but the LEGO element portfolio is so vast that usually it is not an issue to find a suitable way to design a set.
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