It's one thing to build a model of the U.S.S. Enterprise from Star Trek with LEGO bricks. It's another to build it so that none of those signature LEGO studs show. It took builder extrodinaire Chris Melby eight months and around 18,000 pieces to make this five foot-long masterpiece a reality.
It takes a lot of layering, a lot of trickery and plenty of custom pieces to wind up with a LEGO model so smooth. It's like building a circle out of pixels — it takes a lot of pixels packed together to make those jagged edges fade away. And since LEGO bricks are much larger than your average pixel, what seems like it could be a small model in the photo above actually looks like this:
Get in close and the blockiness of the LEGO bits is still there. The point isn't to hide the medium from the viewer.
I'm pretty sure the real point to a lovely studless build is to ensure folks like me don't come along and start sticking Hot Dog Man minifigs all over the hull.
It's an incredibly elegant design — both the original ship and Chris' interpretation of it. I especially enjoy the use of Star Wars planet pieces as the blue warp nacelle energy globes.
The U.S.S. Enterprise, powered by Endor.
You can check out the rest of Chris' gallery and read more on the creation of this beauty over at his personal website.