Star Wars Building Frenzy

So, barely 9 months after I attended my first ever LEGO event (The Great Western LEGO Show at STEAM last year) I'm preparing to actively participate in an event myself for the very first time. In less than two weeks, over the weekend of 16th and 17th July 2011, the Brickish Association (BA) will put on an exhibition of LEGO models at the UK's National Space Centre (NSC) in Leicester, in partnership with the LEGO company who will be promoting the LEGO City Space sets.

Given the location of the event, and the fact that this year marks a number of significant space-related anniversaries (apparently it's 50 years since Yuri Gagarin went into space and 30 years since the first Space Shuttle flight, for instance), there will be a distinctly space-themed flavour to the exhibition. Official LEGO space-related sets from down the years and also some spectacular creations designed by BA members will be on display, although there will also be some non space-related LEGO creations on show, for good measure.

The space theme has given me the perfect excuse to organise a display of LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series (UCS) sets for the event. This isn't just any display, however - if everything goes to plan, all 17 official UCS sets to date will be built and on display at NSC, as well as a selection of excellent unofficial UCS-style models. There will also be a large number of non-UCS Star Wars sets on display.

As well as organising the UCS display, I'll also be providing some of models for it. A number of intrepid fellow BA members have also stepped up and pledged to provide UCS models for the display, although some serious arm-twisting was needed to persuade someone to build, and more to the point transport, the huge UCS Millenium Falcon to the show..... Finally I was left with only Set 10143 Death Star II to find a builder for, and when no offers were forthcoming I bit the bullet and started to build it myself a few nights ago (work in progress picture below - click to enlarge). I'll post some more pics and a review of this unusual set in a future blog posting.

Set 10143 Death Star II - under construction.....

As well as the Death Star II, I'll also be taking Set 10212 Imperial Shuttle and Set 10026 Special Edition Naboo Starfighter to NSC.

Set 10212 Imperial Shuttle

Set 10026 Naboo Starfighter

In addition to the official UCS sets, there will also be some outstanding MOCs on display. I'm particularly indebted to Cavegod who, as well as promising to bring 4 of the official UCS sets including the Millenium Falcon, will also somehow be carting 10 or more of his amazing UCS MOCs to NSC. These include his stunning AT-AT (pic below - click to enlarge) which I've previously blogged about here, and his newest masterpiece - an enormous Sandcrawler which hasn't to my knowledge ever been shown before in public and which promises to be amazing. In addition to Cavegod's UCS creations, there'll be a number of other superb MOCs on display, including a rather lovely UCS Venator (pic below) which was the subject of another recent blog posting.

Cavedog's superb (and enormous) AT-AT

Unofficial UCS Venator

But if I still haven't whetted your appetite enough, maybe this'll help..... In September, LEGO will release Set 10221 Super Star Destroyer. This will be the 18th official UCS Star Wars set that LEGO have released since it all began in 1999, and I'm delighted to reveal that the model will be proudly on display at NSC alongside the 17 already-released official UCS sets, two months before it goes on sale. I expect to take delivery of the unassembled display model later this week, and I can't wait to dive in and start building ! I'll try and post some pics of the build together with my usual over-inclusive commentary before NSC, but if time defeats me I'll certainly aim to post something as soon as possible after the event, so watch this space....

Set 10221 UCS Super Star Destroyer - coming to NSC on 16th & 17th July

All this of course means that I'll be engaged in something of a nocturnal LEGO building frenzy for the next 2 weeks if I'm going to to get everything built in time, but who needs sleep when there's all that LEGO to be built ?!