THE EDF LIGHTNING (ALEX WILDSTAR'S SHIP)
I used to run home from school to watch "Star Blazers" on television. While it only appeared a few times, maybe two, the missile ship commanded by Alex Wildstar was a favorite of mine. It was the only Earth Defense Force ship that destroyed any Gamilon ships, during that fruitless first battle at Pluto.
I wanted to build it in Lego and decided to make the color scheme match the cartoon. That turned out to be the main challenge (along with some of the strange angles). The ship has large sections of red and yellow, but the worst problem was accuracy. I was able to capture images of the ship from a few angles and the line art at http://www.shipschematics.net was a great help. Unfortunately, depending on which angle you looked at it from, there were small differences in the paint scheme. I made a few decisions on what appeared feasible to recreate and what would add character or contrast. A couple of small embellishments, like the two windows on each side, offset things a little and also had structural reasons behind them.
The ship is about eighteen inches in length. My favorite part is definitely the turret design. It comes close to the cartoon and looks very cool in grays and black (what I made the concept piece out of). It will be used in some of my future works. The tail section was another fun puzzle, mostly on account of the angle in relation to the main body. The last three pictures are taken from the first episode of "Star Blazers" and among those that I used for reference.
There will be more ships from "Star Blazers" in the future. Someday, when I am ready, I even hope to build the Argo. That looks to be a daunting task, plus my guess is that the ship will be about three feet long! Fans of the show should visit http://www.starblazers.com and rejoice that the first two seasons are available on DVD (the third is on the way).
Anyone may freely copy these images (please do not link to them from here) and display them on any Lego or "Star Blazers" website. The only stipulation is that the construction and pictures be attributed to Andrew Borntreger.
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