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  • The Design Process turned on its Head


    Sara Skahill

    It was large, it was all white, it was a girl’s head.

    “The initial concept of the big head didn’t have any major features at that time. It was more about creating the idea of a watchful presence of the sister,” Explained Jason Amador Moreno, designer of 70830 The LEGO Movie 2 Sweet Mayhem's Systar Starship!

    “When we received concepts from the movie studio, we usually try and build a 1 to 1 version of it. When we did the head, it was really to have a big look at it.”

    The design was a bold movie from the studio – and a set the designers didn’t expect to fly off shelves based on the first iteration.

    “the LEGO team felt it best to propose something that had more iconography from Sweet Mayhem (her helmet). Thus, many versions of spaceships inspired by her helmet were made.”


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    But it wasn’t a one way process: while designing the ship, the ship’s colors influenced the colors of Sweet Mayhem’s helmet.


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     “After presenting to the studio it did inspire them to revise the concept to something a bit more spaceshipy. After that it became a back and forth of cooler versions of Sweet Mayhem inspired helmet spaceships,” Jason said.


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    Scaling it down presented new challenges to keep the model true to the movie’s storyline.

    “One thing is the real challenge in the final model. It has a cockpit that fits a Minifigure and Mini-doll, a prison that fits 2 Minifigures, a disc shooter, wings that rotate, storage for heart, star, weapons, AND a roll of stickers! All within a ball, one of the most challenging shapes to make out of LEGO bricks.”

    With all The LEGO Movie 2 sets, designers needed to work in collaboration with the studio to make models which fit the story and make good LEGO sets.  This can result in much back and further and many different versions of a set.

    “One great example is the Apocalypseburg Batmobile. It had gone through many iterations and was approved from both the studio and the LEGO Group. Yet in the end it was cut entirely from the movie due to various reasons. This just speaks to how organic the movie process can be.”



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    Sweet Mayhem's Systar Starship! wasn’t just the design of one person, Jason worked with a model coach, creative lead, and other designers to help it reach its final form.

    “We are really appreciative that we could collaborate with the studio in the end to create a super cool movie model but also a fantastic toy.”

    You can view the prototype model of Sweet Mayhem's Systar Starship! At the LEGO House, and purchase it from the LEGO Shop.

    The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part is available on digital now and on Blu-ray™ May 7th in the US and Mexico will be available everywhere July 22nd.  

     

     




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    • Community Team
    On 4/25/2019 at 1:40 PM, Anna - theBrickBlogger said:

    Fantastic article, loved it! Thanks for sharing! Question; what's a model coach?

    It took a week but I have any answer for you!

    "A model coach is a crucial part of our quality check to ensure that things like building experience, target age are consistent across the segments in the portfolio. They work with the designers to ensure the highest quality LEGO provides."

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    2 minutes ago, Sara Skahill said:

    It took a week but I have any answer for you!

    "A model coach is a crucial part of our quality check to ensure that things like building experience, target age are consistent across the segments in the portfolio. They work with the designers to ensure the highest quality LEGO provides."

    Oh, that's what they do! I see! I knew LEGO sets went through the quality check process, but I didn't know the people doing it were called model coaches. Thanks for the update! :)

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    Even considering that 70830 is one of my favorite sets to date, my favorite part of this was the Batmobile!

    I've always been fascinated by prototypes and concept models that get left on the cutting room floor, especially when they seem like fantastic (or bizarre) ideas. I wonder why it never ended up in the final version of the film? Obviously, it's too gargantuan and rickety to make for a plausible retail set (although it could possibly be a D2C type deal), so I wonder why it got cut on the movie end of things. My best guess would be that Batman doesn't really become important story-wise until the second act, so including a giant spectacle of a vehicle for him would distract too much from the other, more important things happening in Apocalypseburg. The model also could've been rejected because it had too much yellow, because everyone knows that Batman only works in black and sometimes very, very dark grey. 

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