[ARTICLE] Hoth Diorama at LW 2011 in CPH

[KimT]

For LEGOWorld in Copenhagen this year, Bo Jensen decided to remake and vastly improve his earlier Hoth Diorama, which he did for LEGOWorld 2009. It was later taken apart, but Bo had been considering to do it all over over.

- Just waaay better and bigger.

And he's done just that!

He's spend around 25 hours per week the past 11 months to get this huge diorama ready for LEGOWorld.

It weighs around 750 KG's and consists of more than 1,5 million bricks.

When asked about when he has time to work, the reply is :"When I'm not building!"

He loves to build and especially build big.

In 2009 he did

.

In 2010 he did

.

Bo, who's 47, admits that building at this scale can be very expensive. If he were to buy the parts for this build through for example PaB on shop.home or via Bricklink, then the price would be around 350000,- Dkr which is just around one year's full salary for a well paid job - before taxes

There's plenty of snowtroopers and rebels in the diorama, but Bo has no count on how many there is exactly.

There's 4 train engines built into the diorama to make the Snowspeeders and speeder bikes move around and there's 2 motorized AT-AT's walking there as well.

As this (short) interview began, Bo had to replace the batteries in one of them for the first time, it's been running/walking for 22 hours in total.

A for power functions, eventhough Bo would never replace 9V train engines running the rest of the moving parts of the diorama. It would just get too bulky and difficult to handle.

The final question before letting Bo off the hook and back to moving the AT-AT's back to the beginning of the diorama, was: "What are you doing for next year's LEGOWorld?"

"I might redo Endor - I need to make it bigger and better!"

A slightly obvious answer.

Of course it has to be bigger and better

And did I mention that Bo has a great urge to tile everything?

Now for pics and a video of the whole thing.

Thanks for talking to me Bo and best of luck with future dioramas.

Better resolution of the pics can be found in our flickr.

And here's a video on it from Supersteendk on YouTube:

[Stardusty]

Wow! 1.5 million bricks!!!

Awesome. Power Functions make this diorama even better.

I really have nothing to say, everything is perfect.

[MightySlickPancake]

So much detail .

I'm finding it hard to say how lovely this really is, but it really is perfect. It looks worth the huge amount of money.

I may have to try out a similar technique with the trains myself .

Thanks, Cb

[heofthehothbrick]

That is amazing. Fantastic work. I can't believe he bettered the 2009 diarama, but he did. Congrats on a great job Bo. I love the detail of the Echo Base. Looks great with the Falcon sat there. :thumbup:

[lightningtiger]

I saw some of the images over on Flickr and thought TOTALLY AWESOME !

But 1.5 million bricks....ouch.....that would have emptied Bricklink resellers eh ?

Thanks 'KimT' for article and may the brick be with you !

[XimenaPaulina]

1.5 million bricks? 750 kg? Wheeew, some people really have the resources, time, and talent to pull-off this mightily HUGE diorama. Truly an impressive masterpiece by Bo.

[Jedd the Jedi]

This is the crazy insane one I've seen pictures of before online - my jaw literally dropped. It's a work of art, more proof than any for those who still say "LEGO is for kids". This deserves to be put in the Louvre.

750 kg - wow, that was about my weight a few months back. Lost several since then.

Edited February 20, 2011 by Jedd the Jedi

[Brickdoctor]

I remember this from last year... it was a lot smaller.

The one criticism I would have is the use of stock sets. The AT-ATs, the T-47s, the MF- they all appear to be unmodified sets.

[StoutFiles]

Impressive would be an understatement. Wish I had the money to try something like that.

I hope that instead of Endor, he would try a massive Trench Run. But likley not since he's already got a lot of forest pieces.

[Saxon]

:oh: This is so impressive, it's possibly the best diorama I've ever seen

[Artifex]

I have no words. I'm without words. These are just... WOW!

[Brickus]

Wow, that is amazing, thanks KimT for sharing this with us.

[Ceroknight]

it looks absolutely fantastic! Thanks for sharing!

[Masked Builder]

That is some MOC! Another thing I would LOVE to see in person. I really like the moving vehicles he put in it. Am I right in assuming that when the AT-At's get to the end they're moved back by hand?

[KimT]

Yup - there's always one guy moving the AT-AT's back to the beginning of the diorama.

[The Legonater]

That's... that's incredible. There's nothing I dislike about it- it's just so amasing. All the detail put into it is jaw-dropping. All the power functions are just the icing on the cake here- and some very tasty icing too. I doubt I'll ever see something more incredible than this. Well done Bo, well done.

[smokebelch]

Wow! Thats really amazing, love the speeders whizzing around.

[Legostein]

Hello!

That is undoubtably a real gargantuan diorama. The whole thing itself as well as its little details are of great inspiration. I've watched this movie several times now and still find it amazing.

Cheers,

~ Christopher

[Clone OPatra]

The one criticism I would have is the use of stock sets. The AT-ATs, the T-47s, the MF- they all appear to be unmodified sets.

So what? Nobody can do everything; I see it as no problem at all for people who build massive dioramas like this to not spend time building intricate models as well. The way I see it, you can compare it to a small MOC. In a small MOC, you use LEGO's minifigures but build the scene around them yourself. At this scale, the minifigures have just transformed into ships!

This sort of diorama just blows my mind. It really makes LEGO's models look tiny.

[Brickdoctor]

So what? Nobody can do everything; I see it as no problem at all for people who build massive dioramas like this to not spend time building intricate models as well. The way I see it, you can compare it to a small MOC. In a small MOC, you use LEGO's minifigures but build the scene around them yourself. At this scale, the minifigures have just transformed into ships!

I realize that. I'm not saying this isn't a very impressive dio, because it is. The custom models are just something that would take this to the next level. Maybe it's just because I'm more of an accurate-vehicle guy than a landscaping guy.

[Fallenangel]

I hope that instead of Endor, he would try a massive Trench Run. But likley not since he's already got a lot of forest pieces.

Well, as long as he uses 7140...

So what? Nobody can do everything; I see it as no problem at all for people who build massive dioramas like this to not spend time building intricate models as well.

Yeah, that's where we come in...

Actually, I stopped building around minifigures in my MOCs, as have several others (e. g. Brucey-wan and Pepa Quin build in stud-to-foot scale, and Gareth and Reto build exclusively UCS). In the case of the former, they stick in minifigures because they happen to fit and are about the right scale - they don't significantly impact the quality of the MOC (much like brickartist's recent BARC). And in most cases the results do look better.

I realize that. I'm not saying this isn't a very impressive dio, because it is. The custom models are just something that would take this to the next level. Maybe it's just because I'm more of an accurate-vehicle guy than a landscaping guy.

I partially feel the same way, but (and I can't believe I'm saying this) I'm going to have to go with Clone O'Patra on this one - while I don't particularly like the designs of the stock sets, I can overlook that aspect because of the scale of the diorama as a whole. Besides, only nitpicky AFOLs would notice inaccuracies in the sets in a diorama of this size (or care, really).

Still, I do wish he had used 10179 as opposed to 4504, because then his Echo Base would have been even bigger...

[Cara]

Does anyone have image links for Endor? The video makes it look gorgeous but is too fuzzy to see the details.