It’s Been In A Cupboard For Six Months
I bought the Lego Jabba’s Palace set as part of a general Lego obsessive spree about 6 months ago. It has been the defining act of will power for me this year, to not tear it open in a brickspasm. I saved it for my birthday and I’m glad I did. It’s not a very long build but it is pretty cool. I love the sandy colours and as a model it certainly beats the crap out of Lego’s previous effort. Once I’d built it and gloried in its Tatooiney wonder it was time to nestle it on the Lego shelf. Bollocks – the tower was three bricks too tall…
Fix, Where’s My Goddamn Fix?
Apparently, carving a chunk out of the shelves is not the best solution (though it would be perfect) and an alternative was required. Reducing the tower by three bricks is quite difficult – the first storey (in the top picture) is a single piece and the ground floor connects to the throne room with connector bricks. As you can see below I ended up taking a brick out of the second storey and reshaping it slightly and taking two out of the ground floor. It required a rebuild of the gate (and I think I prefer mine) with extra tiles to make it fit.
That left me with some bricks left over (including a nice wall piece with a window, which I’d managed to reduce in the rebuild), and I already had some sandy Lego (mostly from the Desert Skiff and Sarlaac set). So I started expanding…
Sandy THX-1138
I ended up with a corridor (as I recall tonnes of the things from Return Of The Jedi) joining the two parts of Jabba’s Palace together. There are all sorts of awkward heights and limited parts that caused me difficulty matching the style of the rest of the model, but I think it’s turned out quite well. I’m not completely happy with the darker sand bricks, but I’d need to demolish some other builds to do much about it at the moment.
It does provide some extra space – the Palace is a tight little model and there isn’t really room to fit the supplied minifigures! This way I get roof space for the odd figure and I may squeeze a Bo’Marr Monk or two in. I’d really like to expand the model even further, extending the depth of the corridor and tower. I’d especially enjoy crafting the droid torture dungeon! The torturer droid was included in the original Jabba’s Palace so he makes a good start, and I got gonk droids in the Lego Star Wars Advent Calendars!
Their Faces Are So Beautiful
The re-designed Jabba looks gorgeous. I did not know he had a tattoo previously. The original was just a green lump (though I loved it at the time). Same goes for the new Gamorrean Guard, Bousch’s amazing helmet and the carbonite Han Solo. Oola – she so pretty… Bib Fortuna’s almost the same, and Chewie’s the standard Wookie. I really ought to build and post up the original Jabba’s Palace too I suppose… guess that’s next week’s post! Then we can do a side-by-side gallery.
You can see more pictures of the set in glorious colour here on Flickr.
Related articles
- Lego Blog: There’s An Ogre At My Castle (captainpigheart.com)
- Lego Blog: Galaxy Squad Love (70707) (captainpigheart.com)
- Lego Blog: Demolition (captainpigheart.com)
- Lego Blog: Birthday Minifigure Gallery (captainpigheart.com)