LEGO Ideas Luxo Jr's many tiny references were 'tricky but super cool'

LEGO Ideas 21357 Luxo Jr. might look like a simple white lamp, but it's packed with a ton of references, thanks to its Pixar superfan designer.

The concept for 21357 Luxo Jr. came from fan designer Toby Brett, but his idea was worked on by LEGO designer Tom Gerardin, who usually works on LEGO Friends sets. However, as a massive Pixar fan, Tom told LEGO fan media in a recent roundtable that he was excited to turn his hand to the upcoming LEGO Ideas model.

That's in no small part due to the fact that there was an opportunity to squeeze as many Pixar references as possible into the set. Working on a tiny scale to recreate movie references and characters using just a few small pieces, this technique was something Tom had never done before.

"In Friends, we don't really reference things like that often," explained Tom. "For this, it really helps that Pixar characters have very iconic colour schemes. With Woody, he has blue, yellow, flesh tone, and brown for his hat, so you can almost colour block the characters.

"The ones in the base that are no more than two studs stacked together came down to me deciding who's iconic enough to be recognised with just two studs rather than four studs in height. It was tricky; I would quite often go around and ask people if they could recognise the characters, without any context of what it was. Sometimes it was a struggle, but most of the time, people would get it, which is super cool."

Tom may have had a little too much fun putting in all 32 references throughout the design of 21357 Luxo Jr., with more and more popping up throughout the different iterations. So many, in fact, that LEGO Ideas Design Manager Jordan Scott couldn't keep track of all the new additions.

"Tom added every conceivable reference," laughed Jordan. "As a creative leader, I have to build every set to test them, and I saw easter eggs in there that I had never known about during the design process, with Tom adding a bunch without me even knowing."

If you want to try spotting all 32 references yourself, LEGO Ideas 21357 Luxo Jr. is available for pre-order right now, is priced at £59.99 / $69.99 / €69.99 and launches on June 1, 2025.

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