After a trip to the real Italian Riviera, LEGO Ideas fan designer Alex Sahli was bursting with more ideas to add to his build. Here's a look at what he imagined.
Although the final design of LEGO Ideas 21359 Italian Riviera was already around 300 pieces larger than the original concept, fan designer Alex Sahli had plenty more ideas to weave into the build. Too many, in fact, for one LEGO set to ever include, sparked after a trip to the real Italian Riviera.
"After going on my trip and actually seeing the real place, I went back and did an expanded version," said Alex in a roundtable with LEGO Fan Media. "It's probably twice the size. That didn't end up on LEGO Ideas, but it has a lot more details."
There's nothing like experiencing a place for yourself, and with 21359 Italian Riviera diving deep into the details of the region, there was plenty for Alex to want to incorporate.
"I realised after the fact that I missed certain details that came to me as I expanded it," said Alex. "I added a train station and a hill and all these other details. Once it got picked, I was thinking about how I would redesign it, a year and a half on from when I originally submitted it.
"I was barely 17 years old when I designed the original. I feel like I've grown a bit since then – so what would I do differently?"
Alex sketched some ideas on his iPad, before embarking on both a digital and a physical build. He has shared the sketch and pictures of both the physical and digital builds with Brick Fanatics. A particularly interesting note from Alex is that he wanted the overall shape to be less rectangular – a sign of what was to come, with the final build moving away from that square base shape.
Although those sketches didn't make it over to the LEGO Group, the LEGO Ideas team did get to see the expanded digital design, a huge creation of between 7,000 and 8,000 pieces.
"Enough for three more parts," joked LEGO Ideas Design Manager Jordan Scott. "Especially the mountain that has a train going through it."
"There was a dinosaur skeleton in there, with a bunch of fossils," said the set's designer Mary Wilson.
"The rock wall was just too plain," said Alex. "I had to add something fun. There's actually a secret drawer with a brick separator too."
"There are definitely some details from the expanded version that made it into the final design," said Alex. "I'm really happy with the interiors on the new one, they really are a glow-up of the original."
The LEGO Ideas design team noted that they did try and incorporate parts of Alex's fresh ideas into the build – even if not all of them were entirely feasible.
"In Alex's expanded version, there's an entire mountain," said Mary. "That would have been cool, but also has a host of issues when you want to incorporate it into the LEGO set. We tried our best to incorporate the rocks around the houses, and give the hint of it without being a literal mountain of bricks."
Many of the details carried over into the final model are centred around the interior, as well as the general vibe of the set. Alex noted down that the set should be 'cramped and chaotic' but 'not in a bad way', a description that would feed into changing the set from its modular base to the two angled sections. That update was to make the streets feel more angular and cramped, similar to a real classic Italian Riviera town.
21359 Italian Riviera will be available for LEGO Insiders from August 7, both online and in stores, before a wider release on August 10, priced at £249.99 / $299.99 / €279.99, as well as its accompanying GWP, 5009325 Mediterranean Scene, between August 7 and 13 or while stocks last.
Featured image: Alex Sahli
Support the work that Brick Fanatics does by buying your LEGO sets using our affiliate links. Thanks!
Comments
Be the first to comment!