Rocinante

Stargate will always have a place in my heart, but The Expanse is in that same category for me. For me the books and TV show are a great mix of reality-grounded science fiction, which I just love.

The legitimately-salvaged Rocinante is THE iconic ship from the show, and when I started creating the Puddle Jumper and Stargate, this was the next project on my list from Day 1. There are already some amazing models out there, but unfortunately they’re just absolutely gigantic. I don’t have room in my house for that (or the money for all those bricks frankly!), so I wanted to make something smaller and more accessible for more people.

As with other builds, my approach is that I want to use existing Lego parts wherever possible rather than doing something brick-built everywhere. In this model I used the existing cone pieces for the drive cone. The colour is wrong, but I thought it was important. I also wanted to utilize larger slopes and wedges, which also helped strengthen the nose!

The test-build resulted in some really good adjustments to the model. This is a display piece, it’s not a model you’re going to be aggressively whooshing around your home. There are a couple finicky bits, but with some patience they’re not too bad at all! I agonized over them though, and wanted to keep them as is in order to keep the profile small.

I should note that if you're looking at the estimated price of the bricks, the estimates on most websites appear to be FAR in excess of what I paid. There are a few costly items that I bought used versions of for a significantly lower cost.

Specifications:

• Pieces: 2,338
• Weight: 1,434.5 g
• Length (excluding stand): 55.4 cm
• Width (excluding stand): 19.5 cm
• Height (excluding stand): 16.3 cm