I designed this replica of a Tupolev 204-300 (Tu-204-300) on commission. It was my first time building a replica airplane, but I hope it won’t be my last; I had loads of fun working on this plane!
The stimulating puzzle of this project was capturing the craft as accurately as possible… not just by eye, but by math. Armed with a multi-angle diagram of the Tu-204-300, a list of its schematics from Wikipedia, some reference images from Google, a ruler, and a calculator, I meticulously measured different bits of the plane on paper, cross-referenced the Wikipedia numbers for accuracy when possible, and finally converted those measurements into a number of studs proportional to the plane’s eventual 62.5-stud length. This way, I discovered the LEGO dimensions for everything from the height of the tail to the placement of the landing gear, from the diameter of the engines to the width of the wings.
While I couldn’t nail all measurements exactly, I’m proud of the rigor with which I adhered to and accomplished correct proportions on this build. I’m especially proud of those places where I captured even fractions of studs accurately— e.g., in how the ever-so-slightly oblong fuselage is 6 studs wide but 6.3 studs tall, or the wings are just over 29 studs long each, factoring in the bent winglets.
This Tu-204-300 is decked out in colors based on those of KrasAir, a now-defunct Russian airline. In our planning phase, my client named KrasAir as one of a handful of airlines whose liveries he’d approve of me emulating on the model. Based on its simple lines and LEGO-compatible colors of white, blue, grey, and teal, KrasAir’s color scheme and patterning made it an ideal candidate.
KrasAir actually never flew Tu-204-300s, only their longer cousins Tu-204-100s. As such, I had to improvise a few spots of the “paint job” to fit on this shorter plane.
Once I researched the desired pattern, I realized I would have to design a fuselage with brick-built stripes of three different breadths.
To discover how I could build stripes into the sides of the fuselage, I toyed around with a 2-stud-wide cross-sectional first. I finally landed on a “slice” of fuselage that simultaneously incorporated stripes accurately, and had proportionate dimensions.
With a perfect cross-section in hand, building the fuselage was largely an exercise in repetition and overlapping.
The hardest part of this plane to perfect was the rear area of the fuselage. Given the tail end’s compound taper, its rounded curves, and my desire to continue the colored stripes as far as I could, I was juggling several considerations at once here.
Initially, the top view of the fuselage’s aft presented a similarly stepped shape as its profile view; this was my attempt to approximate the taper as best I could. However, at my client’s request, I designed a cleaner, more triangular shape for the white, top half of the aft.
The Tu-204-300 has a distinctive, downward-sloping nose. I’m happy with how I accomplished this angle, and feel good about how I masked the angle laterally, too. While I would have loved to use a hollowed-out 4x4 cone and an inverted boat stud to make the tip of the nose more rounded, the cone wasn’t available in white and so wasn’t an option.
I considered using the cut borders of LEGO sticker sheets to delineate some of the lines on the cockpit’s windscreen. However, once I happened on headlight bricks in trans-clear, they allowed me to settle on a cleaner, more purist solution.
The landing gear on this model had to be built strong, as one of my client’s requests for the finished piece was that it be able to stand on its wheels. For stability’s sake, I ended up building the wheels out of stacked 1x1 round plates with holes, and just wedging small tires between them, rather than using official LEGO wheels.
All three bits of landing gear are easily removable so that this—very swooshable!—model can appear mid-flight, not just runway-bound. By swapping the panels around the front landing gear’s spot for rounded slopes, the fuselage can become fully aerodynamic.
I had a lot of fun—and a lot of difficulty, I’ll admit—affixing the rounded leading edge onto the wings. The rounded slopes that make up the leading edge are all attached to a 2-stud wide spine, which is itself then attached by way of hinges to a wing core built from layered plates and wedge plates.
The most expensive bricks I had to acquire for this model are actually its cylindrical engines, which haven’t appeared on a set since 2012! I loved getting to use these printed 2x2 tiles with turbines for the inside of the engines.
Another rare brick on this plane appears in the logo of the tail. That 1x2 inverted slope has appeared in turquoise just once in the history of LEGO— and only in an obscure set for the Harry Potter line from 2001! My wife always encourages me to put a little “special” into my commission builds, and this inverted slope is it for the Tu-204-300.
I struggled for a while to figure out how to achieve the complex angle of the elevator fins, but then—in a moment I’m embarrassed to say felt like an epiphany—realized I could turn to the incredible flexibility of simple ball joints to get the job done. Easier is usually better.
Thanks for reading! If you have any other questions or thoughts about this model, feel free to leave them in the comments below. And, if you’re interested in getting a model like this yourself, reach out to me about commissioning one of your own!