I designed this scene with a friend of mine, another talented LEGO artist named Tristan. Tristan trekked north to visit me one Thursday night, and over the course of a little under three hours, we conceived of and put together what you see here! We wanted to assemble a creation that required both of our complementary styles. I specialize in fine details, the small and the clever, while Tristan’s forte is building large and implementing functionality into his work. A large-scale microscale scene with an electronic component included seemed the optimal way to showcase our strengths, so that’s what we built.

The story: an intergalactic spacecraft arrives on Earth… not in present day, or in the future, but back in ancient times. The UFO’s mission is a Wall-E-esque one: gather vegetation samples from our green planet and harvest them for alien science. Indiscriminate in their approach—or, perhaps, just totally unruffled by the presence of human civilization—the UFO has alighted on the forest surrounding a greco-roman city atop a plateau. And thus begins Earth’s first contact with extraterrestrial life!

Originally, we thought we’d build the same UFO, accidentally beaming up a dragon from a medieval European castle. As we built, though (really, as we assessed how much time we had left in our session together!) our vision evolved. Read on to learn some more about who built what, what thoughts went into this creation, and more.