A fidget spinner inspired a passenger spaceship. That’s the sort of sentence that makes me love this hobby. JP Leroux’s The Northstar takes that unexpected starting point and sends it straight into hard sci-fi territory, with a hefty helping of The Expanse.
And hefty is absolutely the word: this transport stretches 183 studs long—that’s 146 cm—and packs approximately 23,000 LEGO pieces into an 18.3 kg spacecraft. I’d want to check the landing pad’s load rating before booking a berth.
The core and engines contain 102 fully integrated LEDs. Given that Jean-Philippe is a Montreal-based digital lighting artist, that attention to illumination feels wonderfully on-brand. Here, lighting isn’t just something pointed at the finished model; it’s built into the ship itself.
This is his fourth large spacecraft in the series, and I love the design premise: take a pocket-sized distraction and turn it into something that needs its own table. Now that’s a productive spin.
Build by JP Leroux on Flickr.
