Writing about my Jing Jing model breaking made me think of how top-heavy the model was. When I worked for LEGOLAND California people always asked me if the models were solid or hollow. As I said in the last entry, Master Model Designers make models as light as possible. It doesn’t matter so much on a small figure like Jing Jing — and yes, for me Jing Jing is a small model considering that I helped build the tallest Miniland Skyscraper the Freedom Tower , which ended up being twenty eight feet tall.
When you have something like the Freedom Tower, the weight matters a lot. LEGO models at the park could weigh hundreds of pounds. Even when we made models as light as possible, something like a section of the Freedom Tower took at least six people to get it out the double doors of the Model Shop and then a forklift and a crane to get it into place.
Photo taken by William Webb.
So, as you can see, building a hollow model becomes more and more important the larger the model is. Another benefit of building hollow is that it saves on bricks, and even with the amount of bricks that LEGOLAND California had, the less you have to build something like that, the better.
Photos of the Freedom Tower on this blog and on brickshelf were taken by my good friend William Webb, also a former Master Model Designer of LEGOLAND California.
Tags: Freedom Tower, LEGO, LEGOLAND, Master Model Builder, Model Building Tips
