The Magic - in Legos

[Jmedina]

It is so cool, I collect Star Wars Legos, and I definitely want one of this....

 

[luv2cruisedisney]

that is awesome.

 

[dzneprincess]

awesome!thanks for sharing the link

 

[disneynutsx4]

Whoa! Now that I've figured out how to sign in...I'm the guilty party who built the Magic out of LEGO.

Thanks to all of you for the kind words! We (wife + 10- & 5-year old sons) cruised on the Magic during the first week of November last year and had a great time. On the next-to-last day I went looking in the gift shop for a model of the ship, but I didn't really like what they had, and passed on buying it.

So after we got home, I Googled "Disney ship model" and found nothing besides that model from the gift shop. That's really kind of surprising, considering how popular these ships are and how good they look (especially next to a Carnival boat). My older son and I are veteran LEGO builders with waaaay too many parts in stock, so I thought this would be the next best thing.

The first thing that can go wrong when you build LEGO stuff from scratch is that you get stuck trying to decide when something looks good enough, and you end up never finishing your project. I decided that once I started building, I would just keep working until the model was done, regardless of how accurate the proportions & detail, etc...so the first pass came out a little too short at midships, and too long at the stern. At the time, I was working from just a couple of photos found in various places on the web, none of which showed the upper decks really clearly.

The prototype took a couple of weekends, and actually looked OK. But then Alex, the 10-year-old, pointed out that the stacks looked too big, there weren't enough lifeboats (it had 8 on each side instead of 10), and so on.

Around the same time, a friend who has been on several cruises pointed me to a web site with three-quarter overhead views of the Magic at dock in Florida. This was exactly what I needed! So I printed a bunch of photos and went back to the workbench armed with more information. I also used a LEGO drawing program to fiddle with some preliminary ideas before rebuilding.

The model was done the day before Christmas, although I did change a few things on Deck 10 that required ordering a few more parts afterwards. My wife liked the model so much that she used it as a visual aid when explaining cruise details to visiting relatives ("That's where the spa is. And this is where Alex watched Disney Channel while lying in the hot tub!").

So a few details for the LEGO geeks out there: The model is 103 studs (a stud being one bump on top of a LEGO brick) long, 16 wide on Deck 9, and 11 bricks tall from waterline to Deck 10. That's 33" x 4.75" x 4.25" or so. The toughest part was getting the bridge/fitness center windows to work - at Alex's suggestion, we used a spaceship window mounted upside-down in the finished model. The stacks are actually built sideways relative to the ship hull, and mounted with LEGO adapter plates. These are all standard LEGO pieces, and though I didn't count them along the way, I'd guess there are about 2,000 pieces (mostly tiny ones) in the model.

And that's our story. I'm not taking this one apart for any reason...but I still need to find a good place to display it here at home! I also plan to use the LEGO drawing program to notate exactly how I built it, so that should the unthinkable happen, I can rebuild it. I almost put wheels underneath, but then I had this horrible vision of the whole thing sliding gracefully off the workbench...Again, thanks to everyone for the compliments!

 

[BethA]

It's amazing!!

I'm surprised Disney does not have this for sail. The items for boys-other than pirate things- are slim!. My son is 12 and we'd buy this in a second

Great work-what's next? Contemporary? monorail??

 

[IndyDisneyFan]

Wow, thank you so much for sharing everything with us! My son is a huge disney cruise and lego fan and loves your ship! If you could figure out exactly how to build it I am sure that you could sell the plans and make a lot of money. Thank you very much for allowing us to share in your masterpiece!

Laura

 

[Buckeye Gal]

Whoa! Now that I've figured out how to sign in...I'm the guilty party who built the Magic out of LEGO....Again, thanks to everyone for the compliments!

I am speechless! That's absolutely amazing and talented work! Congrats on such an awesome piece! Indeed I think you need to contact Disney Cruise Line Merchandising to show them this masterpiece! Thank you so much for putting it out on the web, and OP, thanks for brining it to our attention!

 

[4407mark]

Disneynutsx4 - thanks so much for signing on and explaining and receiving much deserved credit for a beautiful project! I was hoping my e-mail through the yahoo list had gotten through to you.

Beautiful job!

Mark

 

[bobbiwoz]

Wow, that is wonderful! If it were a kit, I would buy it as a project! You're amazing for creating it.
Bobbi

 

[MousseauMob]

That is AWESOME! Amazing work.

And that's our story. I'm not taking this one apart for any reason...but I still need to find a good place to display it here at home! I also plan to use the LEGO drawing program to notate exactly how I built it, so that should the unthinkable happen, I can rebuild it. I almost put wheels underneath, but then I had this horrible vision of the whole thing sliding gracefully off the workbench...Again, thanks to everyone for the compliments!

My son is a HUGE Lego fanatic, subscribes to Brickmasters has taken Lego Mania class at the local University and has SO many bins of legos, he has little bedroom left. Once you have the instructions defined, please let us know if you would be willing to share, he'd love to try his hand at building your awesome model.

 

[Eeyore'sthebest]

My DH would buy this in a heartbeat! Both he and my DD are huge lego fans. Thanks for the pics and the explanation.

 

[shasess]

Very neat!

 

[disneynutsx4]

The next project might actually be the Cruise Terminal itself...which would lend itself to LEGO pretty easily.

I had thought about a Mark VI Monorail in LEGO several years ago, but there's not really a windshield piece that would work in the designs I came up with. I did create a cardmodel version of the Monorail, but it was a little too fiddly to build for inexperienced cardmodel builders. For the uninitiated, that's a model printed on card stock, cut out, and assembled with white glue and minimal tools.

I have seen photos of the Carnival boat of LEGO mentioned in another post. It's a great model, but the boat isn't nearly as interesting to look at.

 

[Pooh_Friend#1]

Wow, that is amazing. I wish I had the patience and the knowledge to build this!!! Outstanding job.

 

[pfuentes1098]

Disneynutsx4-- That is an extremely awesome model!
We would buy a kit in a heartbeat, too.

 

[owensjro]

Lego was doing a cruise ship building content where the winner won a cruise on a Royal Carib ship I believe. I had actually sat down with my lego collection (way too many of those little bricks!) and started to build a DCL model but ended up not going too far with it.

Very impressive model especially considering the smaller scale. I always felt it was easier to build a larger model since you can get detailed components done with smaller pieces then. Being a smaller model you don't have that luxury so it can be even harder.

Jim