The making of a luxury space yacht

I'd had the idea percolating for awhile of a design for a luxury space yacht. Before I started the project I made a couple of very hastily drawn sketches to help me attempt to visualize the basic shape and some of the functions that I had envisioned.

It's almost not funny to me how easy it is to conceive and illustrate things on paper compared to executing them in Lego. As of this writing, I had no freakin' notion how I was going to make the wings sturdy enough, especially with the fold-up tips and landing strut inside.

I figured that I had better start with the interior since I needed make sure that I'd be able to have enough space for all the details that I wanted.

I changed the bedsheet color to white when I decided to have a mostly tan interior. I hadn't decided yet if I wanted to have the tiles in the different rooms to be different colors, but soon realized it would be too much. This was the first time in a build that I made sure to have two stud thicknesses between all walls for increased structural support and be able to have wood brick panelling in the bedrooms and reading room.

I'm continually surprised by how much room certain parts will take up when they need to oriented a certain way. It took me awhile to get all the spacesuit accessories into one room in a way that didn't look cramped.

The reading room took most of my time as the bookcase was a particular challenge. More on that later.

I added as many chrome bits to the bathroom as possible. I was particularly pleased with how well the Model Team headlight holder made such a great toilet handle.

The wood brick panelling is in, the kitchen is just about finished and I'm starting to fiddle with opening roof ideas.

The ship sports a mostly white paint job, but I wanted to add some color accents. I decided to start by framing the windows.

The opening roof design went through many versions until a bricklink order gave me the parts that I needed. I'd just added the glass over the central hallway.

I love shots that make you feel like you're right there peering through the windows. I need to practice more so that I can get the interior in focus.

I decided to use dark blue as one of my main accent colors, and was able to frame the dark gray around the windows for a rich but low-key look. I was still not finished with the roof design.

The roof is almost finished and I'm also attempting my first Technic mock-up to see how I can make the wings work.

This angle was too tight, but later experimentation yielded something better.

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