Being one of the better Gundam mecha anime series, Gundam Wing is still quite popular despite its age. Maybe it’s the combination of Gunpla being popular and nostalgic among adults who’ve seen the show as a kid, but for sure the show’s Gundams are easily recognizable—of course mainly by the “wings”.

Those wings are certainly a key feature but this LEGO one made by builder Grammaticul, has a very appealing twist. At first glance, it might look like an ordinary Mobile Suit but if you look closer it might start looking like one of our favorite ships from a galaxy far, far away. This merging of worlds makes an excellent combination, especially with honoring the classic Gundam colors and completing it with a stunning render. To have some more depth, Grammaticul was kind enough to answer some questions about his creation!

Marco: You’ve mentioned this build is to commemorate Star Wars Visions. Are you an anime fan, or Star Wars fan, or both? And what gave you the inspiration of making a Gundam that fits Star Wars?

Grammaticul: I guess I like anime: I haven’t watched nearly as much as I’m sure plenty of people have (I haven’t seen a single Gundam series), and prior to 2020 I’d seen maybe three of the classics and a couple of modern works, so I absolutely could never qualify myself as “otaku”; but I’ve definitely been catching up recently. As far as influence goes, I’ve done at least two alt builds of 71738 - Zane’s Titan Mech which takes inspiration if not direct designs from Evangelion and Kill la Kill/Promare, I’ve done a MOC of Lio Fotia from the latter, and there’s this surprisingly underground show I’ve gotten hooked on called Kaiba, which honestly feels like a work of genius and which I’ve been thinking of pulling a thing together for in the future.

As for Star Wars: I’ve been a Star Wars fan since I was a kid, incidentally not through the movies but through a series of books I got from my neighbor. I’ve never had a particularly deep investment in the series but I certainly enjoy watching the good ones; take that as you will. ;)

The genesis of this idea of a Gundam in Star Wars really came from Visions: I’d seen the trailer sometime in July and was immediately hooked (in part because I recognized at least two studios doubling up on shorts). And in the middle of a conversation about it with a couple friends, I made a little joke about how neat it’d be to have an X-Wing that was also 8016 - Aero Booster. Somewhere in there was the seed of an idea that germinated in my mind, and I think within the month I came up with some rough sketches which I knew I needed to eventually get into brick form.

Before I started building, I needed to check if this idea had been done already, potentially in a better form, so I googled “Gundam X-Wing”. And found examples like this one from Kevin Ryhal:

What really struck me throughout this “research” period was how these two iconic 80s designs hadn’t ever really been crossed over. Some of it probably relates to how orthogonal these two designs are, given how different spaceships and mecha tend to be. The above builder seemed to have leaned in on the “Gundam Wing” style with more birdlike structures, but I figured the most important element of making a Gundam/X-Wing synthesis would be to highlight both designs’ distinctive features in silhouette.

Additionally, my friend just0nebrick, whose work I deeply admire and with whom I had the aforementioned conversation that initiated this project, suggested a couple builders (FateHeart and Buck) to get a little insight from.

Marco: The photos are renders but did you also build it physically? If so do you have any WIPS? (Work in Progress Shots)? How long did it take to build it and what were the challenges you've faced?

Grammaticul: First of all, there’s no physical build. There’s a reason for that, but I'll leave it for later.

When I’m building, I kinda just come up with an idea, make a couple of sketches (0-5) of what I want to pull off… and then pull it off. Usually, my biggest obstacle is having an idea and not acting on it: it took me roughly three months to make my Aspheera MOC (a Ninjago character) and a lot of that time was spent either not MOCing or fiddling with a preliminary design and discarding it immediately. On another hand, I pulled together this Ninjago microscale model within the span of three days and a particularly long night, with maybe one sketch before I bit the bullet.

In any case, for me, the time between coming up and completing a MOC is usually up in the air depending on whether I feel like starting in the first place. Regarding the Gundam, I think I started sketching sometime in August while I was finishing an alt build (not publicly available yet) and in the process of moving to college, and by mid-September I think I began working things out.

I can’t really describe the build process in sharp recollection, but I do know there were a handful of sections which I struggled with. The crotch region in particular was challenging in that I was trying to replicate the x-wing nose, and in fact, I had a draft I worked on for two hours and forgot to save (the current one may be better actually), but I eventually managed to make that snap together like a charm.

From then on I made a rough preliminary set of S-Foils which were originally going to be far less angular and without the distinct laser cannons on the final model.

Unlike a physical build, most of my changes here ended up being far more minor and even cosmetic but ultimately decisive for the model, since tampering is far harder for a digital model when the fastest sizeable digital build can still take around 5-6 hours. Here I swapped out the chest above for a more robust chest involving the Nexo Knights armor piece and angled tiles; although the Nexo Knights armor was originally actually more of a placeholder, I stuck with it when it provided the requisite angles.

From there I managed to get the head crest down (something I knew I wanted nailed down from the start) and redid the wings. The legs came in after this, but I believe they were both too small and too low on the model at the time.

Arms were a particular challenge here: given the wings’ direct obstruction of the arms’ natural position and my own amorphous idea of what the limbs would look like, I ended up doing multiple passes and ultimately reformatted the entire outer shoulder region while finishing up the legs.

Unfortunately I finished the build on the 23rd when I was planning on dropping it on the 22nd, but life gets in the way of things sometimes.

Frankly, I've got no idea if this build is very sturdy or even possible to build in real life. There are elements I would point out, and in fact I will now:

The circled part is the only point of contact for an entire section of the model. You may put some things together from this.

Marco: Thank you for the behind-the-scenes! It really shows the effort that goes into building digitally. I’m curious, what makes you build digitally?

Grammaticul: I’m going to sound a little silly here, but there’s this eternal quality to digital builds I think I was enthralled by as a kid. I think the concept of just keeping a MOC together on your hard drive is pretty neat and I’ve done it for virtually every one of mine since 2016 (I’ve got no intention to post any of them).

I think I really started leaning into using LDD (and later Stud.io) exclusively around 2018, in a process of rebuilding a handful of disassembled sets. Mostly it comes from not wanting to take my stuff apart again, living nearly 150 miles and change away from my LEGO, and having the unique inability to take a competent photo; but for whatever reasons I came to build digitally, my computer is now my primary modus operandi for MOCing. It’s a little tough, but I’ve made it work.

Marco: What do you like most about the Gundam? Are there any references one might easily miss?

Grammaticul: The gun is also a particular highlight, as are the shins and the middle torso, but not to toot my horn any further, I’m just glad I managed to make it resemble both the Gundam head and the X-Wing pilot helmet. I wasn’t entirely pleased with how the facial part turned out and there’s a little clipping involved that I don’t know would be particularly replicable in an actual build, but I’m just glad I got it to work.

As far as references go, I’d prefer to let anyone looking closely enough find them. I’ve always enjoyed finding little details in a work the artist included without highlighting them or their inspirations, and I imagine many in this community feel the same way—although if I had to explain anything I should note the four stripes: I couldn’t get five on the wings because of the way I’d built it, so I stuck with four. I suppose this is John D. Branon’s Gundam now.

Marco: You credited the render to Exesandbox—how did that happen? Are you friends or fellow LUG members?

Grammaticul: I met ExeSandbox on Eurobricks, actually! I believe it was 2019: we were involved in a Ninjago: Legacy contest where he and his brother entered this jungle raider and I entered this tournament (theirs was easily better than my façade, of course).

ExeSandbox is at least 90% of the reason this model looks as good as it does; my original plan was to drop it around the 24th or so with this image:

But as you can see that might have been the worst possible option.

I was already following him, so I’d reached out to him at least two weeks before to see if he was willing to help out, and when I sent the files over he sent back the prints roughly a week later. I can imagine it took a while given the little nuances like dust or scratches applied to the model and the resulting photo came out brilliantly; I cannot stress enough his invaluable contributions to the model’s presentation. I built it, but it is entirely his render that sells it.

Marco: Thank you for sharing all of that work that went into this! We look forward to whatever you build next.

If it were up to you, which universes would you combine in a LEGO build? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

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