Learn about the inspiration and initial steps you need to bring a LEGO Ideas project to life with the fan designer of 21366 Floating Sea Otters and the LEGO Ideas team.
21366 Floating Sea Otters is coming on March 1, made up of 1,234 elements and priced at £99.99 / $119.99 / €109.99. LEGO Ideas fan designer Maximilian Lambrecht came up with the concept and built the initial model. Here, he shared his perspective and gives some tips to other aspiring builders.
Designing a winning LEGO Ideas project is no easy feat: hopeful fan designers have to create a set that captures the imaginations of 10,000 users as well as the LEGO Ideas team. One of the best ways to do this is to, paradoxically, ignore the buzz of the platform and instead focus on creating something inspired by your own passions — it’s more likely to stand out in a sea of modular buildings and sitcom sets. So that’s exactly what Max Lambrecht did.
“For me, the inspiration was that I always adored otters since I was a kid. When I went to the zoo, I always went directly to the otters and watched them just play,” Max reminisces. “And the more I learned about them, the more I researched, I felt really attached, and it was kind of a no brainer for me to try. It merged two passions together.”
Having decided on an otter, it came time to figure out exactly how his favourite animal could be best translated into LEGO bricks. Animals have been slowly taking over the LEGO Ideas catalogue — so much so that 21349 Tuxedo Cat recently has been given an unprecedented recolour into 21376 Orange Cat — so Max had to get creative for his project to standout at the LEGO Ideas Zoo.
“I always liked the idea of having a set that was kind of coming out of the shelf,” Max says. “I felt the otter would fit perfectly into this theme just coming out of wherever you place the set, a desktop or whatever, just coming out of it. So at first, I had the head and shoulders come out of a water surface. Then I went with it and built the full otter. But it was always meant to be floating.”
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Interestingly, the set’s most unique aspect wasn’t the trickiest to design. That came in the form of the Otter’s head and face.
“The biggest challenge was definitely the head and the face,” Max says. “Capturing the playfulness of an otter was super difficult. I had so many different steps of creating this, the shape, just with a limited amount of bricks that you have to try and get something organic.”
Max’s unique design and perseverance building the head and face paid off: His project gathered the necessary support at lightning speed. Once it hit the needed 10,000 supporters, the LEGO Ideas team quickly fell in love with the project.
“It was the expressiveness of it,” says Design Manager Jordan David Scott. “When you see a sea otter, especially when it’s kind of yawning, it has that really big smiley face, even though it’s not really smiling. That was something that was really important to keep and translate, because it’s very cute. That’s the thing I appreciated most about it.”
“I was really drawn to the expressiveness of Max’s model as well,” adds Model Designer Chris McVeigh. “But I also really liked the water layer and having that incorporated into the model itself. I thought that was a very interesting approach to a model, because normally, if we’re doing a creature, we do a full creature. This was a different expression, and I think that was a really interesting way to go. It gave it context; it had an environment around it. That was definitely one of the things that stood out about Max’s submission.”
Once Chris got his hands on the fan design, he got to work tweaking it and making it just right for an official LEGO Ideas release. But that wasn’t the end of Max’s involvement, as he was kept up to date every step of the way as his project slowly but surely made its way to shelves. Though the process wasn’t all that slow…
“It went through quite fast,” Max laughs. “It only took two months to reach 10,000 supporters, and then I got the news that it was going to get approved. And it took me quite some time to realize what was happening, because I still had to keep it to myself for quite some time. It’s still surreal, super exciting.”
“And you got to come to Billund,” Jordan jumps in. “You came on a trip. We met up with Max to have lunch. That was very cool to be able to meet Max in person because we don’t always get to do that, depending on where the fan designer lives. We had lunch then chatted a bit and brought him into a part of the building where we could actually show him the packaging and the physical model in person before anyone else had seen it. So it was really cool.”
But that’s only half of 21366 Floating Sea Otters’ journey — once the original project was approved, Model Designer Chris McVeigh got to work tweaking it until it was just right for an official LEGO Ideas release. You can read more about Chris’ experience designing the final product and learn about the decision to add the pup.
A huge slate of fan-designed sets has been announced for the next two years, including Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, Downton Abbey, Ramen, Vintage Sewing Machine, E.T. The Extra-terrestrial, Smurf Village and La Catrina. Another 75 product ideas are currently under consideration.
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