With a partnership spanning over 20 years, it was inevitable that Star Wars would inspire one of the new LEGO® ART sets. But with so many iconic characters to recreate as buildable art, it would be the Darkside which prevailed. Three generations of movies have each had their own big bad. From the original trilogy, it was the Dark Lord of the Sith – Darth Vader. From the prequels, it would be the menacing Sith Apprentice – Darth Maul and from the most trilogy, the conflicted First Order leader – Kylo Ren. Each of these Sith Lords can be built into one of three different images or combined with other sets to create one big piece of art. For my final review of the LEGO ART range, I’ll be doing things slightly different with this review. The build process is identical across the range, so I’ll be sharing how I went about building it, as the process is unlike most other LEGO sets. So let’s take a look at the LEGO ART Star Wars The Sith set.
Product Description
If you’re a Star Wars™ fan, this is a great set for you. Create an iconic art piece with this LEGO® Art Star Wars The Sith (31200) set. Enjoy a well-earned break as you make a special display piece for your home or office.
Creative building project
Celebrate the Sith Lords, Darth Maul, Kylo Ren and Darth Vader, with this 3in1 portrait set. If you want more, you can buy and combine 3 sets into an ultimate Darth Vader wall piece. While you build, listen to the included Soundtrack to enjoy details and audio stories linked to the set. Finish the build with the Star Wars signature plate, then display on a wall or shelf.
- Set Name: Star Wars The Sith
- Set Number: 31200
- Pieces: 3406
- RRP: £114.99/$119.99/119.99€
- Soundtrack: Link
- Measurements: measures over 15.5” (40cm) square
- Availability: LEGO.com & LEGO Store & LEGO Retailers
The Set
As mentioned above, building LEGO ART sets offers a fairly unique but similar build experience. A series of 9 new brick plates act as a canvas for 1×1 LEGO studs of various colours. As with the Marvel Studio’s Iron Man set, standard studs are used with a palette of 12 different colours. I still can’t decide if I prefer the studs over the 1×1 round flat tiles used in the pop culture icons sets. The studs do offer a more textured surface, which works well for the darker image of the various Sith Lords. I went with Darth Vader as it seems to offer a nice spread of colours compared to Maul and Kylo Ren.
As you’d expect the sets contain a heck of a lot of small elements, meaning they take up a lot of space if spread out and can very easily get lost. Some colours are also very similar. I still think bags should have featured some sort of reference to which colour they meant to represent in the build. So the key for me was to create a system to make the build a little less chaotic. I went for an old LEGO advent calendar tray, I still have the older plastic ones but the new recycled one would work just as well. I then decanted each colour into each of the sections of the tray and in the order, they are listed in the instructions. I found this made it way easier to build the set. Not only were all the studs nicely kept in one place, but it was also simply a case of grabbing the relevant numbered stud from the corresponding section.
The instructions are best described as a mix between paint-by-number and normal LEGO instructions. So each page is a 1:1 representation of each brick plate. However, it can still be tricky to follow where the studs go. So I decided to go strip by strip across the plate from left to right and used one of the 2×16 plates to block out each line of studs. Of course, you can come up with your own system but I’d certainly recommend splitting up each of the colours. The actual set features close up images of three iconic Star Wars villains, with the artwork being created by Lucasfilm, especially for the sets. The image, combined with the colour palette used, gives the finished article an almost comic book feel. The Vader one especially gives off vibes of the original 70’s Marvel Star Wars covers.
All of the companion audio soundtracks have been created especially for each of the LEGO ART sets, I found the Star Wars one the most interesting. The only thing I would say is that it took a very long time to actually start talking about Star Wars. Still, I loved the LEGO Technic podcast and these are just as well produced as those were. They certainly add to the overall build experience and offer an additional way to escape into the build. The finished build can either be displayed on the wall using two new elements and a couple of nails, I wouldn’t recommend using sticky hanging strips as I heard of a number of people find their sets have fallen off the wall and taken out anything in its path. They are fairly weighty so could cause a lot of damage if not secured correctly. Another option is to place it on a shelf or flat surface, which actually look better and you can make a cool themed display with other Star Wars sets.
Variants & Ultimate Builds
As with all of the LEGO ART sets, there is more than one way to build them. The standard set offers three different images, which can only be built independently from each other but not at the same time. So if you wanted to display Vader, Maul and Ren at the same time, you’ll need to buy three sets. There is also an option to create an Ultimate Build, which offers a larger piece of artwork by combining three sets. The Star Wars Ultimate Build features a larger image of Darth Vader. It certainly results in an impressive looking build but is rather costly to achieve. Which is the only downside of all the LEGO ART sets. Although I like having the option to create different images, I doubt I’ll ever be able to take a crack at the Ultimate Build due to the cost of three sets. You can find the instructions for the ultimate build here.
Overall
The LEGO ART sets are the perfect route for into LEGO building for those who wouldn’t normally sit down and involved in LEGO sets. The subject matter can be enjoyed by both fans of Star Wars and LEGO in general, with the experience of the build, is suited towards adults and non-LEGO fans. Some may find it a little repetitive, for I find it quite relaxing, especially with the little build set-up I created. It’s also a great set to dip in and out of thanks to the 9 brick plates. If you don’t have loads of free time to spend hours on a build in one sitting, you can easily spread this out across a few days. Maybe you have a few moments to yourself at the end of the day, where you can complete a plate and easily put it away until the next time.
After building all four of the LEGO ART sets, I think I like the Iron Man version the best, however, the Star Wars one, in particular Darth Vader, felt a more varied build. The finished build definitely looks better in person than some of the images do. There are plenty of iconic Star Wars characters but I think the choice of the Sith was the right one. It covers all generations of the fans, and each of the villains are easily recognisable. I did find that the set was missing a few of the darker blue studs, thankfully I had spare from the Iron Man set. It does seem odd that there are so many spares of other colours provided, that a few more in certain other colours weren’t included I found this with the Beatles set, although I wasn’t missing any there.
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This set was provided to BricksFanz.com by the LEGO Group for purposes of review. The thoughts within this review are that of BricksFanz.com and do not reflect those of the LEGO Group. Providing the set for free does not guarantee a favourable opinion of the set.
