LEGO Friends 42602 Space Research Rover: from mini-dolls to minifigures
Assimilating LEGO Friends 42602 Space Research Rover into the wider LEGO City range of Space sets isn’t as complicated as a complete recolour.
LEGO Friends 42602 Space Research Rover stands apart from the 2024 catalogue of LEGO Space sets that have been released across multiple themes. Let alone for the fact it’s retiring inside 12 months of release (!), as just one of a handful within the Friends theme, it stylistically stands apart from the majority of other vehicle and base sets released across City and Technic.
Primarily this is in the slight change in colour scheme that the set has adopted, throwing in purple instead of black for some of the rover’s detailing, and trans-purple instead of trans-black for cockpits, canopies and windows. Alongside that is of course the fact that the astronauts are mini-dolls instead of minifigures, whilst the section of planet being explored is blue, rather than dark orange/red.
For just how eye-catching the rover’s design is, though, there’s a temptation to try to bring it into the wider LEGO Space collection that 2024 has offered, and in our opinion sticking with purple is the best way to do so. Recolouring to black to blend in with the other City sets feels like the most obvious solution to match the set up, but as you can see it rather diminishes the impact of the design, dulling the style and vibrancy that is part of why this set is so good. It’s also a more costly endeavour than you may first think for just how much purple is worked into the model.
For us, switching out the mini-dolls for minifigures and creating a new colour-coded faction of astronauts to match those in the City range is the most effective (and cost-effective) solution. Light purple arms, white jet-packs, white helmets and trans-purple visors all used with the torso and legs present across the other City astronauts is all that’s needed to find a group of explorers to match 42602 Space Research Rover, and pull it into the wider minifigure world you may have.
This approach still maintains the set’s unique identity, as well as the story beat that it’s perhaps exploring a completely different part of the planet to the other space sets, or indeed a completely different planet altogether.
What do you think? And what other factions of minifigure astronauts would you create and for what mission or purpose?
This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group. Read our review of this set to understand why we believe it’s one of the year’s underrated gems.
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