LEGO Ideas’ Tintin set and the troubles of digital designing
Building and designing the LEGO Ideas Tintin set helped the LEGO Ideas team realise the troubles of developing models digitally.
Designing a LEGO build digitally has its benefits, including fewer limits that would be imposed in a physical space and an unlimited parts palette (or at least as limited as your device’s processing power). By comparison, designing something physically means that, while you will be limited by what pieces you have physically available, those physical limitations allow you to see how a build performs under the stress of real-world physics.
Walking between the two during the design process is a tough task, and the LEGO Ideas team experienced this particularly thoroughly when developing the upcoming 21367 Tintin Moon Rocket. Brick Fanatics was able to learn more by speaking to LEGO Design Master Ellen Bowley and LEGO Ideas Creative Lead Jordan Scott at Fan Media Days 2025, alongside other fan media.
“I think from start to finish, like, let’s say the core, different designers were trying out different things, and I was asking a lot of people for wisdom,” Ellen said when asked about the number of prototypes needed for the build.
“Maybe we had 20 or 30 different core designs, just to get the angling and to build those six sides of the rocket. With the fins, probably 20. For the top cone, we were trying brick-built versions first, before we decided we needed to make a new element for that to fit with the DNA of the rest of the rocket and the bottom cones on the feet.”
“I think there are many different iterations of parts of the rocket, but the full thing together, I don’t know. I had one prototype at the beginning and one at the end after we put all those pieces together.”
The discussion then went on to the topic of designing digitally and how it can be limiting when developing a LEGO set that is intended to be interacted with.
“It’s also a really challenging model to build digitally, because of all the subtle angles, you need to check that it’s not colliding when you build it physically, and just making sure that it can structurally hold up when you’re snapping it all together,” Jordan explained further. “It’s one of those tricky ones to build.”
Specific examples from the development process were then recalled, including why it was necessary to try and build the rocket physically as many times as was necessary, despite the option of digital design.
“One thing I remember, we have a quality team here, and we were discussing where people are going to hold the rocket, how hard they’re going to hold it and whether they’re going to swoosh it around,” Ellen continued. “We expect people to be able to fly it around without anything dropping off, and one of the main problems we had was that the fins and the whole bottom part were dropping off quite a lot during the process.
“So strengthening that all the way through was one of the main challenges. Then getting that to fit inside the core was another one of the challenges. Everything is pretty sturdy in the end. I’m confident in it.”
You can experience the sturdy model that is 21367 Tintin Moon Rocket from April 1 for £139.99 / $159.99 / €159.99. Pre-orders for the LEGO Ideas set are open now and will qualify for a free Easter gift-with-purchase until April 5, or while stocks last.
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