LEGO Spider-Man designer breaks down the maths: ‘I still don’t understand how it works’

The designer behind 31209 The Amazing Spider-Man says the LEGO Art model’s maths are so complex that even he ‘doesn’t really know how it works’ – it just does.

The web-slinger’s first LEGO Art set leaves behind the standard mosaic approach of 31199 Marvel Studios Iron Man and 31205 Jim Lee Batman Collection in favour of bringing the superhero out of the frame, depicting Spidey crawling beyond the confines of a comic book panel. It translates into a set that – like 31206 The Rolling Stones and 31208 Hokusai – The Great Wave – operates in three dimensions.

Where those sets built into relatively straightforward LEGO relief paintings, though, 31209 The Amazing Spider-Man is a little more complicated. In fact, the set makes use of such complex mathematics – Pythagorean triangles, building at peculiar angles and so on – that even its designer Nico Vás still doesn’t really grasp how he achieved it all. More specifically, there’s one piece of the puzzle that’s a genuine head-scratcher (sorry not sorry). 

“I still don’t understand how the head really works,” Vás tells Brick Fanatics. “The whole thing is built at a 45-degree angle, which is super strange. In earlier versions, it was built in a more grid-like, symmetrical way. It was much easier to understand, but didn’t quite have the right expression. And then somehow we came across this idea of rotating it sideways.

“And then that needed planning in 2D illustration software, it was like a grid snap thing to figure out: what do the shapes do when everything is rotated? And then there’s a lot of wedge plates that tessellate together. I don’t really know how that works, it just sort of seems to work.”

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The instruction manual for 31209 The Amazing Spider-Man attempts to convey some of these complex sums through box-outs from a narrator. And while the manual never identifies its mystery tutor – just like classic Marvel comic books – Vás says he was directly responsible for adding those tidbits.

“I wanted to try to inject more building techniques into the book,” he explains. “LEGO Art sets do often include a lot of interesting background information pertaining to the subject, but my rationale was that Spider-Man is a top student in mathematics and science, so it would be in character to include a lot of building techniques in the booklet.

“I am very eager to see how people respond to that. The Pythagorean stuff is definitely a wild guess of, ‘Is this going to be interesting or confusing?’ And so depending on how it’s perceived, I’m very excited that there could be more of this in the future in different sets – where it’s relevant.”

• LEGO Art 31209 The Amazing Spider-Man review
• LEGO says 31209 Spider-Man’s best reference was a ‘total fluke’

You’ll be able to get to grips with the maths behind the model when 31209 The Amazing Spider-Man launches on August 1, 2023. In the meantime, check out our review of the finished LEGO Art product.

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