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Challenging build

I finally got started building the LEGO Royal Atreides Ornithopter model from the Dune movie. I've had it waiting on my shelf since it's release back in the spring (around the time the part 2 movie was released). I wanted to build it much earlier, but for some reason LEGO decided to use some colourful brick and connectors in some parts of the model.

Those are just small details, but from the otherwise cool looking dark gray (dark bluish gray to be exact) those few colourful spots stand out. Luckily those are easily replaces using more suitable coloured parts. It just took me this long to finally acquire all the required replacement pieces.

The model is surprisingly challenging to build. It combines some advanced Technics techniques along with interesting methods combining bricks in rather innovative way. I was assuming I could easily finish the build in one evening, but I had to give up on that hope after going through the first seven bags of bricks (out of ten). With "only" 1369 pieces it's nowhere the biggest model I have built. Based on the piece count alone I estimated it wouldn't take more than a couple of hours to finish.

Maybe they designed this set complex enough so that it's build time would too align with the movies runtime...