Just over two years ago, Grant Davis approached me about collaborating on a pop-up book project for LEGO Ideas. I enthusiastically agreed to join him, and together we fleshed out his idea and submitted our project to the Ideas website. Fast forward to the present, and the project has since achieved the required 10,000 supporters, passed the review process, and is now set to be released on November 1, 2018!

I have received a pre-release copy of the set, and I am extremely happy at how it turned out. Wes and Crystal, the LEGO designers who transformed our submission into the final production model, did an incredible job of fleshing out our idea and making it look beautiful. I put together a video discussing the contents of the set (instructions, parts, minifigures), the finished model and showing an alternate pop-up scene I designed using the pieces of the set. You can watch it below, or continue reading for some more of my thoughts on the set.

I have posted building instructions for the Giant’s castle in the clouds over on the new Pop-Up Book page, which is where I will be posting all of my forthcoming content related to the set.

This will include taking a closer look at the differences between our ideas submission and the production model. There aren’t many fundamental changes to the design, as the size and pop-up mechanism of the book remain largely unchanged, but there are a few small mechanical differences, and of course the visual improvements are enormous and absolutely fantastic. I will also be posting a tutorial for adding the clasp back onto the book, which is the only core feature of our original submission that was omitted.

Of course, I cannot wait to see what custom designed scenes, or even completely re-themed books, come out of the fan community, and I’m looking forward to designing and sharing some of my own custom designs.

I’m incredibly excited about this set, and much like the Maze, I think it is a really unique entry into the LEGO world, showcasing the power of LEGO Ideas to deliver some truly creative and interesting sets that otherwise may never have been produced.