A Lego fan made a Disney Pixar Luxo Jr. model and now it’s a real set

The latest Lego Ideas set recreates the desk lamp and ball from the seminal Pixar animated short Luxo Jr., and it’s all thanks to one eager fan.

Computer-generated movies and cartoons are everywhere nowadays but in the 1980s almost everything was still hand-animated. Pixar was originally set-up and owned by George Lucas, but he ended up selling them to Disney and in 1986 the team debuted their first animated short: Luxo Jr.

The two minute long short featured a desk lamp playing with, and accidentally deflating, a rubber ball. It was so influential it not only secured the go ahead for Toy Story, but the ball and lamp became part of the logo for Pixar themselves – even though it wasn’t obvious to most people why until the short was shown before Toy Story 2 in 1999.

Now the duo are iconic enough to be turned into an official Lego set, but one originally designed and voted on by fans, as part of the Lego Ideas line.

Lego Ideas has been running for many years now and invites fans to post their own designs for sets, which are then voted on and anything that gets over 10,000 votes is considered for a chance of being turned into a real set – which the original creator gets a small percentage of the profits from.

The Lego version of the lamp is fully articulated and can be displayed either separately or on top of the ball, which can be given the effect of appearing deflated by removing a few select pieces.

Spheres aren’t an easy thing to create in Lego, but the ball looks great and it’s got some fun Easter eggs hidden instead, with references to other Pixar movies such as Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, and Up.

Although the final model design was modified by Lego themselves, the original was created by London-based fan Toby Brett.

‘I’m a huge fan of all the Pixar films, which were a big part of my childhood and Luxo Jr. is the mascot that perfectly sums up my love for these movies. I spent a lot of time looking at photos of Luxo Jr. to make my model as screen-accurate and recognisable as possible,’ he said.

The set is made up of 613 Lego pieces and is 29cm tall when complete. It’s quite reasonably price too, for licensed Lego, at £59.99.

It’ll be available from June 1 at the Lego website and stores, and you can already pre-order today.

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