Not an April Fools prankYou can now get Tintin’s iconic rocket in Lego form

The idea for this new model goes back to the Portuguese Alexis dos Santos, who uploaded his model of Tintin’s rocket to the Lego Ideas platform four years ago. It then took some time until 10,000 other fans voted for the idea. Once that target was reached, Lego recognized that there was strong interest and began to consider how to turn the idea into an official set.

Like many others, Alexis dos Santos enjoyed playing with Lego as a child and after a short break, he returned to the hobby years later. Nowadays, he leads workshops focused on building Lego sets and spends a good part of his free time stacking the small bricks. Since he is also a fan of Tintin, the idea of building the rocket out of Lego gradually became more concrete.

Price: 159,99 €
Age:18+
Pieces: 1283
Dimesions: +- 49 cm tall, 20 cm deep and 23 cm wide

To do this, he first gathered all the visual references from the comic in which the rocket appeared. From these, he created a virtual model and uploaded it to the platform. At Lego, they were immediately enthusiastic about the idea, since the rocket is such an iconic symbol that is recognized worldwide. This marked the start of the development process at Lego, to explore whether and how the model could be brought to life. It needed to be sturdy enough to play with, but also visually appealing enough to be displayed. The figures had to stay true to their counterparts from the comic, and there also had to be a small bonus feature that went beyond the rocket’s purely visual aspect.
A lot of attention to detail has gone into this set. For example, you can open the tip of the rocket, and inside is the control room, complete with the telescope the characters used to look through for the first time after leaving Earth and heading toward the Moon. As a small nod to Alexis dos Santos, his zodiac sign is also included in the star chart.