The Astrosurfer: an atomic-powered intergalactic sports car, featuring the hit new space rock band The Highway Stars! This epic futuristic vehicle is detailed and articulated with wheels, rubber tires, hinged doors, reclining seats, and with access to the car's trunk. On the hood of the car is a metallic minifigure hood ornament, and underneath is a detailed engine. In the rear of the car are two folding jet engines, a set of tailpipes, a spoiler, and an Octan bumper sticker.

Included in this set is a rock band comprised of five multicolored astronauts, each equipped with musical instruments. All five members of The Highway Stars can fit comfortably in the seats, and the instruments can be stored in the trunk!

Design notes:

Although I initially intended this model to be a replica of a 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air, I deviated and instead built an original base automobile design of my own creation. I chose the pink/lavender color scheme and tail fins to be a throwback to classic muscle cars such as the Cadillac Eldorado, or one of Elvis Presley's cars. The final design and color option will of course be at the hands of LEGO Group's design team.

The two-tone color scheme of both lavender and light pink was merely done as I only had access to those pieces in inconsistent amounts: ideally, a potential final design will have the car in a more solid color, preferably with the same dark hot pink as the tile piece currently on the car's windshield. The wheels would also hopefully be a metallic silver color, rather than light grey.

As a placeholder, the license plate is clearly a decorated tile piece of a digital clock: this will of course change and hopefully be replaced with something original.

The five minifigures are currently made from authentic vintage Classic Space sets (hence the noticeable play wear of the Space symbols), but any final design minifigures would probably be designed differently with potential original color schemes -- similar to the green astronauts from the Exo Suit set. Also, a final model could also have fewer minifigs, such as simply four astronauts.

The guitars are taken directly from Collectible Minifigure sets, but the drum kit is makeshift and made from dish pieces. An ideal final design would have a printed tile piece or printed dish for the large bass drum.

The Astrosurfer is an original title that I coined -- with the name being a play on words with "AstroTurf": this name can of course change in a final retailed model. Some of the runner-up names that I considered were the Subatomic Spacemaster/Starmaster, The Star Captain, and The Astromaster: the name Spacemaster was a parody of the Buick Roadmaster model. The band's name is a reference to the Deep Purple song "Highway Star", which again, will most likely change (or even become omitted) in a potential retail version.

Credits:

Project, design, and photography by Julius von Brunk. All photos taken with Nikon D5200 DSLR (with Nikkor 28mm lens). Images retouched in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. Background matte painting: "The Moth Nebula", 18'' x 24'' acrylic on canvas painting by Julius von Brunk.