Designer insight: Chi Wing Lee
Posted by Huwbot,
Many LEGO set designers use our BrickLists feature to maintain a list of the sets they've worked on and often provide interesting insights about their involvement.
Once a week we publish an entry from one of their lists on the home page to increase awareness of this information and to encourage more designers to create them.
Chi Wing Lee wrote this about their work on 71795 Temple of the Dragon Energy Cores:
My 4th LEGO set and first attempt with a higher price point! I was extremely thrilled to be given the privilege of bringing this one from sketch to finish again. And believe it or not, after being a LEGO fan for 18 years and (once) an architecture student in university, this is the very first original LEGO building I have designed haha, and I really tried to make the most out of it. There are many cool little details like the rock lions at the door, the stone lantern and the bridge (so happy I got to keep the bridge build from the original sketch :D), but then there are also many cool play features spread throughout the model! I tried really hard to come up with traps that are different from the classic trap doors and falling boulders (well there is one with the falling boulder but it is done quite differently than usual I think), so that hopefully long term LEGO fans would still be excited to play with them when they get the set.
On top of that, the biggest technical challenge was getting the balcony enough support without losing the organic shape of the tree. It may not be obvious from first glance but having the balcony so far away from the main structure has been quite a challenge, under the guidelines for official products. With the bridge being purely ornamental and having to make sure you can press minifigs down onto the balcony, I ended up going out of my comfort zone and looking for answers in Technic elements. And a fun fact regarding the balcony: Throughout the development, some of my colleagues keep telling me "that balcony looks like it will collapse if you press on it", to a certain point my associate lead just asked me "can you actually make a play feature for the balcony to collapse?" - and that was the origin of that play feature.
One last thing that I would like to highlight is the exclusive printed lanterns and the cool yellow leaves colour change, I was really pushing for these two as I think they would be quite a useful element for MOCers out there. Looking forward to seeing some cool MOCs with cool yellow trees! :D
And finally, awesome stickers by Michael, but also thanks to the graphics team (Angel and Renato) for all the cool figures that make our models come to life. And credits to Julia also for the building instruction. Teamwork!
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13 comments on this article
One of the best playsets from last year! Chi did a great job!
So much respect & admiration for the work that went into this stunning set, and great to read the insights.
71795 is right at the top of my Wanted List!
It's funny, I just built it this weekend with my son. It's a beautiful model that fits well along 2022 sets, and my son absolutely loves the collapsing balcony ! I appreciate a lot how recent ninjago sets match with one another through shared colors, including foliage. This helps in building larger landscapes.
I think this has been one of the better Ninjago sets of the past few years. There is the beauty of the traditional architecture, but plenty of wackiness through the play features.
I actually recoloured my Bonsai Tree to match this set and they now stand next to eachother on display!
Notes charged with enthusiasm! This was a fun read. The set looks beautiful, but now I need to look up a (video) review that shows all the traps.
Chi has also designed 71819 Dragon Stone Shrine. Also a fun read and I think for me this is the most beautiful Lego set.
This is the set I'm currently building. Certainly, I'm finding all kinds of features as I build it. I bought it for the architecture but I might actually keep the play features.
@Feroz said:
"Notes charged with enthusiasm! This was a fun read. The set looks beautiful, but now I need to look up a (video) review that shows all the traps.
Chi has also designed 71819 Dragon Stone Shrine. Also a fun read and I think for me this is the most beautiful Lego set."
That's cool to know. The new set looks phenomenal.
As others have said, this was a great designer diary!
A beautiful set. I look forward to building it. I really enjoy designer insights like this!
Seeing people so stoked about where they work will always be heartwarming.
The evolution of the balcony is a type of LEGO trivia I love learning about: Clever features that might not exist if someone hadn't been in the right place at the right time, or are the result of other chance events or inspirations. Great stuff.
These comments have placed this set back on my radar to pick up. I remember being excited about this upon reveal, but others stole its limelight. This is too good to miss.
I wish 71795 didn't have half floors because of the triangle "facade" style , it surely does look nice , but mainly for one specific angle, but the interior is very shallow because of it.
It probably does look bigger in real instead of pictures, as many sets tend to be.
Still, I think it's a very cool location set, and the tree style reminds me a lot of a large version of 71764 : Ninja Training Centre
Sorry to say but this set is quite bad, there is barrely space to play and whole budged went all for looks. I absolutly HATE when designers use corner pieces instead of full 8x8 plates. If you want to let light in, just use the ones that have cross patern on it. The Hogwart designers used that piece well.
Funnily that was my problem with Dragon shrine as well, and he did that as well xD
But to not end on pesimistic note, all of his other builds are very fun and good.