While I know a lot of people think I’m some sort of Lego genius for building Hogwarts – today, by the way, marks the one year anniversary of its completion — , the truth is that Hogwarts is quite simply a variety of different shaped bricks put together very conventionally: one atop another. In the world of the AFOLs (“Adult Fans of Lego”), I’m quite the novice in technique and form. I’m not complaining about this, rather, I find myself looking forward to when I begin work on Lego Hogwarts II (no time soon) to try to better fulfill my original vision.

In any case, Saturday morning, before leaving to work a five hour shift at the Franchise, followed by a seven hour shift at the Indy, I found a Brickshelf folder from a user named Sachiko. I’ve seen his stuff on Brickshelf before (I’m particularly fond of his Train Bookend), but his Earth Park took my breath away.

Take a look at the Bricklink folder for a lot of photos. Hard to tell the scale of that construction, isn’t it, and particularly since there’s no, like, human there right? That’s fucking huge — want to know how I know? I’ll tell you: because I’m a loser and I counted the pegs on the “island” of this photo. That “island” measures, from my (admittedly potentially flowed) count, as wide as the base of my Hogwarts — which is, at 64 pegs by 64 pegs, constructed on a base of a sizeable 4,096 Lego Peg area. Now, of course, I’m not a math major, but assuming my count is right, what’s the area of a round base 64 pegs by 64 pegs? Mind you, that “island” is probably only half the area of what is concealed under the removeable top globe — don’t even get me started on how difficult Lego sphere building is — and the entire structure (not to mention the detail work!) probably wouldn’t fit in my dining room.