Okay, so I wanted to pose Chewie in the way I saw a lot of people posing with the giant globe at Universal Studios in Orlando. So many people acting like they were holding up the world. It doesn’t quite have the same effect, though, since Lego Chewie is roughly 3/4th the height of the globe itself.

Anyways, this Universal Parks exclusive represents the Globe found at Universal Studios Orlando. There is a similar model for Hollywood Studios that is gold / silver themed. Honestly, I think I like the look of the Hollywood Studios globe model, but I was at the Orlando one, so I got what I could. Of course, I’m still excited to have my hands on this model.

Unfortunately, it’s not the easiest thing to photograph. Or more specifically, it’s hard to capture a variety of photos, given that It looks mostly the same all the way around. I like the fact that the letters have some dimension to them, and that there aren’t a lot of gaps in the side-panels that give them depth. But I’m also a little confused with how South America looks on the globe – I’m pretty sure it’s not that tilted / sideways. Overall, it does a pretty good job, though, of created a spherical shape from a flat 2D object. I’m not sure I nailed the shape of the top/bottom – it looks a little egg-ish.

At this point in my journey as a Metal Earth builder, this build didn’t seem to be that terribly difficult. I actually built it as a “breather” between more complicated builds. But that’s because I’ve become very, very comfortable with shaping curves. In fact, I found it easier to shape this one with my fingers, rather than with any of my tools. My instinct is to say that I did it because of the way this part forms – as you curve more and more “petals,” they get in the way of using the tool to curve the next petal, especially since they curve along a conical path. So, yeah, I just ended up using my fingers to impart the curves, shaping around the flesh of my giant thumbs. It also helps that the curves are large and gradual. As for the lettering, it didn’t really prove to be much of a challenge.

Anytime you are working with a dome / spherical model like this one, it helps to pre-fold the tabs to a 90-degree angle and tilt the slots over that they are going to pass through (just be sure not to accidentally close the slots while tilting them). This works for joining all the petals in each of the halves of the middle section, and when joining the two middle halves together.

Possibly the most frustrating thing on this model was assembling and attaching the caps. The petals on the caps face inwards, and don’t all secure to the middle circle. This makes for a lot of fine-tuning work to get them well aligned. And then when you go to attach the caps to the “body” of the globe, you’ve got to squeeze the caps a little to get the tabs to pass from the inside to the outside of the tabs around the circumference of the middle. You’ll definitely want to tilt those slots out a bit, and then only fold the tabs on the caps out a little bit. Then curl the very tips of the tabs a little more, so they are easier to get started through the slots. Once you get them started, you can wiggle them far enough to grab with some fine-tip pliers and pull them through.

Leaving you with the final challenge: how to fold them over. It’s not too bad with the first cap, if you can squeeze a finger through the body of the globe to brace everything from the inside. However, on the second one, you can’t do that, and you have to delicately fold the tab over without shoving it back through the slot. It’s not easy, but it is possible. I promise.

And backtracking a little, I do want to say that I rather enjoyed the fact that the letters had depth to them (for the most part) rather than just raised lettering with gaps around the sides. It requires a bit more work to fold and shape the edges (especially on the letters that have curves) but it’s totally worth it, in my opinion.

All told, I wrapped this model in a little over an hour and 45 minutes, which you can watch in painstaking silence in the video below: