Lego BB-8 is a Lego set that flew under the radar for me. I didn’t hear anything about it previously on any of the blogs or other websites I follow. I just remember going to the mall one day and I was walking around and decided to check out the Lego Store to see if they had anything I would be interested.

Normally I’m not that interested in the Star Wars-themed sets just because most of the time they don’t really appeal to me. The play sets like the Ewok Village and Hoth Battle Scene are sets that just aren’t my style and the vehicle sets excluding the giant Millennium Falcon which unfortunately for me is way too big for my house are just not that impressive. I remember I almost pulled the trigger on the Lego R2D2 but after seeing one on display I changed my mind after finding it really disappointing. But the BB-8-I don’t know why, even though there wasn’t a display at the time it spoke to me so I decided to buy it.

Here’s BB-8’s box. The artwork was pretty impressive with its recreation of the opening scene from The Force Awakens.

At only 6 bags and 1106 pieces BB-8 is one of the more smaller Lego sets I tried my hand at assembling.

Looking through the instruction manual I think this is the first time I saw a break down of what I should be done with after each bag.

And so it begins…

The first big piece assembled out of bag one. It doesn’t look like much…

… But eventually that first piece becomes BB-8’s bottom. I’m quite surprised that they would bother putting in some detail pieces to dress it up a little considering it’ll be on the bottom where it will rarely be seen.

Going through the rest of the bag is pretty quick and before you know it you end up with this thing which is basically BB-8s skeleton.

Now that BB-8s skeleton is done it’s time to move on to his guts.

I never knew his guts were so technicolored.

All those gears make this thing seem pretty complicated at first but once you take a good luck at it you realize there’s not that much to it.

Here is the track and cutting torch.

And here is the entire thing put together and inside BB-8. The pegs on the side are to control it.

Bag 3 is a relatively short bag. All you do at this point is put the top on BB-8.

Here’s the beginning of BB-8’s top portion. If you’re wondering what the rubberband is for it is to get BB-8 to rock band and forth.

And here’s the top of BB-8 without his head, which will be done later with bag 6.

On to bag 4 where you build out the sides which include the mechanisms to get BB-8 to do his motions.

Here’s BB with the sides put on minus the covers to operate the mechanisms. The mechanisms are pretty simple it’s just a dial that you turn the turn the geas and depending on which 1 you’re turning either the cutting torch will pop out or BB-8’s head will rotate.

Here’s the dial to operate the head.

And this dial is the 1 that will operate the cutting torch. Once again I like how they added detail to make it look like the movie as well as made them different.

Bag 5 is another short bag.

All you do with bag 5 is put the front on with the hatch that covers the cutting torch in BB-8’s belly. As well as the back.

I like how you can open the hatch just by running the torch. Too bad you can’t close the hatch the same way.

And now the final step, bag 6.

At this point except for a short break for lunch I’d been working on this thing for a couple hours and with the way my house is setup after the sun went down it got pretty dark. Between the darkness and my attempt at making my pictures look more professional I decided to pull out my photo backdrop and use that.

First thing you do is get the head built and attached. I like the amount of detail they put into this thing.

After the head the final step is to put together the stand and information card.

I’m not sure why they included a mini BB-8. It’s not like there was 1 in the movie.

And here it is BB-8 finished and in all his glory.