Ken Ito’s Beasts and Birds

The Vigil cargo frigate

Eloi Parizeau’s The Vigil

Cargo Frigate

Article by Steven Smyth, Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars Photography by Eloi Parizeau

Galactic greetings! I’m Steven Smyth from Bantha Bricks: Fans of LEGO Star Wars. Since the community’s founding in 2016, on an almost daily basis, I have witnessed amazing and creative Star Wars builds in the best Star Wars themed building brick group on Facebook. Eloi Parizeau is one such creative builder and recently shared this custom build of The Vigil, a Kuat Drive Yards built Vakbeor-class Cargo Frigate from Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi. You may remember Eloi from a previous BrickJournal issue, #67, in May 2021. His wellhoned ability to transfer a Star Wars ship to LEGO medium is a topic we wanted to come back to. Steven Smyth: How’s it going Eloi? I’ve known you for years now through the Facebook group, first as a member and then as a moderator of the all-volunteer Admin Team that helps monitor the group content to maintain a family friendly atmosphere. Everyone in Bantha Bricks has been wowed by your many awesome Star Wars brick builds, but for the uninitiated, please introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you do.

Eloi Parizeau: Hi Steven, I am doing well, and always happy to talk about LEGO and Star Wars! First, for fans who do not know me, I am an architectural technician, so in real life, I do inter-professional coordination and I lead a team of technicians to bring great projects to reality. For those who think I build LEGO models because of my work, it is actually the total opposite. I have built LEGO since my childhood, when I was four years old! My favorite LEGO themes growing up were Castle and Space, particularly Blacktron. I would love to see the Castle theme back on shelves. We got the privilege to get the Blacksmith Shop and some Creator sets lately, but a complete wave could be amazing.

Data File: The Vigil The Vigil was a Vakbeor-class cargo frigate captured by Resistance commandos from pirates during a battle off the Chasidron Shoals. It became part of the Resistance fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Jotis during their war with the First Order.

Source: Star Wars Wookieepedia

If you would be so kind, please refresh us on why you love Star Wars so much, and why you choose the LEGO brick as your medium to express yourself?

Yeah, back to the main topic, Star Wars. I remember seeing The Return of the Jedi in 1983, and it is an amazing memory. My older brother was a Star Wars fan, playing with Kenner toys and creating role playing game backstories. He is probably the main reason why I jumped into the Star Wars world. As far as I can remember, I have played with LEGO for at least 40 years, so in 1999, when I first saw the X-Wing set 7140 on the shelf at Walmart, it automatically just fell in my buggy, I could not resist. I have many years in collecting the Star Wars sets; then I had a kind of Dark Age when my finances were really bad in 2006. It remained like this until my present fiancée bought me the Millennium Falcon microfighter for Christmas in 2014. I am now at over 300 sets in my collection. With time, building all these sets, I learned a lot of techniques and started to try building “out of the box.” Some friends from a LUG (LEGO User Group) in my country convinced me to attend events to show my builds, and that is how I realized people love my creations. This fueled my desire to get into building even more. The Vigil is my largest project to date.

The drive units of the Vigil.

I personally find the subject of this build a very interesting choice. First, because it is in the movie Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, which, if we are being honest, is not every Star Wars fan’s cup of tea. Secondly it is an obscure ship design, being a Kuat Drive Yards cargo frigate that was targeted by the First Order after the evacuation of Resistance on D’Qar, and was the first to be destroyed in the ensuing chase. What inspired you to build this particular ship?

First of all, choosing a model to build has to inspire me; the challenge, the shape—and has the model ever been built with LEGO before? I usually search for inspiration on Google, for pictures of ships or unknown vehicles. When I first saw the Vigil, I really loved the shape; then I asked myself if it was possible to do this kind of shelled shaped ship hull with LEGO, but I wanted to build this much larger than my previous builds. My mindset was to build a three-to-four foot long ship, so it was a good fit. I just needed to find the right techniques to build it, as it had never been done before with LEGO at that scale.