Custom Chrome UCS Naboo N-1 Starfighter Review | The Brick Collective

Straight to the point, this is the best Naboo Starfighter of all-time, and one of the most captivating displays you could add to your collection.

Every once and a while I’m reminded just how far LEGO® models can go. Official sets are great and always dependable, but models that come from custom designs and MOC builders push the boundaries of what’s possible with LEGO®. In the case of The Brick Collective’s N-1 Starfighter, they pulled off something we haven’t seen since the official UCS set from 2002, this ship with chrome highlights. We’re likely never going to see anything like it in the form of an official set ever again. And thanks to BrickMoon, I was able to get everything in the form of a building kit that made the experience that much closer to being that of an official set.

The Brick Collective

The Brick Collective is an online webstore similar to ones you may have seen such as Brickvault where designers have instructions for their models hosted for purchase. The difference for The Brick Collective is that a lot of their models include printed instruction manuals, which makes for a far better building experience than digital instructions.

The models hosted by The Brick Collective and other ones currently in the works are mind-blowing, truly. You’re not going to find many other places that offer models of this scale and quality. All of their hosted MOCs go through plenty of testing before their launch to work out any kinks.

The designer of this MOC is Jared Reisweber, who has partnered with The Brick Collective in the past to release instructions for Mando’s N-1 Starfighter, and are currently finalizing the instructions for Sebulba’s Podracer. I’ve linked his Flickr here if you want to check out some more images of his MOCs, they won’t disappoint.

BrickMoon

The kit for this MOC was put together by BrickMoon, which specializes in MOC-building kits for high-end designs. With MOCs, the ability to go to one source instead of multiple bricklink orders that need to then be checked is a big time saver and simpler for people who just want to hop into building. Nearly all parts in their kits are in new condition, but some parts are in used condition for items that are no longer produced by LEGO®. For MOCs that have them, BrickMoon kits also include printed instructions, stickers, and minifigs.

Most kits are tailored to Star Wars™ but there are other various builds from other franchises. I’ve included a link to their store here.

Model Background

The shipment got from Germany over to the United States in less than a week which was fantastic, faster than a lot of domestic shipments to be honest.

The parts were at the end of the day packaged inside of one giant plastic bag, but were thankfully sorted out by color, and then by piece type. When it comes to building MOC sets, you’re almost never going to find numbered bags like there are for official sets. You’re generally left with all of the parts on the table or in bowls at once and then have to dig through them for each step. Now before you can do that you have to sort all of the parts and that can be an exhaustive effort with larger builds. Thankfully BrickMoon took care of that first step for me and I can jump ahead to laying everything out and then the build.

Chrome Parts:

The big draw to this set and what absolutely hooked me in is the chrome parts. Metallic chrome parts are very rarely made anymore, in fact only 9 sets in the previous 10 years have included chrome pieces, the most recent being the Hogwarts Express & Hogsmeade Station from 2023.

The chrome parts included in this kit are made by CustomBricks.nl, which is a Dutch company that provides chrome bricks both on a per part basis and in the form of set upgrades. Their catalog includes over 1,000 different parts which blew my mind. I wasn’t expecting the variety to span that much.

There actually is a kit available for the original UCS set, but that’s currently out of stock.

They retail a kit specifically for this MOC as well.

The quality of the chrome parts is absolutely remarkable. There is an extra smooth, slightly cold feel to them that is definitely different from the texture of a normal LEGO® brick, but visually they’re stunning. The painting execution is phenomenal, none of my parts have excess buildup around joints or the studs which give them a very professional finish.

MandR Productions reviewed a brand new copy of the UCS set a few months ago and showcased the chrome parts which had some unpainted areas where the parts were seemingly held to have the paint applied. That flaw is not the case with these parts from CustomBricks. The entire piece is uniformly covered with chrome other than very deep spots in sloped bricks and hollow studs. For this MOC I don’t think it will matter much but the undersides being covered are a big advantage compared to official chrome parts.

Printed Instructions:

The instructions for this MOC are in the form of a printed booklet, which I greatly prefer over digital. For me I feel a sense of separation from everything else when I have a physical booklet in front of me, as if it’s just me and the set I’m building. You can also take it anywhere and don’t have to have a monitor in your building space. The first few pages include various pictures and renders of the finished model, along with some background information about the design and even some pictures from the filming locations that make up Naboo. The back cover has a lined up fleet of the starfighters along with some credits on the final page.

The print quality is very high and certainly above the quality of official set instructions, which I find is often the case with MOCs. It certainly fits in with the other printed MOC instructions I have in my collection. I would say that the individual pages are a little thinner than the other ones, but they’re certainly thicker than official set instructions.

Building Experience

The build experience was one of the better ones I’ve had with MOCs. The thing to remember when it comes to MOCs is that you’re going to spend a lot more time looking for the right piece, you’ll run into building techniques that are more complex than nearly all sets, and some parts of the build will be fragile. I think the instructions could have been a bit more clear in some areas, and could benefit from spreading out the build more and adding another couple dozen pages to the finished booklet, but it was very far from an unenjoyable experience. The underside was absolutely the most difficult part of the build just due to the way that the sections are suspended from ball joints until you can fixate a rubber band to keep them up. The total build time was 7 hours, which I spread out over two days.

Model Review

At no surprise, the finished model is simply stunning. This term can get thrown a lot, but it feels real with this MOC, it will be the eye-catcher of your collection. Eyes will immediately glance toward the shiny chrome parts and absurdly sleek finish of this ship. The sculpting of the different curves and angles are marvelous, the finished model is nearly seamless which is stunning considering the shape of this ship.

Little details such as the front wings being on a very slight angle make all the difference. LEGO has never included details like this in an N-1 set, and I really wouldn’t expect them to in the future unless they make another UCS version. Compared to the official UCS set, well frankly there is no comparison. This is the best version of an N-1 starfighter we’ll probably ever see, and the fact that it’s available in the form of instructions or a complete kit is an absolute dream.

The size is large without being so big that you can’t fit it on a display shelf. Some of the larger official sets such as the Razor Crest or Falcon become a tough purchase because you need a ton of room to display them. This MOC has a stand with a very small footprint that doesn’t require a full coffee table just to stand it up. From a distance you forget that this model is even made of LEGO®. I attribute this to all of the chrome since we never get this type of finishing in official sets, so the chrome really makes it stand out as something different from anything you’ve built before.

The chrome pieces definitely smudged a little bit due to pressing them down during the build, but those smudges are really only noticeable up close. If you want to avoid this you can either clean the model after building it or use some cotton gloves to reduce the fingerprints.

At first I was really disappointed that the bottom of the front section isn’t chrome as well, but it definitely did not turn out to be a big deal at all. When viewing the finished build from the front, the underside doesn’t appear to be light bluish gray unless you intentionally look for it. The specular hits of light along the front edge of the ship and on the couple of pieces that are chrome on the underside make it blend in very very well. The illusion is also slightly caused by the engines being chrome on the bottom, it tricks your mind into thinking the hull must be chrome too while it’s not as visible as the engines. The two laser cannons being Dark Bluish Gray bothered me initially, but reviewing the ship and associated cross section I believe this to be the right decision. CustomBricks makes this piece in chrome so if you really want to substitute them, you can.

The cockpit piece was one of my favorite parts of the build when looking at pictures of the model. Unfortunately it’s pretty locked in-place but you can still very easily see the interior of the cockpit.

Bright light orange pieces are included at the engine heat sink location, which is just due to the available colors for this part. It blends in well enough for my liking, but if I ever find out that this part is made in yellow, it’s an instant swap for me.

The stand does hinge, which allows you to display the finished model at two different angles. The stand lifts up the tiniest bit when it’s at the steeper angle, but my faith in physics leads me to believe this won’t ever be an issue unless the model is nudged in the direction it would flip. I personally will have mine displayed at the steeper angle since it’ll be sitting higher up, this way I can show off the chrome more.

Minifigures

Three minifigures are included with this kit, but funny enough aren’t shown in the instruction manual. The stand very clearly has slots for the minifigures though, they’re just not shown and are only referred to with a callout at the end of the instructions.

The first minifig is a Naboo Fighter Pilot (sw0340) which was included in the 2011 Naboo Starfighter set as well as the Naboo planet series set.

The included Anakin Skywalker (sw1001) is the one from the 2019 Anakin’s Podracer and the Naboo Starfighter Microfighter, minus the goggles for the helmet.

And last but not least is R2-D2, which is the minifigure that showed up in 6 different sets from 2020-2021. Nothing special about this one, just a plain R2. While not a minifig, there is a 4x4 R2 dome behind the cockpit where an R2 unit would sit during flight operations.

Overall Value and Experience with Brick Moon

Without a doubt this is a top-tier piece to any collection. It just being a MOC already makes it a more valuable addition to your collection because 99.99% of LEGO collectors won’t have this. It’ll be more exclusive to your collection than germs that can survive Purell.

However, there is a very great cost to get this chromed out beauty. The kit from Brick Moon costs nearly $1,600, which is almost as much as it would cost to get both the UCS Falcon and UCS AT-AT. To be more specific, the 2,459-piece kit currently is listed for €1,450, which is equivalent to $1,575. Obviously, that is an extremely large cost, I don’t even want to think about the price per piece ratio. But being someone who has made custom MOC kits and instructions, you’re paying the premium price for a lot of work by individuals that went into this, not a mass-produced company product. Specifically for this kit you’re also paying for all of Brick Moon’s time to put this together, there’s a lot of hours in that. So what I can say is that for all the time and effort that goes into this one-of-a-kind set with all of these chrome pieces, I don’t necessarily think it’s too overpriced or greedy, but it certainly is an extreme luxury that not many collectors can afford. Think of kits such as this one in the same way you would about top-end clothing quality. What you buy is very expensive, yes, but the quality of the item you get is certainly unlike cheaper versions.

If you want to purchase all the parts yourself and go that route you will probably save a couple hundred dollars, but I can guarantee that you’ll deal with some headaches of sellers missing parts in your order. So it’s up to you if you think the extra fee is worth the simplicity. There also is the option to build this MOC without the chrome pieces, which would substantially reduce the price down to about $450 or so, including the instructions. Much more manageable and the same sculpt as the chrome version, but very far from the same. You could in theory build it with the non-chrome parts and then upgrade at a later date, but that relies on being able to get the chrome parts from CustomBricks, there’s no guarantee down the line that you can get them.

I couldn’t have asked for a better experience with BrickMoon, everything was incredibly professional and was so much more enjoyable than waiting for multiple orders to come in. Ever since my preorder in December I’ve received continuous updates about the status of my kit which is a big piece of mind when spending this much money.

Final Thoughts & Score

The Brick Collective’s N-1 Starfighter is a jaw-dropping display piece that gives us one of the prequel’s best ships at a scale I have great doubt we would ever receive as an official set. The chrome parts elevate this MOC from a top-tier collectable to a one-of-a-kind piece in a LEGO® or Star Wars™ collection.

If you’re interested in this kit or any other offerings from The Brick Collective or BrickMoon, check out the links scattered throughout this posting. Thank you for watching, and stay tuned for more to come in the future. Stay Bricking.

Score: 9.4/10

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