Fan Art for Space Opera

This page contains lego fan art for Space Opera by Cat Valente.  So far, this consists of a bestiary, with a photo and description of each of the major species in the book.  I left a few species out because there weren't enough descriptors for me to accurately portray them (the Empire of the Itrij, the Meleg, the Naranca Empire, and the Vulna).  I also skipped the Azdr because I don't know how to build a really chatty shaft of moonlight, and the Hrodos for a similar reason regarding a twilit psychic hurricane.  Aside from those omissions, 18 species are represented here.  Lego building instructions for selected species are available on my instructions download page.

Spoiler note: this album has no significant plot spoilers.  However, a large part of the enjoyment of this book is discovering details about each new species.  As such, I recommend reading the book before viewing this album.

You can view the artwork either through the gallery below or the individual image links just below the gallery. Below that, I have included a discussion of the lego builds and some of the customization involved, followed by copyright and use information. If you're on mobile, the menus are at the bottom of the page.

Gallery

Individual image links

• The 321
• The Alunizar
• The Elakhon
• The Esca
• Flus
• Humans
• The Inaki
• The Keshet
• The Klavaret
• The Lummutis
• The Slozhit
• The Smaragdi
• The Sziv
• The Ursulas
• The Utorak
• The Voorpret
• The Yurtmak
• The Yuz
• Group Photo
• Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeros (band on stage)
• Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeros (characters)
• Behind the scenes: audiobook recording
• The Roadrunner (Esca)

About these builds

Mira and Oort's torsos and Cat and Heath's heads were UV printed by BrickSanity, and Decibel Jones' head was UV printed by MinifigFX.  Decibel's torso and legs were made using waterslide decals.  Decibel's jacket was complicated -- I cut the base jacket using a Cricut, then attached some thick yarn to serve as the fur.  To attach the bat wings through the jacket, there is a small slit in the jacket's neck, and I inserted a bracket through this slit before attaching the bracket to the minifig neck and attaching the arms to hold the jacket in place.  The bracket also has a pair of studs on the back to use to attach the wings.

Legal stuff

The artwork on this page is copyright 2021 by Richard Martin. The source material is copyright by Catherynne M. Valente.  I am not affiliated with Cat Valente or her publishers in any way.

Feel free to download the images on this page and to use them for non-commercial purposes. If you wish to re-post them online, you may do so as long as you give me credit by either citing me (Rick Martin) as the artist, linking to this site, and/or linking to my Facebook page or my Twitter account.