One of the hardest things to build in LEGO is a sphere. In fact, one of the test to become a LEGO Certified Professional is to build a sphere.
Until the day that Bruce Lowell came up with the design, the perfect sphere was a beast everyone hunted, but no one had it killed.
http://www.brucelowell.com/lowell-sphere/
The first time that I encountered this was during one of the Lugsing gathering when Andy from Andybearcreation brought his MOC: Line Rabbit and Bear. For some reason, it was extremely round and i just couldnt bring my head ard how to do it. I was considering to "accidently" drop it, to see how it is built.
When i talked to ppl about it, they say that the basis of the design was from the Lowell Sphere.
Looking at the design (even by detail) i cant make head or tail of it. I was able to understand til the part where you make a SNOT cube, but i was stuck at the part of making it round.
Ppl keep explaining to me, but somehow i just cant visualise it. Then one day, XY told me to go look at a volleyball.
That's when it all came together. In the center of the sphere is still a cube, however, each face will extend itself to cover 1 axis. The reason why i was stuck was that i was thinking of the front covering the whole front, covering 2 axis instead of only 1. End up, most of the time, i have a deformed TIE-fighter.
On the left, is a cube, and on the right is a Lowell sphere. to let you see the difference more clearly, i switched one of the side.
When you have a half plate overlapping, it gives the sphere a very round feel. If you were to upsize the build, the round look becomes very obvious.
Can you see where does the edges of the cube start? now you know why i had a hard time that time.
