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Hello, first time poster. My name is Romão Santos, I'm a LEGO model maker from Portugal and lifelong Tintin fan.

As my next LEGO projecto, I'm aiming at building a minifig scale model of the iconic rocket from Destination Moon.

I have already determined its dimensions, but one thing has been bugging my mind, of which I can't find much consistency in the books: how many horizontal squares are in each of the 5 rows of the red and white square pattern?

5 would break up the pattern, while 4 or 6 seem to be, respectively, too few or too many.

Does anyone have an official physical model of the rocket to tell me, in fact, how many squares are per row?

Thank you very much.

Based purely on the illustrations, I'd say 4.

Here's a website about making a Tintin rocket out of paper which appears to indicate that 4 will do. [Moderator - Link removed]

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It's definitely six. I think what you're percieving as inconsistency in the books, Romao, is actually just caused by variations in the angle of viewpoint.

If you make or find a simple cylinder (the cardboard tube of a finished toilet roll will do fine) and draw six evenly spaced vertical lines down it to divide it into six rows, you'll quickly see what I mean.

If you turn it so that one row is centred dead on towards you, you'll see that three rows are visible, the wide centre row and one on each side, with the side ones looking a bit narrower due to the foreshortening caused by the sides curving away (and indeed by restricted sightlines if your viewpoint is really close up to the cylinder). This three-rows-visible view is the one most commonly used in the drawings in the books, probably it's less fussy and thus more aesthetically pleasing.

Whereas if you turn the cylinder so that two of the squares are facing you equally, with the line between them dead centre, you'll see that four rows are now visible - the two facing you being completely visible, and the rows on each side being just half-visible, and narrowed to virtually a sliver by the extreme foreshortening of the curve. This four-rows-visible view is used less commonly in the books than the three-rows-visible view, but is used sporadically throughout. (The sequence where the rocket turns round before landing on the moon is one example.)

In one of these pictures where four rows are visible - namely the picture of the rocket heading away from the Earth at the top of p.16 of Explorers - our viewpoint allows us to see the intersections of two of the rocket's three fins with the hull, and that these intersections are two squares/rows apart. This confirms beyond doubt that there must be six rows around the rocket. (This can also be seen, perhaps more clearly, in various pictures of Calculus's test rocket.)

I know that Hergé and his studio colleagues had a scale model of the rocket to work from when making their drawings, so I'd imagine all the books' drawings of the squares and the rocket generally from various angles are pretty accurate and consistent. Is the model displayed in the Hergé museum in Brussels, does anyone know? (I haven't yet been.) Or is it long lost or elsewhere?

Definitely six. It can't be four because there are a few drawings in which you can see four of the squares from the side (although two are only partially visible), such as on page 11 of Explorers On The Moon. It would be impossible to see four if there were only four squares, three would be the maximum possible.

But with six you would be able to see four squares when viewed at the right angle.

Edit
I hadn't seen Balthazar's post before I made mine, but I'm glad to see he is agreement. I worked it out by drawing it out in profile, i.e. drawing a circle with 4 and six divisions.

Thanks, guys, that definitively clears it up :)

I'll post pictures when it it's done.

Is it ok for me to post pictures of my previous work (totally not commercial purposed), or is it against the rules?

I have one of the official models, and I can confirm that it has six.