Thanks for answering.

The pieces were $540 CAD, to buy it in legit Lego would have been about $1,300, don’t know if you know how buying legit legos works. The instructions came from rebrickable and the user brickgloria (edit price was $60), iirc you can buy this as a kit from someone as well, that was damn near 1k though.

Not gonna lie, its a bit pricey. But that's okay for this kind of hobby.

The official Way to buy LEGO pieces via their Pick a Brick system is good, but their search interface is shite. I do small scale MOC expansions to my bought sets with Leocad. Just wish it would use official LEGO piece names or numbers, then it would be much easier to find and pick pieces on LEGOs website.

instructions came from rebrickable and the user brickgloria

I took a look around their published MOCs, pretty impressive. I really like their Tycho Station.

Yes/no on the colours, designers use colours so you can orientate the piece/s as you’re building. The instructions and build list did let you know which pieces could be “any” colour.

I was under the impression that it came as a kit, since you showed the pieces in one bag. But yeah you are right of course, that with the inventory list you can mix and match the pieces and piece colors to your liking.

The barrel is made from 1 lightsabre in the center and 6 3xlength rods held together with a tire.

That's ingenious! Those rounded 1x2 plates are super versatile :)