29 replies to this topic

[Ralph_S]

Police Car V-LP-2C, Ambulance V-LF-2D, Air Ambulance V-A-1C

I've been continuing my spree of minifig scale building with new EMS vehicles.
The first is a typical British ambulance. Nowadays they're mostly painted yellow with green/yellowish green checked markings on their sides. These were a lot of fun to build. You can see it here with my earlier fire engine and policecar:


This view shows the ambulance from the rear. Many emergency vehicles in the UK have red and yellow chevron markings on the back, all to make them more conspicuous. The doors work and it has a lift for lifting the stretcher into the vehicle:



Having built the ambulance (and being rather fond of helicopters) it was almost inevitable that I'd build an air ambulance. It is loosely based on an MBB/Kawasaki BK 117 (known in much of Europe as 'Medicopter 117' as a result of a truly laughable TV show about the unlikely exploits of a Air Ambulance Crew)

The helicopter has working sliding doors as well as clamshell doors under the tail to allow a stretcher to be slid into the cabin from the rear.

More pictures can be found in my minifig scale vehicles set on flickr. I am having great fun building minifig scale vehicles and hope you'll enjoy them too.

Cheers,
Ralph

[Dennimator]

Hi!
The cars (and helicopter) is wonderful      . Do you think you can make instructions (or a guide on how to build it, like showing first the bottom, then adding some pieces, then some more etc and film it) on that ambulance, cause I´ve been searching for a cool ambulance for my Stop-Motion videos for like half a year now (I´m not so good at building ambulances in the right scale). I´d really love to use that design in my videos, is it okay if I "steal" it?

Thanks!

Dennimator

[Holodoc]

Very well made, indeed!

They look very colorful for those who live outside the UK, but they seem to be build very accurately.
I do know the helicopter from the tv series though.
All cars are outstanding, but the heli beats them all.

Congrats on your brilliant building skills and thank you for sharing them with us.

[Norro]

Some nice work there. Instantly recognizable!

Cheers for sharing and God Bless,

Nathan

[Ralph_S]

Thanks guys. I hadn't built a minifig scale helicopter in ages (we're talking about 15 years here) and I was curious to see what I could do with newer pieces and a few tricks that I've picked up over the years. I was quite happy with the result. Since I've moved to the UK I've seen ambulances like the one I now built countless times, and every time I did see one, I thought about how to build one. It is very colourful, but that's what makes them interesting. I never make instructions of any of my MOCs (I'd rather spend my time building new ones), but I can make a few photographs sometime this weekend, showing some of the internals.

Cheers,
Ralph

[BlueBard]

Impressive work!  

I specially like the police car with that yellow/blue pattern  

[JopieK]

BlueBard, on Sep 6 2008, 05:40 PM, said:

Impressive work!  

I specially like the police car with that yellow/blue pattern  

Really nice MOC's! Indeed the police car is very good. I would now love to see an RNLI lifeboat as well  

[Dennimator]

Ralph_S, on Sep 6 2008, 04:43 PM, said:

Thanks guys. I hadn't built a minifig scale helicopter in ages (we're talking about 15 years here) and I was curious to see what I could do with newer pieces and a few tricks that I've picked up over the years. I was quite happy with the result. Since I've moved to the UK I've seen ambulances like the one I now built countless times, and every time I did see one, I thought about how to build one. It is very colourful, but that's what makes them interesting. I never make instructions of any of my MOCs (I'd rather spend my time building new ones), but I can make a few photographs sometime this weekend, showing some of the internals.

Cheers,
Ralph

Thank you!
I guess you´ll put them out on Flickr, right?
Please PM me when they are out, so I can steal the design.

Thanks

Dennimator

[rriggs]

Holodoc, on Sep 6 2008, 02:18 PM, said:

They look very colorful for those who live outside the UK, but they seem to be build very accurately.

It's all about the hi-vis!  





Truly great models!

Cheers

Rog

[Ralph_S]

Dennimator, on Sep 7 2008, 02:18 PM, said:

Thank you!
I guess you´ll put them out on Flickr, right?
Please PM me when they are out, so I can steal the design.

Thanks

Dennimator

I'll let you know when I've done it. I got a little distracted by something new I'm building at the moment, but I haven't forgotten. I probably will put them on flickr.

rriggs, on Sep 7 2008, 05:47 PM, said:

It's all about the hi-vis!  





Truly great models!

Cheers

Rog

Thanks. Now, why didn't I think of doing that?
Cheers,
Ralph

[Darth_Legois]

WOAH!

Those are excellant Ralph!

I love your mini-fig scale vehicles, Especially the chopper   

Hope you continue your mini-fig scale vehicles, I love them!

[KimT]

Excellent builds.
Now perhaps you'd consider a parts list and instructions-like thing for the ambulance?
I'd love to have one of those on my desk

[Zepher]

The Ambulance is buetiful!  The colors are nice, and it is really well pulled off, especially after seeing th real one.  i also really like the figs you made to go with it, figs an make or break a MOC (in my humble thoughts, anyway), and they really help yours!

[Ralph_S]

I haven't gotten around to it yet, I will make some photographs of the ambulance partially disassembled to help those of you who'd like to build one too, but I dislike working with ML-Cad too much to invest the serious amount of time it would require to put the model in there. You'll have to do a bit of puzzling it out on your own. I have made photographs of the smaller cars, BTW. I need some decent natural light, but the weather this week has been very gloomy.

I agree that the figures are important. After all, what are minifig scale vehicles without minifigs? Ambulance workers here tend to wear green uniforms with a day-glo yellow jacket. Similarly, helicopter crews mainly wear orange or red jump suits. Going through my box of minifig parts to find suitable combinations to recreate that look was a big part of the fun. Until December last year, I hadn't built any minifig scale town MOCs for at least a decade. I gave up on them because the figures are awkwardly shaped, which means you have to make all kinds of compromises, and I didn't play with my MOCs anymore, and back then there was a lot less variety in facial expressions, headgear, hairstyles and whatnot. Most figures still had smiley faces.

Because I did buy a fair few sets with minifigs in the intervening years, I did build up a reasonably collection of minifig parts, and when I started building a minifig restaurant for a competition, I found out that I really enjoyed putting together the figures for it. They might be awkward, but minifigs do add life to your creations. I didn't consider myself a town builder, but now I'm building all of these to be a apart of a larger collaborative city layout (with the Brickish association), that involves buildings, trees, vehicles and people. Here are some of the things that I've been building for it temporarily set up on my kitchen table:



Cheers,
Ralph

Edited by Ralph_S, 10 September 2008 - 12:00 PM.

[Guss]

now that I see the original vehicles, I have to say you've done a really good job!

do you have some more pictures of your kitchen table street ? it looks great, but I want to see details ! ^^
EDIT : didn't noticed the picture was actually a link, sorry

EDIT 2 : I really like the Lion Pub sign ^^


btw : maybe you should post your link in BBcode, not in HTML ^^

Edited by Guss, 10 September 2008 - 09:53 AM.

[Ralph_S]

I have. AFAIK html doesn't work here, but BBcode allows you to have a picture as a link as well. The photograph is on flickr (as you may have seen by now) and its user guidelines stipulate that if you post a picture that is hosted on flickr elsewhere, the picture should be linked back to flickr.
Computer things aside, I'm glad you like my MOCs.

Cheers,
Ralph

EDIT. Sorry. you are right. The other link is messed up. I've fixed it.

Edited by Ralph_S, 10 September 2008 - 11:59 AM.

[Jammiedodger]

AWESOME!!

J

[Ralph_S]

V-LP-7D

I've just finished uploading some detailed photographs of the construction of my Ambulance to brickshelf (it might take a while for it to moderated).

I have also completed a new vehicle: a van as used by British police:


Cheers,
Ralph

[rriggs]

Ralph_S, on Sep 16 2008, 08:45 PM, said:

I've just finished uploading some detailed photographs of the construction of my Ambulance to brickshelf (it might take a while for it to moderated).

I have also completed a new vehicle: a van as used by British police:


Cheers,
Ralph

Another awesome build (does the side door open?).  These are all so good and the scale and proportions so well done!  Thanks once again for sharing - I assume that more pics will be on Brickshelf too?

Reference pic for those outside the UK:


Cheers

Rog

[Ralph_S]

Quote

Another awesome build (does the side door open?).  These are all so good and the scale and proportions so well done!  Thanks once again for sharing - I assume that more pics will be on Brickshelf too?


Cheers

Rog

Thanks.
I haven't uploaded them to brickshelf yet, but there are more photographs on flickr:
http://www.flickr.co...tags/policevan/
The back doors and the side door can open. It wouldn't be fun otherwise ;-)

Cheers,
Ralph

[Dennimator]

Sorry for upping this (3 ½ month old!)topic, but I have finally built a copy of the ambulance(other colors, to somewhat fit in with my hospital), and I have to say, the functions are fantasticly built!
Ralph, I really liked the ambulance earlier, but after seeing it in RL and seeing the hidden functions, I adore it! I esp. like the ingenius tile sliding/opening door combo.
Really cool!     

Oh, and about the police van, its nice too, but it looks a bit like a copy of the ambulance (well, it´s almost the same van! ). It looks really cool, but there´s one thing that I don´t like; the fence. It just seems so...out of place. (I know that it´s the most accurate piece we have, but the bottom looks a little...wierd.
The rest of it is very nice, though! (I assume that you use the same side door technique as on the ambulance, right?)

[momo59 fan of lego city]

Your vehicles are beautiful and your module for that matter.
Continued like that.

[Zorbas]

Dennimator, on Jan 10 2009, 08:43 AM, said:

Sorry for upping this (3 ½ month old!)topic....

Actually, i'd like to thank you for bringing this topic to the surface

Ralph_S what can i say, your vehicles are just amazing! I don't know if there is a topic about the whole fleet but since it's the first time i'm seeing these masterpieces the only thing i can say is WELL DONE!
The bus is magnificient! I really   the side doors!
The cargo truck is very accurate and wonderful! The main field of my job is Logistics and this could be a great addition on my office desk !

I guess your MOCs are a strong motive for a 6-wide world.
Keep up the good work!

(Sorry for being rather off the main topic. Enthusiasm you see... )

[Dennimator]

Zorbas, on Jan 10 2009, 04:27 PM, said:

Actually, i'd like to thank you for bringing this topic to the surface

Ralph_S what can i say, your vehicles are just amazing! I don't know if there is a topic about the whole fleet but since it's the first time i'm seeing these masterpieces the only thing i can say is WELL DONE!
The bus is magnificient! I really   the side doors!
The cargo truck is very accurate and wonderful! The main field of my job is Logistics and this could be a great addition on my office desk !

I guess your MOCs are a strong motive for a 6-wide world.
Keep up the good work!

(Sorry for being rather off the main topic. Enthusiasm you see... )

Actually, his MOCs are 5 or 7 studs wide.
Yeah, it was his bus MOC which awakened my interest in 5 and 7-wide cars/trucks about half a year ago.
I tried to make a copy of it, but I couldn´t find a way to make the front so nice.
In December I tried again, this time succesfully, but I still couldn´t put the rear mirrors on (at the place where it´s supposed to be it´s only a 1x12 stud).

[Zorbas]

Dennimator, on Jan 10 2009, 05:26 PM, said:

Actually, his MOCs are 5 or 7 studs wide.

Come on, you know what i meant!