MOC: Ju88 minifig scale LDD

[Fuppylodders]

I have loved the look of the Ju88 for ages, and when I got back into Lego it started dawning on me to build one. I scoured the internet for other peoples versions, and while ok, nothing really looked like I would be personally happy with it if I were to build one of theirs.

I didn't just want it to look similar to one, but I wanted it to be detailed and replicated as close as possible, while giving it certain moving features. I wanted it to be screaming it is a Ju88!

Features:

Moveable ailerons, elevators and rudder.

Propellers spin freely.

Front and rear landing gear retracts/extends.

Bomb bay doors open and close.

Underside gondola can fit a minifig in it lying down.

Replica cockpit as closely matched in general layout and some details as possible to the original Ju88 design.

Moving rear cockpit and rear underside gondola guns =D

It is built solid so it can be picked up and held with ease without worry of something breaking.

I replicated the cockpit to be as close to the real thing as possible with certain details, bearing in mind Lego scale only allows for a certain amount of accuracy.

The plane itself compared to the minifigs is perhaps a little slightly too big, but probably only by 1 stud in width. If I made it slightly smaller, I was unable to build it with a decent underside gondola and everything else around it would be thrown completely off and make building it much more difficult. So I settled on an 8stud wide fuselage, meaning 6stud width space inside the cockpit.

I could not find anything that would work well enough for the canopy, so I decided to go down the route of 'representing' the canopy, by using those SW droid arms, and piping/tubing. The canopy, although not completely finished, is done as much as I can on LDD. When it comes to building this in real life, I shall be able to bend the flex tubing to where I want it and thus be able to finish the cockpit properly.

The rear of the front undercarriage gondola is a bit 'meh', but I don't really know how else to get the gear covers on the rear part to come down tigher because the wheel when retracted, is in the way, and so I had to make it as it is... Perhaps one day I'll revisit that and try a different approach, but for now I've exhausted my own personal abilities

There are a few things here and there that I had to make compromises for (undercarriage gondola for example), but overall personally I feel I made the best compromises with my current level of skill.

Flickr with more pics here.

Without further ado, here it is:

Please let me know if these pics need resizing smaller, and I shall do so

C&C very welcome!

Edited April 26, 2012 by Rufus
Indexed

[Rufus]

Nice! Some great attention to detail in there - I love the landing gear flaps, and the way you've tapered the fuselage.

Could you perhaps upload some pics without the grid? It's been a while since I used LDD, but it was possible last time I tried.

I'd love to see this in real brick. You could then close off the cockpit, and perhaps bend the flex tubes to close off the front of the cockpit canopy.

[Ralph_S]

I think you've done a reasonable job of recreating the shape of the Ju-88, which is no mean feat by itself, bu I'm not sure your choices were wise. Your model has a wingspan of about 100 studs, which works out to a scale of approximately 1/25. That's huge. It's about 80% bigger than what I would consider appropriate. Even at 1/35, which is bigger than I like myself but is considered OK by a fair few military builders, a model would still be a lot smaller than what you've ended up with.

I briefly considered building a minifig scale Ju-88 night fighter a while ago and worked out that the forward fuselage would end up being five studs wide at the scale I like -roughly 1/43. The difficulty of fitting a crew into that was one of the reasons why I ultimately didn't build it and decided to to build a He-219 Uhu instead -only to find that squeezing a crew into that was pretty difficult as well. Minifigures are wide fellows and trying to fit minifig crew into a LEGO aircraft is inevitably a pain, but at six wide it should be doable with a little SNOT work. The canoe fairing could be three wide and still (just about) house a minifig with some panels and SNOT work and by mounting it using a half-stud offset would look OK. I gave a fair bit of thought to this myself back when I was thinking about building one, but I ultimately decided that I didn't want to compromise on the scale.

This is not a bad model by any means, but my advice is that if you value accuracy, ditch the minifigs altogether. They're only an awkward distraction. That's what I do for most of my aircraft models and I think it hasn't hurt them at all. If you do want to build minifig scale, perhaps focusing more on something that looks decent with a figure next to it will provide better value for your efforts than trying to fit the whole crew inside.

Cheers,

Ralph

Edited April 26, 2012 by Ralph_S

[Fuppylodders]

Could you perhaps upload some pics without the grid? It's been a while since I used LDD, but it was possible last time I tried.

I'd love to see this in real brick. You could then close off the cockpit, and perhaps bend the flex tubes to close off the front of the cockpit canopy.

Yeah, I've never been able to figure out how to get rid of the grid, I don't doubt it is possible, but I've just never really spent the time looking for the function because every time I went on LDD I invariably ended up designing something/getting inspired on how to solve a particular problem!

What you mentioned about the flex tubes, is exactly what I will be doing *when* I do build it in real bricks =D The rear of the cockpit canopy also needs the same treatment.

I gave a fair bit of thought to this myself back when I was thinking about building one, but I ultimately decided that I didn't want to compromise on the scale.

This is not a bad model by any means, but my advice is that if you value accuracy, ditch the minifigs altogether. They're only an awkward distraction. That's what I do for most of my aircraft models and I think it hasn't hurt them at all. If you do want to build minifig scale, perhaps focusing more on something that looks decent with a figure next to it will provide better value for your efforts than trying to fit the whole crew inside.

Cheers,

Ralph

Thanks for your input/advice, its hugely appreciated!

I've seen your He-129, and all your others which you have done really well on! Some seriously interesting techniques you have used.

When I first started out on this, and initially had the problem of how to build the cockpit area, I asked someone else for advice, they designed a 6 stud wide cockpit (4stud wide interior). It was really cramped, I mean really cramped, although he did a great job on it, I felt my skills weren't up to the task of doing justice to a 6stud wide one.

As you mentioned about the scale, you are right, 5 would be suitable, but even with 6 I (personally) would struggle. My compromise would be to make it 8 stud wide, and fit it out to be whatever I could. To be honest, it is probably more up to scale of the technic men. The lego men, are very short and fat Their legs when sat down *should* easily reach the bottom of the fuselage (to be faithful to the real life version pilots position/size), however they do only reach about half way down, so yeah it is huge for them.

I think after fussing about with the cockpit and getting frustrated at the minifigs being too wide and stumpy, and the cockpit causing me frustration due to scaling issues, I just wanted to get the overall outside size and shape right.

I may have made some bad choices, but to be honest (without wanting to sound like I'm just making excuses), that was in my ignorance. I have never built anything military before, let alone many mocs (I've only designed a minifig scaled AT-AT before this and that's the extent of my actual MOCS) so I did not really know what size I should aim for so I just went with my gut instinct, which was to get the plane size matching the 8 stud wide fuselage. You are totally right however, it is like the opposite of a Tardis

Thankfully the interior is easily modifiable, so I could modify it to be in proper scale with the rest of the plane, I think for the moment my brain would fry at trying to reproduce a 1/43 scaled Ju88, it is well beyond my current building expertise as I hit many walls building this and thankfully had someone on hand to offer practical solutions.

For example, my landing gear is big and clunky compared to yours, of which I've seen which can move in the same manner yet takes up much less room than mine does

To create a 1/43 scale Ju88, I think for the time being I shall leave that up to the proper experts (like you ) and enjoy seeing other peoples designs. In time, I will invariably make something else (I noticed you had mentioned on one of your flickr moc's pic you may build a B17, has it gone any further than thoughts? I'd be interested to see anything on that! The B17g is my fav looking WW2 plane of all time!). It'll of course probably be something that not many others have done before because I don't like copying much unless I'm in love with the source model in which I'll do what I can for one that meets my expectations.

If you wouldn't mind, when that time comes, I may ask you for advice on getting the scale right as you so successfully do

[Ralph_S]

Thanks for your input/advice, its hugely appreciated!

I've seen your He-129, and all your others which you have done really well on! Some seriously interesting techniques you have used.

When I first started out on this, and initially had the problem of how to build the cockpit area, I asked someone else for advice, they designed a 6 stud wide cockpit (4stud wide interior). It was really cramped, I mean really cramped, although he did a great job on it, I felt my skills weren't up to the task of doing justice to a 6stud wide one.

As you mentioned about the scale, you are right, 5 would be suitable, but even with 6 I (personally) would struggle. My compromise would be to make it 8 stud wide, and fit it out to be whatever I could. To be honest, it is probably more up to scale of the technic men. The lego men, are very short and fat Their legs when sat down *should* easily reach the bottom of the fuselage (to be faithful to the real life version pilots position/size), however they do only reach about half way down, so yeah it is huge for them.

I think after fussing about with the cockpit and getting frustrated at the minifigs being too wide and stumpy, and the cockpit causing me frustration due to scaling issues, I just wanted to get the overall outside size and shape right.

I may have made some bad choices, but to be honest (without wanting to sound like I'm just making excuses), that was in my ignorance. I have never built anything military before, let alone many mocs (I've only designed a minifig scaled AT-AT before this and that's the extent of my actual MOCS) so I did not really know what size I should aim for so I just went with my gut instinct, which was to get the plane size matching the 8 stud wide fuselage. You are totally right however, it is like the opposite of a Tardis

Thankfully the interior is easily modifiable, so I could modify it to be in proper scale with the rest of the plane, I think for the moment my brain would fry at trying to reproduce a 1/43 scaled Ju88, it is well beyond my current building expertise as I hit many walls building this and thankfully had someone on hand to offer practical solutions.

For example, my landing gear is big and clunky compared to yours, of which I've seen which can move in the same manner yet takes up much less room than mine does

To create a 1/43 scale Ju88, I think for the time being I shall leave that up to the proper experts (like you ) and enjoy seeing other peoples designs. In time, I will invariably make something else (I noticed you had mentioned on one of your flickr moc's pic you may build a B17, has it gone any further than thoughts? I'd be interested to see anything on that! The B17g is my fav looking WW2 plane of all time!). It'll of course probably be something that not many others have done before because I don't like copying much unless I'm in love with the source model in which I'll do what I can for one that meets my expectations.

If you wouldn't mind, when that time comes, I may ask you for advice on getting the scale right as you so successfully do

Thank you for candid and flattering answer. I have been building lots of different things for many years, but I still find building aircraft models to be both the most difficult thing I do with LEGO and also the most rewarding. I can imagine that trying to build a model of a real aircraft for the first time is a daunting prospect and I think that you have done an admirable job. It's obvious that it is supposed to be a Ju-88 and the same can't be said about some attempts I've seen by other people!

Things definitely don't get easier with minifigs involved. I think that due to the weird proportions of minifigs, it's almost inevitable that the interior of an aircraft will be cramped. I always struggle to find enough space -even on bombers- and I typically only include the crew that you can actually see from the outside and don't bother with the rest. It's not worth the trouble.

I suspect that the interior of the real Ju-88 wasn't exactly spacious either. I've looked at night fighter versions myself. They didn't have the ventral canoe and carried three crew in the cockpit. the pilot had a proper seat, as did the gunner facing aft, but the third crew-member was sort-of wedged between them.

I completely understand your desire to do something that other people haven't done yet. I feel a similar way. Even if I do build an aircraft that other people have done before, I generally try to come with my own solutions. The B-17 hasn't come to anything yet and has been put on the back-burner for a while. I am working on a WW2 project -a V2 launch site- and am planning a few more aircraft, but they are more modern and most likely won't be minifig scale: an F-105 Thunderchief and a USMC AV-8B Harrier.

Feel free to drop me a line if you're looking for some advice when building your next aircraft. I'm not very quick when it comes to replying (as you can tell), but I generally do reply eventually

Cheers,

Ralph