LDD MOC: SWAT Helicopter

[sharky]

Back when I was a kid I did this MOC of a small one-man copter inspired by the classic Appleseed anime. I recently discovered it when I finally got around to opening a box of childhood toys my father sent to me. It was nostalgic to say the least looking back at my old Lego and seeing what I was doing. I even found my old Pirates Forbidden Island in a plastic box with the monkey holding a space gun. Not sure what I was thinking.

Here is a screenshot of my inspiration. This is the classic anime Appleseed released in 1988.

Here is the MOC I did as a kid. Of course only being able to watch it on VHS tape I only ever caught a short clip of it, so the MOC was my interpretation from memory. At the time I simply used what pieces I had available to me. Sadly, this meant coloring some white bricks with a black marker. It also meant using a broken rotor blade spindle which used to be for 4 blades instead of 2.

I decided that it would be fun to recreate my childhood MOC and refine it a bit using LDD. I still may completely redesign it to mimic my original inspiration more closely.

I am rather fond of the asymmetrical design style. Somehow it seems more realistic that way. From this angle you can see the twin rocket/missile launcher and front cannon. The gold elements were meant to represent various targeting, navigational, or analytical sensors.

Rather than a tail rotor a ducted air system is used.

From this side you can see a large energy weapon.

I added some gauges.

My only problem in LDD is how to place these thrusters.

My intent is to place them like this. Any tips would be appreciated.

BTW, here's the monkey I was telling you about. He was just how I left it as a kid. Ditto for the spacemen. I had forgotten that I used to always flip the heads to simulate a gold tinted visor like a real astronaut would have. My daughter asked me why I had a bunch of naked minifigures as a kid.

[Hubertbrickengineer]

I've recently fished out some of the models from my childhood (the last 'batch' never got broken up, just stored as is) and I'm tinkering with digitalising them in LDD... again, they're made with what I had available, with some novel inventions that will have to be updated. Unfortunately Digital Designer is quite restrictive to 'legal' brick connections, I don't think you'll be able to place the bricks in the arch. You may be able to put them next to it at the desired angle using a hinge and some scaffolding (which is then removed from the model), but it will be no more connected than it is now.

As a side note, you might want to check your image sizes as Eurobricks has an 800x600 limit