(MOC) Batman: Mini Battle for the Batcave (Microscale Playset)

[Brickadier General]

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share with you one of my favorite MOCs as of late, "Mini Battle for the Batcave" (illustrations by flickr user Omar + Kazumi Ovalle). I actually finished this back in August but feel Omar's illustrations made it "pop" even more. I designed the model with playability in mind, so it has 10 play features including: 2 separable modules (Wayne Manor & Batcave), glow-in-the-dark stars, Batwing with working missiles, Joker truck with hidden guns, secret door to Batboat dock, Bruce Wayne, Batman transformation chamber, jail cell, Batwing landing pad, snap-on "Bat Ramp." Other fun details include the trophy room and Batsignal.

My main sources of inspiration were the Tim Burton Batman movies and comics, with a little bit of influence from the Animated Series. The Joker ice cream truck is a nod to one featured in one of the original LEGO sets. This was a lot of fun make. If you have any suggestions or ideas, let me know. In particular, I'm interested in making more microscale Batman stuff. What characters and or vehicles would you like to see?

This playset is on LEGO Ideas and is a collaborative project between myself and Ideas users, omarovalle (Illustrations) and mreilly44 (Toy Commercial Video)

I would add more pictures, but I think my friend's video does the best job of showing the play features in action. The first 40 seconds, or so, is the toy commercial. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did filming it!

[Steph 104th]

This is a great idea, all the little details are very nice

[Brickadier General]

This is a great idea, all the little details are very nice

Thank you! Working on details is my favorite part about building.

[gamejutzu]

This is very neat and it has great potential. However if this is accepted it will he the first time LEGO's accepted a huge set. It's been so long since LEGO made tall and wide sets.

Hopefully this won't turn out like the larger version of this set, and the Wayne Manor gates. I wish you good luck!

[TheLegoDr]

This is great. Love the play features. I could see kids getting behind this. A lot of fun could be had. However, not to dampen the mood. I do not see this becoming an official set. But it is a great MOC for sure. I had never thought to do something at this scale, but I have always wanted to build a mini Wayne Manor and it makes sense to have a batcave underneath it. So I may have to look at this for inspiration for my own build. But I don't think I could figure out how to do all of those wonderful play features.

Keep up the great work! I'd love to see more.

[Bricky Dee Williams]

Wow,my he Batcave looks great, love the detail on the Micofigures! And the vehicles are wonderful, especially the eye scream truck.

[Brickadier General]

This is very neat and it has great potential. However if this is accepted it will he the first time LEGO's accepted a huge set. It's been so long since LEGO made tall and wide sets.

Hopefully this won't turn out like the larger version of this set, and the Wayne Manor gates. I wish you good luck!

Thank you for your kind words and for the luck. Regarding the Ideas you mentioned, are you referring to these projects?: https://ideas.lego.com/projects/50007 and https://ideas.lego.com/projects/56745

With Ideas, I realize there isn't any guarantee of any idea going through, even with 10,000. It is very hard to predict what decisions they will make, let alone why they make them. I was very sad that the Jurrassic Park Gate and Ford Explorer (with T-Rex) didn't make it - after having been on Ideas TWICE. It was a great candidate - The only thing I can think is that they are working on a similar thing or have already considered it.

This is great. Love the play features. I could see kids getting behind this. A lot of fun could be had. However, not to dampen the mood. I do not see this becoming an official set. But it is a great MOC for sure. I had never thought to do something at this scale, but I have always wanted to build a mini Wayne Manor and it makes sense to have a batcave underneath it. So I may have to look at this for inspiration for my own build. But I don't think I could figure out how to do all of those wonderful play features.

Keep up the great work! I'd love to see more.

Thank you. No need to worry about "dampening the mood." I try not to have high expectations of it becoming a set but have had a lot of fun making the project. Even though none of the Ideas sets released so far have exceeded $60.00, I think that the day of a larger scale Ideas set is coming - Not really so much an issue of "if" as it is "when." Before the Cafe Corner, large scale detailed building sets seemed like a dream, and now they're making the Ghostbusters HQ (a $350 set!). Speaking of Ghostbusters HQ, even though it's not an Ideas set, I don't think we'd be getting it without Ideas. Brent's Ecto 1 served as the foundation. The Ghostbusters firehouse on Ideas was rejected, probably because it was being developed by LEGO. Even though it was rejected, the data collected from the project may have justified taking things further.

I'd love to see your microscale Wayne Manor - Micro is nice because you can do a lot in a small space. Don't get hung up on playability. If you wanted, you could always add that later. One thing I did that really helped was listing the types of play features I wanted to include, then making a rough sketch of what I wanted to build and where I though the play features might fit. Think of it like a flexible road map - While you're building, you'll probably think of alternate solutions.

Wow,my he Batcave looks great, love the detail on the Micofigures! And the vehicles are wonderful, especially the eye scream truck.

Thanks! The Joker truck was actually the most challenging vehicle to make because of trying to balance the color scheme with play functions. The vehicle is based on the one from this 2008 LEGO set http://alpha.bricklink.com/pages/clone/catalogitem.page?S=7888-1#T=S&O={}

[poxifuke]

This is very neat and it has great potential. However if this is accepted it will he the first time LEGO's accepted a huge set. It's been so long since LEGO made tall and wide sets.

Edited November 13, 2015 by poxifuke

[Ninja Bomb]

Outstanding! The details and play features are very well thought out and the video was a nice touch highlighting details that may have otherwise been missed by the casual observer. I love that you included the sky as part of this build!

[Brickadier General]

Outstanding! The details and play features are very well thought out and the video was a nice touch highlighting details that may have otherwise been missed by the casual observer. I love that you included the sky as part of this build!

Thank you for your kind words. That was one of the reasons we did the video. I wanted to do the sky to add to the overall dark mood of Batman...and to make the batsignal.

My friend Omar actually made two new microfigures for the project: the Penguin and Mr. Freeze!

[LegoPercyJ]

Oh my gosh, this is epic! I. Want. It. So. Much! Supporter #300

Edited December 11, 2015 by LegoPercyJ

[Brickadier General]

Oh my gosh, this is epic! I. Want. It. So. Much! Supporter #300

Thanks for supporting this.

[Brickadier General]

In the time since the last post, Omar made a microscale Riddler, and I made the duck car for Omar's Penguin microfigure. The duck car is from Batman returns - It's an amphibious vehicle (the flippers on the back are to help it swim through water).

[Khscarymovie4]

Looks great! Supporter #525th.

[Brickadier General]

Looks great! Supporter #525th.

Thanks for supporting the project. :-)