[MOC] mid-scale Millennium Falcon (WIP)

[Gray_Mouser]

Have you considered adding studs on the "rays"? It seems to me that they stand out more because the wedge have studs, and the rays don't.

Did you design it with LDD or Studio only? If so, I'm very impressed, the structure looks like a nightmare.

And needless to say, this is a wonderful MOC but you have to know that already.

[anothergol]

What do you mean by rays?

Yes, good old LDD, Studio only for rendering. I'm nearly done with it, and yeah it was a pure nightmare. The worst being that I hadn't designed it for servicing, so things were ok to assemble as long as there was room to access them, but the last few things were a nightmare. I'm more than happy with the outside, but the inside was only troubles. Now hoping I'm not gonna break it before I take proper pictures.

[Gray_Mouser]

I meant the lines made of tiles that originate from the center of the ship. In other words, the tiles between the wedges. The wedges have studs, the tiles don't, so it seems to me they stand out more.

But again, your MOC is great anyway.

[anothergol]

Actually, the wedges aren't there to cover anything, so it could be fully tiled up, but then we have straight lines that only look weird.

I also had tried to fully tile it up like Joerg's MOC (https://www.flickr.com/photos/152499780@N02/37671037711), but with corner tiles to avoid the stairs effect, but it didn't look as good either.

 

[anothergol]

Finally done with it!
And it wasn't fun to assemble, I'm glad it's all over. Not touching this thing anymore.

Edited November 20, 2019 by anothergol

[Brick-Wombat]

@anothergol Looks nice! Better than the render. Are you content with the rigidity of the model?

[anothergol]

Yes & no, the front-bottom slices aren't all properly attached upwards, and it's fragile because of all of the slope tiles at the tip of slices. And I wouldn't mind if it was easy to service, but that's the main problem, it's not, and anything that detaches is a pain to repair.

[dvogon]

Congrats! This is a small piece of art.

It's so impressive to have this level of detail on a system-scale model that I guess some fragility is part of the price. The interior structure is worth analyzing, very compact but at the same time with high rounded resolution.

The rounded slopes at the edges are a bit too big, but surprisingly the overall model feel is much better and the sense of roundness of the main disks of the ship too. The additional bits of colors add to the overall color scheme. Specially from some distance.

If something to improve, I would say that the big radar dishes without holes would fit better than the ones with holes, as those holes are visible at the sides of the builds. 

For sure, I'll take some notes for future MOCs 

Great work!

 

Edited November 20, 2019 by dvogon

[Hollander]

This is some next level stuff. 

I would personally never even begin building something with those angles like the Falcon has, but you nailed it. I could use a lot more words to describe how good this is but let me just say this is one of those creations that has the ''wow-factor''. Absolutely amazing. 

[anothergol]

1 hour ago, dvogon said:

If something to improve, I would say that the big radar dishes without holes would fit better than the ones with holes, as those holes are visible at the sides of the builds.

You mean for the docking rings? There's actually a full radar behind the one with holes, I just thought it looked cool with the holes. But in all cases the ring should be bigger & totally different, but as always it's a tradeoff between accuracy in metrics, accuracy in shaping & overall look.

At first I thought you were talking about the radar, because there was a version of the 6x6 dish with open studs (weirdly not the latest version) and none of the ones I had had open studs so I had to revise the model. But those robot feet worked pretty well too.

Edited November 21, 2019 by anothergol

[Sucram]

God damn that looks good. Now build a bigger one

[dvogon]

19 hours ago, anothergol said:

You mean for the docking rings? There's actually a full radar behind the one with holes, I just thought it looked cool with the holes. But in all cases the ring should be bigger & totally different, but as always it's a tradeoff between accuracy in metrics, accuracy in shaping & overall look.

Yes, I meant that one. It looks very good, just different. It's a shame that that ship look-out piece isn't bigger. It would be perfect.

Another option you might try some day would be to use a brick-built one, which would give the opportunity to add some detail to the front of those escape pods.

In any case, the model is excellent!

[Kit Bricksto]

The difference between the first renders and the final photos is just incredible! I already really liked the digital model but it just looks sooo much better in real bricks! I especially love the greebling around the main ring and on the sides of the mandibles and that cockpit build is just fantastic! I also think the mandible design works really well with the rest of the design, the level of intricacy in the overall build fits very well with the smoothness of the SNOT work. The mandibles on my (currently unpublished) most recent version of the Falcon are built in a very similar fashion and I can only agree that connecting them to the hull without warping the entire front half or them simply sagging under their own weight was quite the challenge. Looks like it worked out very well for you here. 
I really just have one small nitpick: I think the back of the ship maybe could use some more greebling. The tiles radiating from the center of the ship give it a very uniform look that the Falcon doesn't really have. It's really hard to explain what I mean but maybe using the 3x12 wedge plates on the surface with some greebling added to them could help tie the slightly raised part in the back of the ship together as one area of plating..?

Anyway, great work on this and to me this is one of the best Falcon MOCs out there and I prefer it to most UCS scale models out there, especially the two official sets! :)

[anothergol]

46 minutes ago, Kit Bricksto said:

The difference between the first renders and the final photos is just incredible! I already really liked the digital model but it just looks sooo much better in real bricks! I especially love the greebling around the main ring and on the sides of the mandibles and that cockpit build is just fantastic! I also think the mandible design works really well with the rest of the design, the level of intricacy in the overall build fits very well with the smoothness of the SNOT work. The mandibles on my (currently unpublished) most recent version of the Falcon are built in a very similar fashion and I can only agree that connecting them to the hull without warping the entire front half or them simply sagging under their own weight was quite the challenge. Looks like it worked out very well for you here. 
I really just have one small nitpick: I think the back of the ship maybe could use some more greebling. The tiles radiating from the center of the ship give it a very uniform look that the Falcon doesn't really have. It's really hard to explain what I mean but maybe using the 3x12 wedge plates on the surface with some greebling added to them could help tie the slightly raised part in the back of the ship together as one area of plating..?

Anyway, great work on this and to me this is one of the best Falcon MOCs out there and I prefer it to most UCS scale models out there, especially the two official sets! :)

Thanks, looking forward to seeing your version!

True that the "exhaust" section of the back is a slightly raised triangle, I don't think it should be 1 full plate thick, though. However I hesitated not using sloped tiles at the end of that triangle, so that it looks raised at the tips. And that was very doable, as we also have triangle flat tiles. I ended up with rounded tiles because flat ones would have meant seeing another support plate underneath, so it would have looked inferior I believe. But yeah, I believe flat plates around the blue thruster thing would have given the illusion of a raised triangle section in the back.

Originally the prongs were to be held using 2 pair of clips, then I made it 3 pair of clips, 3 technic axles, then another safety attach AND I also had to tie them together through the front rectangle cover thing. It's always technic parts that are the problem here, they're designed to bend to absorb shocks (that beats breaking, I guess), but of course they suck for static models.

Edited November 24, 2019 by anothergol

[anothergol]

So, 3 years later I started reworking the model and was ready for a version 1.5, which looked like this:

Had reworked all the details, and was ready to build it, then I realized it would probably look much better/flatter (but less round) if I ditched all those tiny slices. Especially now that we can easily find loads of wedge tiles. So I reworked it again:

Less slices, will expose much less studs, the center pods are now thicker as they should be, things look more correct.

But now I'm realizing that the holes in the prongs, which are too big, could be made the proper size using that new part that shrinks a 4x4 to a 3x3.
Problem is, I was proud of the details in those holes, and it would have to be completely ditched. And I would probably have to revert to printed 3x3 tiles inside for the detail. But is it worth it? Those holes are definitely too big but it's not shocking to me.

 

[TeddytheSpoon]

I missed it the first time round but this looks great!

I think having the details inside adds more to the model than having the dishes be the right size. They certainly don't jump out as being the wrong size to me, although I'm not as much as a stickler for accuracy as others .

[anothergol]

I'm still hesitating. The service I use can print on 3x3 round tiles now, I already got the back vents printed, I could definitely print accurate detail at the front. But it'd still be flat inside.

[Gray_Mouser]

Tough call. I checked the studio model, and there are definitely details in there... But yes, the holes are too big. And no, they're not shocking.

I say keep the details. Less distracting than flat or printed tiles, and more pleasing to the eye. There are bound to be plenty other trade offs anyway, aren't there?

Edited November 21, 2022 by Gray_Mouser

[anothergol]

Since I saw a couple of good MF's passing by recently, here's a quick update on my V2 that has been gathering dust for a couple of months waiting for printed tiles for the prong holes.

 

[Chrome Vader]

You've got some genius part usage on this, representing the details really well at that scale. I particularly like the ski sticks for the gun barrels, the technic panels for the cockpit tube, and triangular road signs for the base of the radar dish. The docking port ends look excellent as well, the brick-built cockpit is fantastic. I do prefer the 3-stud mandible holes as well--I think at this scale the printed tiles for the details will work just fine. I'm a sucker for the sleek, minimal studs look, and this does a magnificent job with that. The sand blue instead of dark grey is also a nice choice. You've done a marvelous job capturing a convincing "look" for the Falcon at this scale. This is so far beyond the realism of the official play-scale sets it's almost unreal.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Chrome Vader

[stifos]

Oh wow! This is a great improvement! What did you put inside of the mandibles? Some kind of tires?

very smooth look overall 

[anothergol]

7 hours ago, Chrome Vader said:

You've got some genius part usage on this, representing the details really well at that scale. I particularly like the ski sticks for the gun barrels, the technic panels for the cockpit tube, and triangular road signs for the base of the radar dish. The docking port ends look excellent as well, the brick-built cockpit is fantastic. I do prefer the 3-stud mandible holes as well--I think at this scale the printed tiles for the details will work just fine. I'm a sucker for the sleek, minimal studs look, and this does a magnificent job with that. The sand blue instead of dark grey is also a nice choice. You've done a marvelous job capturing a convincing "look" for the Falcon at this scale. This is so far beyond the realism of the official play-scale sets it's almost unreal.

Thanks

 

4 hours ago, stifos said:

Oh wow! This is a great improvement! What did you put inside of the mandibles? Some kind of tires?

very smooth look overall 

part 68325. It only appeared in 2020 so I couldn't use it in V1.