Elusys Ra Arwal Posted October 16, 2020 (edited) Hello everybody, several decades ago (1993) I got the renegade runner as a present, at the time I was 8 years old and I loved that little ship. I played with it a lot, I had battles with my BSB and my brother's Imperial flagship. It was fun. Then several years later I modified it, added shrouds, made new sails off of the original ones (which I still have in almost pristine conditions) and added all the little details that made it look more like a complete ship, as for its rigging. Back then I didn't have so many bricks and here in Italy there were no LEGO stores where to buy them from, therefore if I didn't buy a new set, I didn't have any bricks... given the high prices of any set, no bricks for me... yay! So here I post some pictures of the ship in its current state, that is since 1998-9, and some more pictures of the modifications I am going to make as soon as I get some pieces I don't have right now. 1998-9 modifications: 2020 modifications: What I did was mainly adding a deck, a wheel, some more decorations and two cannons. In the photo above you can better view the work made on the deck. The main area can be lifted (it is a 8x8 square), giving a simpler access to the storage area beneath. There are two pairs of stairs for the bow and stern decks, which also frame two small hatches that give access to the areas below the poop and prow. I didn't want to dramatically change its original form, just enhance it a little bit and make it more "realistic". I know that it needs to be rebuilt from the ground up in order to achieve that, but I like its charming shape, and having those additions are just a way to make it a little bit prettier than it already is. Of course all the rigging that you see in the photos of the 1998 version will stay, so you have to imagine the studio renders with that rigging on top! Of course any and every suggestion will be gladly appreciated! In fact, one suggestion would be regarding the cannons. I have two versions, I like them both and I can't decide on which one to pick... ugh! Edited October 16, 2020 by Elusys Ra Arwal Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JintaiZ Posted October 16, 2020 (edited) Fantastic work! The bricks are getting a bit old though... Edited October 17, 2020 by JintaiZ Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Becker Posted October 16, 2020 Great little MOC! For the cannons Id say the latter one, maby change the muzzle for a fez piece as well? Other than that! Looking good, that rigging tho aint doing it for me as its non lego Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Elusys Ra Arwal Posted October 17, 2020 20 hours ago, JintaiZ said: Fantastic work! The bricks are getting a bit old... but I know they are from 1989... I don't understand that statement Do you mean that as a whole concept it is getting outdated because people (kids and teens mainly) are moving to digital content/computer games, so they don't really bother using actual toys anymore or what? 15 hours ago, Captain Becker said: Great little MOC! For the cannons Id say the latter one, maby change the muzzle for a fez piece as well? Other than that! Looking good, that rigging tho aint doing it for me as its non lego I did what you suggested about changing the mussle and I LOVE IT! Thank you for the suggestion! As for the non lego part, I understand but there are no real lego pieces that can substitute those wooden part and be in scale. I considered the cannon wheels, but those are too small to be used as blocks, and too round to be pulleys, so that's why I used the wooden ones. Here's the mod you suggested: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Becker Posted October 17, 2020 Now that is a cute little cannon! Might we see how its made? Like part it out? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Elusys Ra Arwal Posted October 18, 2020 Mini-tutorial As you can see the snot brick is at an angle that on a flat surface will make it unstable, but on a studded surface it should make it stable enough. In my case I will file that small part underneath because I don't care and I need it flat. If there's some other solution to obtain the same angle with another type of brick etc, i'll be happy to apply it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rock raider Posted October 19, 2020 I really like the cannons. I have been using a cannon with the same towball pin/head/fez combination but my carriages are somewhat lacking; usually just an Erling in between the breech and chase. I will have to steal this idea. Have you had any trouble getting the pins to stay all the way in the head? I've noticed that mine tend to be loose and show a slight gap. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Elusys Ra Arwal Posted October 19, 2020 12 hours ago, rock raider said: I really like the cannons. I have been using a cannon with the same towball pin/head/fez combination but my carriages are somewhat lacking; usually just an Erling in between the breech and chase. I will have to steal this idea. Have you had any trouble getting the pins to stay all the way in the head? I've noticed that mine tend to be loose and show a slight gap. I have yet to try the pin version. The type of cannon I have made for my other ship is the one in the first post... I have no idea if the pin would stay completely in or leave a small gap. If it is slightly loose, then I would probably put some glue to stop it, because those aren't parts I am going to use in other builds, therefore I don't care that much, also because they are quite common pieces, they cost near to nothing, so ordering a few more the day I will need them (which is going to be far, far away) won't be such a big deal. I am not so concerned about modifying the pieces in all the ways possible to obtain what I want. For example, when Lego doesn't make the part I want in the color I need, I spray-paint it because I don't understand why lego doesn't produce such piece in a basic color like black, or white, or yellow, etc... For instance, I painted the gray road sign clip and a wedged plate in black because I needed it for my anchors, or I bought some wedge sloped brick in another color because the shop I was buying my pieces from didn't have the piece in the color I needed (I wasn't going to use a different store and pay extra for a few parts plus shipment to have it in the color I need, so I got the pain and I am done!). I made 2 holes in some 2x3 plates because lego makes technic plates from 4x4 to 4x8. I needed one 12x8 and I needed the hole in the middle only, so... hole in the middle! Etc.. hahah This is to say, if you don't care that much for those parts, just use some glue and problem solved! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Elusys Ra Arwal Posted October 19, 2020 Made some lanterns and turned them on! Do you think I should add a lantern also to the front of the ship? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
evancelt Posted October 19, 2020 Gonna try building some of those cannons tonight! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Elusys Ra Arwal Posted October 19, 2020 47 minutes ago, evancelt said: Gonna try building some of those cannons tonight! Great! Share here the outcome, I'm curious, and also check if the tow-ball pin is loose or not once attached to the head Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kurigan Posted October 19, 2020 OK, First off: Awesome! Creativity and improvisation are the very essence of Lego! Using a few non-Lego parts to improve your experience, to make you model/toy match your maturing sensibilities, when there were no Lego branded parts available, is right on, as far as I'm concerned and I applaud you unapologetic attitude towards such practices. I also like what you're doing on deck with trying to make her a tad more realistic and to-scale. Traversing carriages were a thing in the era, but not quite like the big Lego turntable and it always kind of bothered me about Renegade Runner too. As for the gun designs, again, a builder after my own grisled heart. I've been playing around with gun designs for a long time and even started a catalog for a while but lacked the coding skills to do it efficiently. I have found that fitting technic pins in heads to be a bit of a crap-shoot. They lock well in to some, but want to pop out of others while still others will hold if you twist them once in place. I cannot figure out what the "X" factor is, as it's universal across all types and eras. The fez gun is great and I love it, but I'm afraid you may have trouble with it not wanting to sit flat on deck. I had a design like that years ago which I dumped for that reason. It always wanted to point down at the horizon because of a similarly twisted brick. If you poke around this album on my photobucket (sorry for photobucket they're supposed to be getting better but that's where all my stuff is ) I have a few designs I think work pretty well, with breakdowns that may be helpful or inspirational in developing yours. You can also check out The Foundry, that catalog I mentioned, though it was never very extensive. Cheers Dave Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iammac Posted October 20, 2020 You get my upvote for those chubby little guns! MAC Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Elusys Ra Arwal Posted October 21, 2020 (edited) On 10/19/2020 at 11:30 PM, kurigan said: OK, First off: Awesome! Creativity and improvisation are the very essence of Lego! Using a few non-Lego parts to improve your experience, to make you model/toy match your maturing sensibilities, when there were no Lego branded parts available, is right on, as far as I'm concerned and I applaud you unapologetic attitude towards such practices. I also like what you're doing on deck with trying to make her a tad more realistic and to-scale. Traversing carriages were a thing in the era, but not quite like the big Lego turntable and it always kind of bothered me about Renegade Runner too. As for the gun designs, again, a builder after my own grisled heart. I've been playing around with gun designs for a long time and even started a catalog for a while but lacked the coding skills to do it efficiently. I have found that fitting technic pins in heads to be a bit of a crap-shoot. They lock well in to some, but want to pop out of others while still others will hold if you twist them once in place. I cannot figure out what the "X" factor is, as it's universal across all types and eras. The fez gun is great and I love it, but I'm afraid you may have trouble with it not wanting to sit flat on deck. I had a design like that years ago which I dumped for that reason. It always wanted to point down at the horizon because of a similarly twisted brick. If you poke around this album on my photobucket (sorry for photobucket they're supposed to be getting better but that's where all my stuff is ) I have a few designs I think work pretty well, with breakdowns that may be helpful or inspirational in developing yours. You can also check out The Foundry, that catalog I mentioned, though it was never very extensive. Cheers Dave Thank you for the compliments and support about the use of non-Lego parts. I agree that the turnable cannon on this ship and other sets is cute as a toy but not that great for "realism". I even think that those two cannons are too much and I should just put a couple more swivel-guns on the back of the ship, given the approximate size of it. Maybe just allow 1 cannon, but then there is the problem of moving it around on a small ship (if one wants to keep it into the realm of realism). That's too much nitpicking, which means to just put this ship aside and build it anew, on a custom hull etc etc... So, to keep the general shape and memory of the original RR while still updating it a little bit (to make it slightly more realistic), I think I reached that goal. Regarding the pin, you mean it is all about luck, if you get one that is microscopically larger than the other pieces, it may fit into the head, otherwise it will stay loose... cool to know! I just checked your link on your photobucket and I like your "Napoleonic" cannons, I have some of your older designs already saved into a file on my PC, back when I was trying to find some cannons' inspiration. I have many other models downloaded from Flickr as well, and yes, the options are many and the result may vary. As you mentioned, I've been struggling into finding a good combination of elements to create a decent series of cannons too. For my larger MOC ship Parthenope, I have experimented with several types of cannons' styles, and it took a while before getting where I wanted to be. The picture above shows the smaller and larger cannons, both having a very old round brick with no bottom lip on the front as a muzzle. Once I saw that piece on stud.io I though I solved the problem to get a sleek and uniform barrel, instead, when I ordered the pieces and started building it, the bricks didn't fit or were too loose, then I checked the product again and I saw that those round bricks are OLD! So, I ditched those and used the regular round brick. In the picture above, for the larger cannon I had two options, make it grey and use the bucket as a muzzle or make it black and use the palm-tree piece as a muzzle. The latter is what I ended up using. I also added a bar inside of the barrel to make it straight and sturdy (as you mentioned the problem of these pieces not being so strong) and I am enough content about the result. I was thinking I could buy the grey buckets, paint them in black and use them too... but I don't know yet, I don't need all these cannons anyway! For the smaller cannon I used on my big ship, I think I will order some parts and make it look like the small one I posted here for the renegade runner, because it looks cute, but i am still deciding on that! Here are other 3 versions/variation on the larger cannon I still don't know if I want to build in real bricks, as in modifying the ones I already made: Looking at the picture's subpictures in a clockwise motion, the first cannon on the lower left is a sort of modified version of the cannon you see in the picture before this one, the one with the muzzle made out of the black palm-tree piece. The other two cannons are the larger version of the smaller one I made for the Renegade Runner. On 10/20/2020 at 4:23 PM, iammac said: You get my upvote for those chubby little guns! MAC Thank you! Edited October 21, 2020 by Elusys Ra Arwal Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
