UCS Plaque redesigns.

[harmacy]

Hey all - as an avid collector of all things UCS, Ive been wondering lately about the plaques that adorn these models, and have been thinking about the idea of redesigning these so instead of having the 'real life' statistics on there, creating new stickers that have information about the Lego model itself?

for example, the 10030 ISD plaque has information about the 'real life' ship length, manufacturer, capacity etc etc. What if the plaque had info such as piece count, year released, model length, weight, scale, and some facts about the model itself - eg - 'In production as TLG were going through a colour palette revision, so there were 2 different colour variations available'.

The reason why Im thinking about this, is I've had multiple visitors check out my models, and they are more curious about the actual model, rather than its movie based reference piece. I always get the inevitable 'How many bits in that one?' question....

Ive seen various MOC UCS sets out there that people have done their own plaques for, and being quite proficient at photoshop etc, it shouldn't be too difficult to redesign current TLG plaques effectively.

What do you guys think?

[art_apples]

I think that's a totally awesome idea.... I've often thought the same thing,

If you done them it would be great if you made them available here so that others could perhaps get them printed as well if they chose to.

[Brickdoctor]

Sounds good. I know Anio always says Oxycrest makes his stickers; perhaps they could help you with the process.

[Anio]

Sounds good. I know Anio always says Oxycrest makes his stickers; perhaps they could help you with the process.

Now, I do the stickers myself. :)

But I think my skills on photoshop are still very limited. Indeed, the stickers are nearly the only thing I can do ! Well, in fact, that's all I need. :)

Something very interesting for the community would be to redo the UCS stickers.

So, everyone could get a (free) file of them and print his own stickers.

This would prevent people from asking 100$ for a sticker sheet. -_-'

I confess that I never had the courage to redo all of them. One day, maybe... one day...

edit : an example of one of my stickers : http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Anio/SeTechnic/Podracer-UCS-ST03/sticker.jpg

Edited July 15, 2011 by Anio

[Fallenangel]

Having the plaque display set specs rather than in-universe specs would also mean that we'll avoid 'turoblaser' incidents and people thinking that the Executor is some crazy nonsensical length like 12km. This is definitely a good idea.

[Legoman]

That sounds a really sweet Idea actually. I'd love that - I agree that visitors are more intrested about that model itself than the EU movie backround of ships (Heck, Even I am )

Even redesigning the original sticker sheets could be really helpful (although may be illegal?). On quite a few of my sets, the sicker plaques have been falling apart (noticably 7191, 7181, 10019 and 10030 - Perhaps modern sticker sheets are a new material?)) - it'd be great to be able to get copies at a cheap price - Bricklink prices are insane for such things.

This could actually be a very valuable and useful resource for a lot of collectors

-Legoman

[Aeroeza]

Love it! Do it!

...and if you have any Photoshop questions feel free to throw them my way!

[Brickdoctor]

I think it would be best just to provide the background, and let people fill in the text themselves. You don't need a fancy program to do that. (actually, you don't need a fancy program to do any of it; I can remember doing something similar in Paint.NET a couple years ago, but that's beside the point) Some people might want to add different info. (for example, the fan who collects sets might like his measurements in centimeters, the fan who MOCs might like them in studs, and the fan who does work with virtual bricks might like them in LDU)

[harmacy]

I think it would be best just to provide the background, and let people fill in the text themselves. You don't need a fancy program to do that. (actually, you don't need a fancy program to do any of it; I can remember doing something similar in Paint.NET a couple years ago, but that's beside the point) Some people might want to add different info. (for example, the fan who collects sets might like his measurements in centimeters, the fan who MOCs might like them in studs, and the fan who does work with virtual bricks might like them in LDU)

Thats a really good idea there Brickdoctor! This would allow for fan preferences, and length / weight units to be regionally specific (eg - Here in NZ, we are largely metric, while in the US its imperial (hehehe - Imperial.....)

And you are right, you dont need Photoshop or anything fancy, even MS paint / powerpoint / something freeware will do the trick. I guess the key thing is to get some good quality background image templates developed, and we all take them from there.

And yes, the instances of 'Hyberdrives', 'Turoblasers' should be reduced:) - just as long as people dont put '3096 Legos'.

As far as legality goes, Ive known people who use the BL images for sticker sheets, and simply print these out for free, so there hopefully shouldnt be any legal issues with some fan designed ones - as long as they're not for profit i guess. Is there anyone here legally inclined who can confirm that for us??

This is quite exciting - Who knows, It could extend to non-UCS sets (4483 springs to mind here....)

[Vindicare]

Isn't 10195 a UCS set? I never noticed at the time of building, but it didn't come with a plaque.

[Brickdoctor]

Isn't 10195 a UCS set? I never noticed at the time of building, but it didn't come with a plaque.

No, it's an exclusive.

[brickmack]

I could help with this but I'd need scans of the originals to work from if the same backgrounds were to be used.

Love it! Do it!

...and if you have any Photoshop questions feel free to throw them my way!

Or my way (Not GIMP though unless I have some time to relearn it)

Thats a really good idea there Brickdoctor! This would allow for fan preferences, and length / weight units to be regionally specific (eg - Here in NZ, we are largely metric, while in the US its imperial (hehehe - Imperial.....)

And you are right, you dont need Photoshop or anything fancy, even MS paint / powerpoint / something freeware will do the trick. I guess the key thing is to get some good quality background image templates developed, and we all take them from there.

And yes, the instances of 'Hyberdrives', 'Turoblasers' should be reduced:) - just as long as people dont put '3096 Legos'.

As far as legality goes, Ive known people who use the BL images for sticker sheets, and simply print these out for free, so there hopefully shouldnt be any legal issues with some fan designed ones - as long as they're not for profit i guess. Is there anyone here legally inclined who can confirm that for us??

This is quite exciting - Who knows, It could extend to non-UCS sets (4483 springs to mind here....)

Not a lawyer or anything, but I think they can't do anything against you legally unless it unfairly competes with an existing product (Like selling an exact copy of a set for a lower price) or you charge for it, neither of which you would be doing.

[cavegod]

does that help?

[Praiter Yed]

As far as legality goes, Ive known people who use the BL images for sticker sheets, and simply print these out for free, so there hopefully shouldnt be any legal issues with some fan designed ones - as long as they're not for profit i guess. Is there anyone here legally inclined who can confirm that for us??

I suspect that there could be a copyright/design right infringement but as a fan-made sticker for sole use or given to the Lego community free-of-charge there shouldn't really be problem. If any legal issue did arise it would start with a polite 'cease and desist' notice which would just be bad pr for TLC really. I doubt anybody buys a UCS just for the sticker so it's not doing any harm to Lego sales. Just go for it.

[thecrea1or]

Terribly sorry for bumping this very outdated topic but what size is the template made for?  Like in stud dimensions?

On 7/15/2011 at 5:51 AM, cavegod said:

does that help?