MIDI-Scale Invisible Hand and Venator

[Kristof]

Nice, my favourite would definitely be the trooper infantry :D How did you line up all the troops in such a perfect square regiments? :O

Nah, joking aside. I like the arquintens and consular ships. Everything else is a bit of a stretch of imagination, but I can hardly imagine anything more accurate in such tiny tiny scale.

[Neits]

Great design, was almost going to build the Venator a few weeks ago, when I was looking for a new project. Might tackle it one day :-)

[Kristof]

Thank you! I'll love to see you build it!

[TemjinStrife]

Did I miss an LDD or similar file for the Venator?

[Kristof]

There is no file. Yet.

[legoyoda]

On 3/5/2018 at 1:06 AM, krisandkris12 said:

There is no file. Yet.

Now, how about?  Hehehe.  Sorry, your time, take.  Study, train, hmm.

[Duck_In_Boots]

Hello. When we can see the LDD file?

[Iperial_Fleet_Commander]

6 hours ago, Duck_In_Boots said:

Hello. When we can see the LDD file?

August-October maybe. at least a few more months.

[Kristof]

 I know I know... but I am only 3 years too late, right?

Some building instructions in progress by Krištof Pučejdl, on Flickr

 

[Cylo]

Wow, that Venator looks amazing for its size! I'll have to get the instructions when it comes out!

[danielwerner]

I agree, that Venator is the perfect size. Looking forward to the instructions! Any thoughts of a price? :)

[Kristof]

^ That's uneasy to decide, the more that I have never offered any instructions for sale. I am debating whether to set a price or letting people decide the amount of the 'donation'... I am confident the model is really good, I will make sure to proof build it again according to the instructions to avoid any gotchas and make sure the building experience is great, so I am not offering some half baked piece of crap :D Still, money is not worth the same for everyone and maybe I would be happier if an extra person gets the chance to enjoy the model without necessarily paying some substantial amount, while other people may freely decide to donate more since they can afford it...? I don't know. I have had this discussion earlier with someone else offering instructions for sale and I haven't come to and easy conclusion. Let me know if you guys have some opinions :D

[danielwerner]

Ooh, didn't even think of that. A "pay-what-you-want"-option would be really nice, and my experience is that the Lego community usually honor MOC creators hard work. :)

[Kristof]

Yeah, so far the few people I asked respond this way to the idea. I'll see :) Maybe something like 'pay what you want as long as its well over $*fortune*$'  Or 'pay what you want but I'll let everyone know what a cheap *** you are' 

[Kristof]

Still quite a bit left to fine tune on the instructions. Mainly

• Finish all the steps and call outs. I changed the structure of the sub-models which messed up some progress I had before. There is a few steps to change and a lot of cosmetic things, like model alignment on page etc...
• Figure out few things that are not natively supported in the stud.io instruction maker - the build requires you to rotate and connect some parts that are attached in previous steps. That's usually a difficult issue to solve when making custom instructions. Other software may have more or less tedious methods to solve this, but stud.io has nothing even remotely simple. It occurs to me that I might have to use a different model for each orientation of these parts and then merge the instructions with a fake step in between.

 

Few issues that bother me or hold me back

• Missing part in stud.io library (new type of screwdriver with wide head) - I am currently using the older outdated part as a placeholder but it's really bothering my ocd 
• I just ordered last batch of new parts that I introduced to the model during this last design overhaul (featuring besides others the famous 2x2 triangular tile and the sequel trilogy stormtrooper shield!) so i need to wait till they arrive to be able to proof build the model, although there are no real structural changes that I haven't tested yet. It will me more of a sanity check for the instructions than checking of the design works.
• I still haven't designed a reasonable stand! I hate myself for making that an issue but it just feels wrong to release this without a stand. And then making the crude ugly stand is something I can't swallow, so I am trying to come up with something elegant... well, I hope I can manage to do it quick :D Any stand experts over there, feel free to give me hints!

Meanwhile enjoy the quick look at the currently last instruction step :D Thanks for keeping up with me!

MIDI Scale Venator Star Destroyer instruction - last step by Krištof Pučejdl, on Flickr

 

[Iperial_Fleet_Commander]

On 8/15/2018 at 2:41 PM, krisandkris12 said:

 I know I know... but I am only 3 years too late, right?

Is that the side hangar bay? Those new wedges work really well.

 

12 hours ago, krisandkris12 said:

Yeah, so far the few people I asked respond this way to the idea. I'll see :) Maybe something like 'pay what you want as long as its well over $*fortune*$'  Or 'pay what you want but I'll let everyone know what a cheap *** you are' 

maybe a minimum of like $5?

3 minutes ago, krisandkris12 said:

Few issues that bother me or hold me back

• I still haven't designed a reasonable stand! I hate myself for making that an issue but it just feels wrong to release this without a stand. And then making the crude ugly stand is something I can't swallow, so I am trying to come up with something elegant... well, I hope I can manage to do it quick :D Any stand experts over there, feel free to give me hints!

A lack of a stand won't bother me, I already have about 20% of my Kashyyyk Moc built that I'm gonna use as a stand for this. It's on a 64x64 base, and I'm trying to make it as accurate as possible, but in this scale, I had to make some things bigger than they should be. (Also as you posted that last comment as I was typing this.)

[Kristof]

^ Yeah, I can imagine the lack of stand bothers me more than most people interested in building the model :D Still, I consider it a necessity to include it. It's actually non trivial to make a good secure but non obstructing stand for the Venator. Unlike many (all?) bigger renditions, it doesn't have any way to run some fixed pylons through the bottom of the hull - in the end it's designed to be swooshed around  and there are no real connection points on the bottom.

[Iperial_Fleet_Commander]

Maybe make a cradle with some slopes? Could be pretty sturdy.

[Cylo]

Agreed, with some studs on it to secure the bottom though

[Kristof]

On 8/18/2018 at 5:12 AM, Iperial_Fleet_Commander said:

Maybe make a cradle with some slopes? Could be pretty sturdy.

I remember trying it quite recently... I mean when I first physically built Venator 3 years ago  Bottom line, it's not good approach for two main reasons:

• Venator belly is all studs facing down. There is few tiles, meaning smooth flats, but a lot of studs and greebles facing down. And between two of us, that's not the best surface when it comes to resting nicely on top of some slopes. It has a nasty habit of sliding around and being all... insecure.
• Venator belly has compound angles. The hull plates have two directions in which they slope... There is a complicated taper geometry... ...It is not flat  And unless you want to display it crooked, tilted, panned or whatever result you get by placing it on the cradle that is somewhat level, the only good way of dealing with it is to angle the cradle to accommodate for these tapers. And that means turning it from something very unstable in essentially a slide :D A little heavier steps in the proximity of such contraption and your Venator is 'de-standed'. 

4 hours ago, JarJarBonks said:

Agreed, with some studs on it to secure the bottom though

There is, to my knowledge, no good way how to connect anything to it to the good effect. I mean yeah, sure, i could invert some brick (technic brick per say) on the top of the stand to connect it to the studs, but then upon removal, chances are you will remove the piece from the bottom of the ship upon lifting it from the stand. Plus the compound angles I talk about above don't help with this either.

To be little constructive here, The best solution I came up with so far is using the bottom hangar bay as a 'socket' and equip the stand with some matching insert. Then again its not a standardized opening, but there might be a reasonably secure way using the technic 2L rubber liftarms. I don't love it but it is the best and least obstructing solution I found so far. Now I just have to figure out how to elegantly build up the stand so Venator rests level and it might pass my strict quality requirements  Fingers crossed!

[Kristof]

While waiting for an update of the stud.io, I am fidgetting around with the stand. I went through a progression of first wanting to make something real fancypants that will ultimately put every other stand in the world in shame, but then I realized it might not be the best for people, making them buy more special parts just for stand... aaaand I also didn't have good luck bringing up any reasonable design whatsoever :D Nonetheless, I decided to go from the other side and design the stand to be mainly as practical as possible and to look respectable as for a supporting structure, not to necessarily attract more attention than the model itself. In the end the best stand would be some diorama like the recent jewel by @onecase!

I think I managed to develop a connection (though there are no studs actually connected, its more of a clutch/keyed fit) that I can put my name on and live with and also the angle looks about right. Needs better base and some polish here and there. The ship by the way is still the semi-old version waiting for the facelift part haul delivery, though the internals are already improved and up to date.

 

[Exile Phoenix]

Do you have any other photos of the bottom other than the one that was part of it on Ideas?  Based on the one on ideas it looks like a cradle should work, even with the compounding angles.

[JoeChu1980]

Venator ! That's what I'm interesting in

[Kristof]

Brick&Pieces order delivered. Ready for the last update and instructions proof-build!

[danielwerner]

Fricking awesome! Good job! :)