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Everything posted by Ralph_S
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V-LV-13C & V-LV-13D, Pumper Truck V-LF-1F Those small cars are really tricky. The van and the fire engine were relatively easy to build, as was the bus apart from the front window. I didn't include the other cars because they're a lot older (and the farm truck is already dismantled). Still, here goes. Here's the Ferrari (loosely based on a 348TB) And a London taxi (not a Rolls Royce) Finally, an American 'fifties pumper truck Cheers, Ralph
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Thanks. The floor tiles are one of those happy accidents. I wanted to go for yellow and white, but found that I didn't really have a large enough supply of white 2x2 tiles handy, so I opted for red instead. I think it compensates for the walls being grey I agree that the windscreen leaves something to be desired. I dug a hole for myself by making the bus seven studs wide. It's pretty close to proper scale (1/45) and also helps the interior a great deal, but does leave me with the problem of having to make a window that is five studs wide. I haven't found a way of doing that that isn't somewhat messy . I think you are missing out by not buying CC-styled buildings. I finally bought Market Street and Cafe Corner about two weeks ago and I just love them. Their design is great and the parts collection should satisfy every city-builder . Cheers, Ralph
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B-OM-5B A few months ago I built an English Curry House. I'm not normally much of a minifig scale builder, but I really enjoyed building that. Upon seeing it, several people suggested that I build a 'chippie' (a traditional English fish and chips shop) to go with it. I built all kinds of other things in the meantime, but now it's finally finished: link to photo on flickr The interior of the chip shop: link to photo on flickr the interior of the upstairs apartment link to photo on flickr More pictures can be found here. Finally, here are the Chippie and the Curry House together: link to photo on flickr I fully expect to build more English buildings in the future, such as an Off license/ Convenience store or a pub. Cheers, Ralph edit: it should be fish and chips shop obviously. Could a moderator please change the title. Sorry.
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Thanks. It's really great to get all these very nice reactions. I agree that more food-related stuff would be great. Market street was pretty good and the Green Grocer's set leaves very little to be desired, and there's nothing to keep you from building an interior for the bottom floor of Cafe corner and turning it into a trendy bar. I certainly plan to do that to mine. Still, a LEGO restaurant set with an actual interior could be great, albeit expensive. There is something to be said for buildings with an open back wall. I don't play with my models, but the interiors are really hard to see unless you take the roof or top floors off. It would be fun to be able to look into them more easily. I've finished a new city bus to go with my street, BTW: more photos on flickr Cheers, Ralph
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I'm not so sure they're all that great. I mean, there are a lot of people who do a lot of this, certainly here I normally don't build minifig scale. I build bigger cars and planes, mostly, but I do hang out with quite a few people who do mainly minifig scale building in the Brickish Association. I built the Curry house in November last year for a competition for the Brickish Christmas party. We were supposed to build Cafe-Corner compatible buildings with a Christmas theme. My restaurant had a traditional English Christmas party going on inside. Here is a picture of a tiny part of the resulting street: Loads more pictures taken by fellow Brickish member Andy Tymm can be seen in his flickr set. I think it's fair to say that compared to all the other buildings, my curry house isn't all that spectacular. The winner was my mate Lego Monster, with his Scrooge and Marley house, BTW (he did the letters on his after seeing mine, the thieving bastard ) The curry house was the first time in at least ten years that I built a minifig building, but I had a lot of fun doing it and I liked how it turned out. I decided back then that there would probably be more buildings to follow. Right now it's just the curry house and the chip shop, but there will undoubtedly be more. The brick-built letters aren't the easiest thing to do, but the result is worth all the trouble. Cheers, Ralph
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Hey, I don't go by the name Mad Physicist without a reason Seriously, the figuring out where to put the stairs was the biggest deal with building the chip shop. A 14x14 stud square is big enough to fit quite a bit of interior, but if I would have put the stairs in the front parts of the shop, I'd have lost at least a quarter of the space. Moving the stairs to the back did the trick. Of course I still had to leave enough room on the baseplate to actually open the rear door to the shop and the door to the stairs and to still have a landing at the top of the stairs. That dictated the shape of the extension and where I could place the doors in it. The interior of the upstairs apartment was a bit more trial and error: build some furniture and see where it'll fit. If it doesn't, make it smaller! It's nothing that Japanese car makers don't do every time they come up with a new compact model Cheers, Ralph
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HMM, chips that have been in the mail for a while. I can already imagine news reports about building being evacuated because of suspect packages Space in these Cafe-corner compatible buildings is a bit restricted, but there's still enough space to have some fun with the interior. Great that you've noticed the different burgers! I'm not a big chip or pie eater, to be frank, and in my two years in the UK I've only been to my local chippie perhaps once or twice. Much of the interior of this one is based on your typical Dutch 'Friture' and on what I've been able to see through the sometimes slightly greasy windows of various chips shops I pass on my way to work. A costume shop is a great idea. There are so many different movie characters made into minifigures that they can fill several stores. I can see it now. Batman standing next to Darth Vader. I've bought some new windows and a lot of brown bricks that I expect to arrive pretty soon, so I may build another addition to my street in a few weeks time. Anyway, I look forward to seeing your street progress further and I'll keep Eurobricks posted on how thing are going with mine. BTW, if your kebabulance driver looks like , I'm not so sure you ought to sample his merchandise. Actually, I'm not so sure I'd want to buy meat from the back of an ambulance in the first place Cheers, Ralph
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I agree with some of the other comments that it's good how you've separated the town centre with the town house and the modular buildings from the more residential area. Let's face it, the white creator house with the red roof is a really nice set, as is the yellow holiday house, but compared to the large and very detailed modular houses with their dark colours and browns they look a bit pedestrian. I've seen quite a few pictures of other people's LEGO towns with Cafe Corner sitting in the middle of them and it often looks really out of place. Not so in your town and that's good. I do have a few suggestions. The hospital does look a bit basic compared to the rest of the town. I know that's a set and it's tucked away in a corner so it's not very visible, but it could do with some improvement/replacement. Perhaps you could build a little statue or a fountain to fill up the area in front of cafe corner -close to where you have the crocodile now Cheers, Ralph
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That is uncanny. I just saw your new buildings this morning and was pleasantly surprised that somebody else had essentially the same idea. It's these ones, isn't it? http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=319759 That terraced house is very nice. I just love the multi-floor bay windows The idea of using a shark to represent the fish was inspired. Once you've added a few minifigs and perhaps the odd bit of greenery here and there, your street will look great. I was afraid that the burger sign would look a little silly, but apparently it seems to work. I do plan to add a pub sometime in the future, but I first need to think of a name for it that I can somehow represent in a LEGO sign above the door. Perhaps a pirate theme? It would probably go down well on this forum, but I'm not sure A kebabulance sounds like a great idea. I'll give that some thought. Cheers, Ralph
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Thanks for the comments (and for fixing the title, Sinner). I moved to England two years ago and pass similar buildings on my way to work almost every day. So, they're not based on any particular building, but there are similar buildings all over England. LEGO's own modular buildings really stand out because of their great details, so I didn't want to be too skimpy when it came to details on mine. The vent for the fryer is sometimes very prominent on buildings like this, as is the smell emanating from it ;), so I had have one. Of course, building details are a major part of the fun. The fish is actually pearlescent grey. It's not really very visible in the pictures, but it glitters a bit and does look rather fish-like to the naked eye. Still, I'll rebuild it in light blue and see what that looks like. The modular building standard stipulates that the front and back of the buildings should be 7-9 studs from the edges of the baseplate. On a 32x16 baseplate that leaves only about 16x16 studs for the actual building. Stairs tend to take up a lot of room too, which leaves very little for the interior. That's why I like to add a little extension in the back. It also livens up the rear of the building a bit. I don't really want to have a blind or straight wall back there (like on Cafe Corner and Market Street) and many English buildings actually have little extensions. I was happy to see that the rear of the new Green Grocer set has more details as well. I have both Market Street and Cafe Corner, but I didn't put them next to these buildings in these pictures. Market Street looks very Dutch to me -not surprising considering that it was designed by a Dutchman :D. Cafe Corner currently is still in its box. I built the chips shop instead of putting it together last weekend . If I find the time to build it this weekend, I'll put them all next to each other and take a few pictures. You'll see that my buildings indeed are much lower than LEGO's modular buildings, but English houses tend to be fairly small. Cheers, Ralph
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If you do come, please come and say hi. It's always good to get to know fellow FOLs. Cheers, Ralph
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Perhaps we ought to explain this a bit more. Several members of the BA collaborate in building a large train layout. They can adapt it to the space available and it's continuously updated with newer models and parts. It's quite something. What's shown in the video is the version they had about two years ago. For the STEAM event, where they have plenty of space, they pull out all the stops. The train layout is the centrepiece of the exhibit. Starting last year, however, it's become a bit broader, with more members getting involved in the display and more things to be seen. Lego Monster took along his HMS Edinburgh last year, and I displayed all aircraft and helicopters and there were many other things as well. That'll be repeated this year and it's probably going to even be bigger. I'll be there this year as well, and I'll bring the lot: all my aircraft and helicopters -space permitting. Cheers, Ralph
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There are a number of different ways of doing it. Lots of tools. You could get imagemagick. That can do all kinds of things to images from the command line, including resizing. After installing the package you can type, for instance, convert -geometry 640x840 picture.jpg smallpicture.jpg which copies a file called picture.jpg to a file called smallpicture.jpg with a resolution of 640x480 pixels. The GIMP undoubtedly can do it and probably xv as well. Sadly, I don't have a unix/linux/freebsd box handy on which I could try it. Cheers, Ralph
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You have seemed to spend more time detailing the upstairs loo than some people spend on their entire MOCs and shows. The details of the interior are amazing. Just to mention a few more things: the security camera in the laoding bay and the clock in the mail sorting room. Lots of great details. I do have a few suggestions for the outside though. The top looks a little weak compared to the rest of it. I took a long and hard look at it to see what I was missing, and I think I've got it figured out. I see a drainpipe in the front, but the building doesn't have any gutters anywhere. Of course there are buildings where you don't see them, but in your case parts of there roof overhang the walls and in that case a gutter is in order. That's not just a practical thing; I think it'll look better. The yellow and tan is fine. I know yellow is the colour used by the German mail and it works, somehow. Cheers, Ralph
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Same here. Some of the larger sets that I have in fairly large numbers are the Sopwith Camel (4), UCS AT-ST (4) UCS batmobile (3) and Roaring Roadsters (3). I bought all of those (with the exception of one Sopwith Camel) because I happened to be able to get them at a discount on various different occasions and because I liked the parts. To some extent I can understand people who leave models built up, but I really don't get the storing things in sealed boxes thing. I currently have three sets that are still in unopened boxes and that's because I haven't gotten around to parting them out yet. I'm not a collector -I'm a builder. Cheers, Ralph
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I initially thought it was a pretty lousy idea to have to include a driver. I am also pretty sure that if wouldn't have had to include a driver or a story, I would have put in a few more pictures of my rod without Biff -the driver- blocking people's view of it. Still, I had a lot of fun building Biff and Ed indeed did a wonderful job on Abbey. So, it was actually not such a bad idea after all, although I'm not sure whether anybody who voted paid any attention to that aspect of the contest Since then I've built more figures (including Biff's wife and a motorcyclist) and there will probably be more in the future. You can see some of them and both Biff's 32 coupe and the Plymouth Rock in these pictures taken by Dr. S. about a month ago: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorsinister/2407282009/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorsinister/2408470476/ Cheers, Ralph
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I've been on a helicopter building spree in the last few months. Perhaps I had enough of building fixed wing aircraft for a while after finishing my B-1B bomber, but since then I've mainly built helicopters. After my CH-46E Sea Knight, a UH-3H Sea King and an AH-1W Super Cobra, I felt that once again it was time for something big: a USAF MH-53M 'Pave Low IV' special operations helicopter: Here's the link to the picture on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/madphysicist/2498270243/ and for more pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/madphysicist/...cialoperations/ Cheers, Ralph
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MH-53M Pave Low IV special ops. helicopter
Ralph_S replied to Ralph_S's topic in Special LEGO Themes
Thanks guys. As always, building the details was part of the fun. It's not an elegant helicopter by any means, but it does look pretty menacing and that's the look I wanted for mine too. The folding function was really a necessity. It makes the model a lot more compact and allows me to put it on a shelve. Without the fold, it's so big that I wouldn't know where to put it. They are indeed being replaced by Ospreys, at least in the infiltration/exfiltration and CSAR roles. They were also used for re-supply missions of special forces and that role will now be taken over by the US Army's MH-47s. I think it is a bit sad to see them go, but the basic airframes and engines are getting very old -they were delivered as HH-53B/Cs in the late 'sixties and early 'seventies. They're also running out of spare parts. Many of the components needed to keep them flying, such as gearboxes, haven't been in production in twenty years and the original suppliers don't even exist any more. The helicopter is also rather vulnerable because it lacks infra-red suppressors for the engine exhaust. Still, the Marines will keep flying their CH-53Es for quite a while yet and are even getting a new version. Cheers, Ralph -
Is There A Way To Contact A Poster On BrickShelf?
Ralph_S replied to AFOL SF's topic in General LEGO Discussion
He is on MOCpages as well. One way of contacting him is writing him a review and perhaps asking him to send you a reply. You do need to leave your e-mail address, but that is an option when you write a review on MOCpages, even if you don't have your own account there. Cheers, Ralph -
I usually only buy sets for the parts, but there have been a few exceptions. I bought both the Sopwith Camel and the Red Baron a few years ago, initially just for the parts too, but I liked the models so much that I decided to keep them together instead. For the parts I later bought more copies of both sets. Cheers, Ralph
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That fire engine was a great set -one of those that I always wanted but never quite got around to buying. Most early model team trucks were 12 studs wide, so the fire engine was more-or-less stuck between model team and city. I too use minfig doors and seats in models that are too big for minifigs. Anyway, the point is valid: LEGO used to do detailed 8-wide trucks long before they started introducing them in the city line -even if they didn't come with minifigs. Cheers, Ralph
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POLL: vote for your favourite hotrod now!
Ralph_S replied to Captain Green Hair's topic in LEGO Town
This is an impressive looking collection. Part of the contest was also writing a little story about the MOC in question. Many of those are quite funny. I do urge everybody who wants to vote to look at the entry thread for those and also because just one picture of each of these doesn't always do them justice. For instance, you can hardly see the flame job on mine in the picture here, and I think that it's most interesting feature. Say, captain green hair, I understand that if your hot rod were to come out on top (which isn't unlikely IMO), you'd hand the prize to the 2nd place winner, but I think it's not right for your snotrod to be in the poll. I understand you'd like to see how yours does, but I think it warps the outcome. Cheers, Ralph -
I agree that it would be nice if they did keep to more-or-less the same scale, but it just doesn't work for something like this. The four-wide cars were very nice, but they were also rather boxy, and that's hard to avoid if you want to fit a figure in it. There are a lot of very nice highly detailed cars that are four or five studs wide on brickshelf, but most of those can't fit figures. It's just not possible to get the proportions more or less right and still fit a figure inside on anything other than a Landrover. I tried to build a few more curvy cars myself a while ago, that would still fit minifigs. A Ferrari, inspired by a 348TB An English cab. I made them five studs wide and I don't think I could have done it smaller. Despite that, the Ferrari is still very boxy. I'm quite happy with the cab, although to fit a minifig passenger, you have to remove the passenger's hair/ headgear. Trouble is, they're complicated and fragile (especially the cab). For a set that is to be sold to a seven-year-old, that wouldn't be acceptable. Sets have to be sturdy and relatively simple. Combining that with a concerted effort to make the cars look like the ones from the movie pushes the size of the model up. That is inevitable IMO. Perhaps here's an idea for a contest : build one of the speedracers up to five studs wide that can still fit a figure. Cheers, Ralph
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I agree (although with the mudguards they're actually seven studs wide). The trucks in the current city lineup, such as the fire engines, the garbage truck or the concrete mixer look great. They're big enough to have quite a bit of detail and yet not so big that they look out of place in a minifig scaled city. Cheers, Ralph
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I like it, even if it isn't 'legal' by the set of rules that Tim Gould, aka. Gambort came up with for his flickr group. I'm pretty sure he doesn't mind other people building what they call cave-racers that don't follow his intentionally wacky set of criteria. Funnily enough, the cave racer that I built a few weeks ago is also called the batcaveracer (although I spell it as one word) and AFAIK is 'legal' by Tim's standard. I later found out that I wasn't the first to come up with a cave-racer with a batman theme. Apparently it's an obvious choice. Cheers, Ralph