Walter Kovacs

Christ. Just how many new sets is TLC planning on releasing in this wave? Taking into account all of the speculation, it could be as many as 12 new models. (Magnaguard, V-19, Rep. Gunship, AT-TE, Twilight, Homing Spider Droid, Droid Gunship, TX-130, Death Star, MINI TIE Fighter, MINI Snowspeeder, MINI V-19) Even worse, most of those sets look like they are going to be more than $20 USD. Ohhh, my poor, aching wallet! That being said, the HSD looks great, from what I can make out from the blurry pics. The Twilight looks . . . like what you'd expect from a flying box. Still, I'll probably get both. The Twilight looks like it at least has a good part selection for MOCing.

For those of you following along, I'm nearly to the end of showcasing my MOC designs. I can hear the cries of "Halleluia" in the background. I used to think MINI scale was the hardest to work in. The scale is so small, and the piece possibilities so limited, that it's hard to imagine designing anything that looks good. The lack of scale means that you only have to get the design close before it looks right, as opposed to UCS scale, where everything needs to be greebled to death before you're satisfied. You'll notice that there are a lot of TIE Variants that I have not done MINIs of. The reason is simple: at the time I designed these, they hadn't been done (or at least put onto Brickshelf for me to peruse). If a variant had been done by someone else, and I couldn't improve on it (usually the case), then I left it be and moved onto something that hadn't been done. More a fill-in-the-gaps excercise. There are some designs that I'm truly proud of. Some of these are more mundane. I'll certainly let you know which ones I like. I'm going to do things a bit different. I have a lot of MINI designs, and each BS folder has at least four images in it, so I'll just link to the folder and let you look at the individual images. Republic TIE Fighter - I found this variant, as well as a lot of others, on Darksaber's Website. The wing panels are too big for the scale, but with limited options for getting the curvature of the wings right, there wasn't much choice. Not bad, but there isn't a lot too it. TIE Aggressor - One of the designs I'm happy with, but feel there's room for improvement. The little "tail" extending off the wing panel looks a little blocky, but otherwise the design looks good to me. TIE Avenger - I used the same type of wing as my TIE Defender, and it looks the same: overly large. Needs some improvement on the wings. TIE Cyclone - I used a modified piece in this design, cutting down a 4L Lightsabre blade to hold the 2 x 2 dishes in place. I could've left the piece untouched, but then the bar would extend 1.5 studs out the back. I don't see many alternatives, either. Having the Pylons connect directly to the cockpit ball really makes life difficult in the LEGO world. But dear God do I hate using modded pieces. TIE Defender - The first MINI MOC I ever attempted, and my second MOC overall. The wings don't look AS out of place as they do on the TIE Avenger, but it still looks out of place. A Clear 2 x 2 Dish on the front would make things look better. I've recently updated the design, substituting three of these for the three Technic Bushs. It helps push the wings out a little. TIE GT - I'll say what I said when I posted this on FBTB: It's a TIE Fighter. With an elongated cockpit ball. Whoppee. TIE Gunship - An interesting little ship. I'm not sure if the grey pieces on the wings add anything. Otherwise, I kinda like the design. TIE Hunter - One of the goofiest TIE Variants I've come across. The swept back, V-shaped wings are very difficult to replicate in this scale. Heck, even in UCS scale I'm not entirely clear on how to accomplish it. It is what it is. TIE Interdictor - One of my favorites of the MINIs I've done. getting five of those Astromech bodies to line up took some real engineering. The outside pods are a little farther apart vertically than I would like, but that is a function of the scale. If the wings look a bit large, check out the Wookiepedia page. They certainly appear to cover all of the pods. I can't wait to see this one in real brick. TIE Lancer - Also known as the TIE Missile Platform, or something like that. Theres a lot of detail on top of the wing that gets lost at this scale, which is a shame. A very interesting variant. The laser cannons that extend from the back up to the sides of cockpit need to be a touch lower, but overall I am happy with how it came out. TIE Lancet - I'll be frank. This is probably the best MINI I've done. From the moment it was finished, I fell in love with it. I'll never call it perfect, but I can't even imagine how to improve on it. TIE M1 Prototype - The TIE M series prototypes are all mostly variations on other TIEs. The designs really don't show much innovation. This one is probably the most oddball of the bunch. TIE M2 Prototype - A TIE Fighter with Hinge Control Sticks added. Not much to it, really. TIE M3 Prototype - This one is an Interceptor with Concussion Missile launchers. I must give credit where credit is due. The TIE Interceptor portion is 100% Reto Gieger's design. I merely added the Missile launchers. TIE M5 Prototype - This actually took a bit longer than the other TIE Ms. Getting the bars to fold from the back of the wings to the rear of the hull was quite a challenge. It looks much blockier than it should (those bars are very thin in the images I saw), but getting the angle is difficult without hinges. TIE Oppressor - Another design that I am extremely happy with. The two extensions off the back of the wing turned out very nicely. The center wing could come down a stud, and I could replace the 1 x 1 cone with a 2 x 1 slope brick, but other than that, I'm happy. TIE Predator - Another weird one. The 1 x 8 angled panels really work well here, and even allow the wings to fold back. I'm quite pleased with how things turned out. TIE Scout - Yet onother of my favorites. The odd looking structure of the hull ended up quite nicely, and the 90 degree bend in the wings works well. I don't have much else to say. TIE Vampire - Another odd looking variant from Darksaber's website. All I can say is thank god for this peice, because otherwise this one would've been a female canine. Yeah for using new pieces. TIE Vanguard - The wing design could be better. The upper portion needs to be shorter. I've gotten some suggestions from FBTB, but have yet to implement them. All in good time. I do have a MINI TIE Mauler that I've started designing, but it hasn't gotten far enough to show yet. That, and it's probably going to end up between MINI and Minifig scale. Not sure what that scale is called. As always, questions, comments and criticisms are most welcome. I realize there are a lot of images to look through. Please bear with me. Thank you ahead of time.

I thought I'd introduce myself. My name is Rob. I am a LEGO addict. [All]: Hi, Rob. All silliness aside, I started my LEGO collection way back in 1977, with set 456 at the tender age of 7. My wife re-invigorated my love of the brick about 10 years ago, and I've become a full blown addict ever since. I primarily collect Star Wars, but I have amassed quite a few Exo-Force sets as well. As I mentioned above, I am married (10 years this month), and we have two wonderful children. I decided to join EB for a few reasons. 1. I love to talk about LEGO. My wife condones my habit, even encourages it to an extent, but doesn't truly understand it. It's nice to have a community that understands you to talk to. 2. I am a member of the FBTB boards, but unfortunately I am not able to post there very often. In fact, my posting rate there is glacial at best. This is mostly due to the fact that FBTB is blocked by my company's firewall. EB is not. Yet. 3. After lurking around the boards for a few weeks, the people here seem very friendly and upbeat. There's nothing like associating with nice people when discussing your favorite passtime. I've been honing my skills at producing MOCs. I like using MLCad to do the initial "build". For one thing, it's cheaper than buying bricks off of BL. And I'm guaranteed to have the piece I need in the correct color. Once I'm satisfied with the design, I usually post it as a WIP on the WWW to get some feedback and further refine the design. Only then will I go to Bricklink and start buying any pieces I need to complete the model with my small, but growing, collection. If anyone is interested, the link to my Brickshelf gallery is in my signature. Feel free to leave any feedback on the designs there.

Well, we have arrived at my final completed MOC, at least for now. The best news is that it was built out of brick, so no Renders in this thread (well, only one.) I don't have much to say, so I'll just dive right in. First up is the Overall Model, Front and Side. These are the only pictures you'll see with the wings actually attached to the pylons. When I first put it together, the pylons collapsed under the weight of the wings. It took about half an hour, but they did collapse. These photos were taken after a few improvements to the pylon structure, but I wasn't certain if the improvements would hold the wings forever, so I took the pictures quickly and removed the wings for the rest of the shots. Here is the top side of the wing, with a Close-up. I thought the gray ribbing running out from the center came out really well. When I first showed my TIE Defender Rev. 1 on FBTB, one of the biggest complaints was the ribbing didn't look particularly good. I paid special attention here. The Underside of the wing, again with a Close-up. I'm quite happy with the way the ribbing is mirrored on the inside face of the wing. That central rib is a little short, but there's not much I can do about it. It landed right on the seem between four plates . Here's a closer shot of the Front. I would have preferred that the 6 x 6 dish that forms the top hatch be the one from the UCS Vader's TIE Advanced set, but I neither own that set, nor were any on sale on Bricklink. Eventually I'll have one. A close-up of the Pylon Greebs. I'm not sure what possessed me to put the Trans Red plate behind the Binoculars. I think I just wanted a splash of color other than gray or black. This is the best shot of the Cockpit I have. Unlike all of my other TIE designs, the cockpit here is very spartan. There just isn't much to see inside of it. The 3 x 5 Clip-On Deltoid is supposed to be there as a Heads Up Display. But the clip was too loose, so when the Windscreen closes, it ends up falling down, obscuring the Pilot's view. It almost worked the way I wanted . An overall shot of the Back. Close-ups of the greebs in the middle can be seen Here and Here. And here is the Underside of the rear deck, with a Close-up. I thought mirroring the greebs from the top side on the bottom would add quite a bit. I have completed the new wing design, but unfortunately need many new pieces in order to acutally build them. You can see what the new wings look like in this Render. That just about wraps it up. The entire gallery can be found Here. All of the POV-Ray renders in the gallery have the new wings. As always, questions, comments and criticisms are more than welcome. Do not be alramed if I don't answer right away. The Mrs. and I are going on Vacat... err, Holiday this week. I'll be back next week. When I get back, I'll show off my current WIPs, and then, sadly, you'll have seen everything I have to show MOC-wise.

Fixed. Apparently I missed part of the link while copying and/or pasting. Thanks.

Most people here in this forum don't know me from Adam. Probably because I'm new here. As a way of introducing myself to the EB community, I've decided to post my MOCs for review and comments. Some general notes first. I start all of my MOCs as MLCad designs. I find that I can refine the design to where I'm satisfied with it, and not buy unnecessary parts that may never be used again. In the long run, it's cheaper that way, and with my limited bricks budget, cheaper is definitely better. My intention is to eventually build all of my designs in real bricks, but it is going to take a long time before I can build some of them. Second, if you see a white background on any of the pictures, it came out of MLCad. Any colored backgrounds are POVRay renders. I'm still on the learning curve for POV-Ray, so the lighting or camera angles may be off. I'm getting better, but some of the older renders are subject to some problems. Last thing, I Promise. I started doing TIE variants for a few reasons. First, out of all the starships in the SW universe, the TIE Defender is my absolute favorite. Thats why it became my first MOC. Second, all TIEs follow the same general design: a somewhat spherical cockpit ball, pylons and wing panels in various shapes and sizes. I thought that I could do one design, and merely modify it to get other designs, essentially learning my "trade" in the process. How wrong I was. Every single design has been from the ground up. The only thing that has carried over between designs is the ubiquitous UCS Stand. Even that gets modified between designs, depending on shape and center of gravity. So much for my grand plans. I've prattled on long enough. Now for some good stuff. The first UCS scale MOC I ever created was a TIE Defender. I Posted these images on FBTB months ago, and garnered some much needed feedback. The end result was a complete re-design, making this model Revision 1. You may submit comments if you like, but I'm more interested in Rev. 2 comments. (nb: Most of my images are large, so I'll refrain from making any deeplinks here. Sorry, you'll have to look at another page.) Here you'll see the entire model, on its stand. It doesn't look too bad in all honesty, but the wing panels are far too stubby. This problem came about because of my inability to scale a drawing correctly. And I call myself an engineer. A Front View and a Rear View. I give these mostly as comparison shots to Rev 2. The full Gallery, in case you are interested. Now onto Revision 2. Whenever possible, I use a schematic for sizing my TIE MOCs. I'll print the schematic out on 8 1/2 x 11 paper, and use an engineer's scale to get relative sizes. Then I'll convert them to stud lengths and brick heights. All of my TIE MOCs are scaled off of the Windscreen, since that was the one piece I was gauranteed to use. My assumption is that Sienar Fleet Systems would use a standardized windscreen in all models to cut down on production costs. Seems like a logical assumption. Here is an Isometric View of the entire model, sans stand. To be honest, the stand is pretty boring. Just know that it is included. As you can see, the wing panels are greatly elongated over their Rev 1 counterparts. If they look heavy to you, THEY ARE. I built a set for my TIE Avenger MOC (topic to come at a later date), and the pylons ended up collapsing under the weight. So the wing panels on all of my MOCs are undergoing a major re-design to lighten them up. But the overall shape should stay the same. This Shot shows the connection of the pylon to the main hull, the cockpit ball to the main hull, and the greebs in between. I thought it was an interesting shot. A Front View and Back View, for comparison to Rev 1. The cockpit ball is the only thing that carried over from Rev 1 to Rev 2 unchanged. A view with the Windscreen removed, showing some of the interior details. The entire Rev 2 Gallery, though I've given you all the screenshots in there already. The pylons on Revision 2 look really blocky, unfortunately. Rev 1 used 4 x 4 round bricks, but covering up the holes on the sides proved to be very tricky, and I decided not to attempt to re-create that again. Unfortunately, the pylon should be 4 studs by 4 studs. I did my best to camoflage it. The connection between the panel and the pylon is going to change, somewhat drastically, when the wing redesign is finished. I'll post pics on Brickshelf when I'm done. Don't look for them next week, it'll be a while. In conclusion, The TIE Def IS my favorite of all the TIE variants. It will probally receive the most tweaks, improvments and re-designs before I'm truly satisfied with it and try to build it for real. I want it to look nearly perfect. It deserves no less. All comments and criticisms are welcome. I am by no means perfect, and these designs were both fairly early in my (still young) MOCing career. Anything to make my designs better is appreciated. I'll do my best to answer all feedback. EDIT: The wing design is complete. I've put some WIP images on BS. They can be seen Here and Here. Let me know what you think. For some reason POV-Ray and I were fighting over lighting and camera placement today. POV-Ray won, so there are no close-up images of the re-designed Laser Cannons. Sorry

Alrighty then. I've added some WIP images to the original post in this thread. The pylons need some more work to accomodate the changes to the wings, so for now you'll just have to imagine what three of these look like on the complete model. I narrowed the middle section of the wing by two studs, and the bent sections are slimmer as well (by three studs, maybe. I didn't count.) The wings overall are much slimmer, and should be considerably lighter. The Laser Cannons got a nice upgrade, too. Take a look and tell me what you think. There's always room for improvement!

Getting to the end of my MOCs. At least the ones that the design is completed. When I went inot the design of the TIE Drone, I had very little planned out. The one thing I thought I'd use got scrapped early. Despite this, the design came together really quickly, and is in my opinion one of my best. First, an Overall image. Unlike the other TIE models I've designed, the wings on the TIE Drone are much smaller, and use far less pieces. Added to that, the center of gravity is actually somewhat over the top of the pylon end, instead ov being cantilevered off the end. I'll certainly have to test it, but I think this is one TIE where I don't have to worry about the wing weight. Overall I think the shape came out really well. Here's a close-up of the Front. Getting the bars to run across the windscreen was the biggest challenge during the design. I went through at least a dozen attempts until I found a setup that a) worked and b) looked good. Here's a shot without the windscreen. It gives a good view of the drone inside the cockpit. The cockpit could use a lot more mechanical and electronic greebs, but it's not bad the way it is. Maybe a few hoses would improve things greatly? (If your wondering why only the windscreen is gone, I did all of the images off of an existing .pov file I had. It was easy to find and comment out the windscreen. Not easy at all to find and comment out each piece in the bars.) A Top View, just to give a better idea about the overall shape. A Back View. I have to give credit here, the back design was lovingly copied from Reto Geiger's UCS TIE Fighter. I thought I'd give it a try, and I think the result turned out all right. The complete Gallery can be found here. As always, comments and criticisms are certainly accepted. As usual the model can use some tweaks, but is overall fairly solid.

Yeah, the cockpit interior was the part I spent the least amount of time on. It could use some work. It's too bad those 10 x 10 x 4 Windscreens don't come in Trans red (or even solid red). They do come in Trans Blue, though. I wonder if that might look better?

I voted for Option 3, mostly because I am a decidedly OT fan. Option 1 wouldn't be terrible, but I'd much prefer Ackbar over Palpatine et al. I might have been daydreaming, but wasn't the 10th Anniversary set supposed to be in the $150 USD range?

Yes and no. I thought the Hailfire wasn't too terribly good the first time I saw it. The dimensions are off, the coloration looks a little blah the details aren't quite right. But the more I look at it, the more I think it's not as bad as my original gut check. The rest of the set is great, so I can't complain too much. If only I had bought the Technic version when I had the chance. Damn me for taking three years off of my collecting. (I bought only 5 sets in 2002-2005 combined. )

Thanks for the comment, commandosevy. If you want it, you may certainly have it. Since it was designed in MLCad, instructions are very easy to generate. I usually put everything into steps as part of the design, because it makes interference hunting much easier. One word of warning, though. I mentioned that the wings are most likely too heavy. I can give you the current design, and let you figure out the wings on your own. Or, you could wait until I redesign them, and get the complete design all at once. Your decision. There are two ways for me to get you the design. 1. I could simply e-mail you the raw MLCad file. It's around 140 kb, and you would need LDraw and MLCad installed on your computer to use it. You would also need to know how to use the file to get instructions, but I could walk you through that process fairly easily. LDraw and MLCad are free downloads, BTW. 2. I could generate a PDF from the MLCad pictures, and post that on Brickshelf. This one is much more painful, because the PDF file is something on the order of 25 MB. That's an awful big file to upload, and a large file to download as well. 3. You could wait till I get a new computer that can run POV-Ray fast, and I could use LPub to generate high quality instructions. The file size would still be huge, but having less pages would still be smaller than 25 Meg. BTW, don't hold your breath on this option. Let me know what you want to do.

This was the third MOC I ever created. It was the first of my designs that I have actually built. And it is the first, and only, capital ship I've ever attempted. I used this picture to get the general shape of the ship. This is one of the biggest downfalls of the design. That picture is essentially a photoshopped Nebulon B Frigate, with the wing rotated 45 degrees and a second one added to form the familiar V-shape. Other pictures I've seen show much greater variations, including a terraced hull in the engines section. Too bad I found those pictures halfway into the design. The end result is that I've already started a Rev 2 design. Unfotunately, Rev 2 isn't ready for primetime yet. The scale is 1 stud = 2.5 meters, making the entire model around 100 studs long. (I think it's actually 107 studs.) BE FOREWARNED. When I built this beast, I used just about every piece I could find, regardless of color. I've since dubbed this ship as the Technicolor Yawn. You'll understand better when you see the pictures. First up, the overall shots. Here are a Isometric View and a Side View. The colors aren't too bad on this side, as I tried to keep at least one side consistantly gray. Those wings are heavy. Very heavy. In fact the entire foreward section comprises something like 75% of the total weight. I'm hoping Rev 2 ends up considerably lighter. The top of the wings don't integrate well into the main hull, either. This was one of the things that really drove the decision to create a Revision 2. Here is a shot from the Back and a closeup of the Engine Section, showing some of the few salient features this ship has to offer. Next come some pictures of the end of the "wings", Front and Back. This areas of detail are probably the best parts of the design, and are the only parts which were kept in the Rev 2 redesign. Everything else was scrapped and redone from the ground up. And finally, in all her ugly glory, the reason she is known as the Technicolor Yawn. Dear God, the color clashes still hurt my eyes. But lack of correct color pieces drive a man to do things he wouldn't normally do. The stands were designed to be removable, but at over 100 studs long, the ship isn't swooshable in the least, so it's not a very important feature. Here is the entire Gallery for your perusal. There are many more photos, and some MLCad renders. Make sure you check out the Constructon Photos sub-folder, as there are lots of close-ups there. Comments and criticisms are always welcome, although this is a dead design. Possible improvements will be integrated into Rev 2.

Crap, looks like this topic got hi-jacked long ago. Oh well, I'll throw my two cents in anyway. [aside] Why can someone give a mere penny for my thoughts, but I have to throw two cents in?[\aside] My favorite is Rorshach, from Watchmen. After all, it is my screen name. Too bad it was only a Twelve comic series, because it was so good.

Thanks for all of the positive feedback. I guess it just goes to show that I am my own worst critic. I suppose the part the bothers me most about the design is the connection between the wings and main hull. From the front, it looks like a football player's shoulders - on steroids. Just way too bulky, and I couldn't find a way to make it look any better. I'll put up some WIP shots of Revision 2 next week. Then you can draw some comparisons.

Yep, that's the schematic I used. At least we're on the same page. I think I see where your coming from. I'll take a good hard look at the wing dimensions when I redesign them. I know for a fact that I didn't include the locking portion of the locking hinges when I computed the stud width of the wing center. Perhaps that's what is throwing things off.

Jabba the Hut I'm overweight. I sit on my megablocks all day. I like food and scantily clad women. The resemblance is uncanny.

I thought I had mentioned the stands above. Oh well, it doesn't hurt to reiterate it. Yes, Rev 2 does have a removable stand. I don't include it in the POV-Ray renders because I think it detracts from the overall look. Actually, the Rev 2 stand is quite a bit different from the others I've used. Instead of a single post that goes through a hole in the hull, cockpit ball, etc. it has two saddles which cradle the two lower pylons. If you really want to see details, I can throw up some quick MLCad scans to show what I mean. Otherwise, you can wait till I actually build it. By then I'll know for certain that they'll actually work . When you say tall, do you mean the Pylons themselves look too long? I'll double check my measurements. I could have rounded up a fraction of a stud, when rounding down would have looked better. I believe they are pretty close, though. Could be paralax from the pictures your looking at. I will double check. The laser cannons are on my list of things to do with the wing re-design. I've got some new ideas on greebing them up. They should look pretty awesome, if what I have in mind works out. They'll at least look better than the 4L Lightsabre blades I'm currently using. I'll definately give you some images with the redesign when it's done. EDIT: I've checked the scaling on the pylons. Let's see if I can describe this clearly. Looking head on, the Pylon length that should be visable above the cockpit ball is roughly the same length as the diameter of the cockpit ball. In other words, you should be able ti fit a second cockpit ball in between the cockpit and the inside of the upper wing (or any wing, for that matter). My pylons are right at that length, at 11 studs long.

My current status goes something like this: 208 Sets owned (including 1 MOC) $4,500 USD, based solely on MSRP of the sets. Sets that are out of production likely are worth more, but it's the best go-by I have available. This figure does not include parts bought off of BL, either.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I do agree that the pylons are in need of some heavy greebling. As this was an early design, I wasn't sure exactly how to go about it. One look at my TIE Avenger pylon, and you'll see just how comfortable I've become with the greebs. The back is in need of some updates, as well, though I still like having the Ion Engines on the pylon. Helps get them in the correct orientation. You'd be surprised. It comes in at 1939 pieces, making it the second largest MOC I've designed to date (My Nebulon B-2 is the largest. I have a feeling that my TIE Scimitar currently under design will dwarf them both). Estimated cost new, via BL, is $300 USD, not including S&H. If I went with pieces I already own, I'd need to order 310 pieces @ $65 USD, again not including S&H. All of this does not include the wing re-design that needs to happen, but the piece count difference should be close to a wash. HJR - I've seen your work before. I have to say that I'm particularly fond of the TIE Vanguard. Excellent work there. The Nsiss Clawcraft is really good, too. I haven't paid much attention to the Clawcraft, yet. It'll likely be one of the last models I attempt. I need to practice different techniques, first. Like you, I am trying to get a UCS scale model of every TIE Variant. An overwhelming task, to be sure. As I've mentioned above, the TIE Scimitar is my current project. Then some TIE Wing re-designs, and on to the TIE Predator. My initial scaling says that the wings will be on the order of 41 studs long. That is going to present quite the challenge, believe me.

Thanks to all for your warm welcomes. I will probably post most of my MOCs in the SW forum to get some feedback. Err, not to be rude on my first day, but which TIE Phantom are you referring to? I'm fairly certain I haven't done a Phantom MOC yet. Perhaps you are looking at my TIE Avenger, or maybe the TIE Defender? Anyway, if you look at my UCS TIEs, you can actually see a learning curve. The TIE Def, rev 1 was first, followed by the TIE Bomber, TIE Def rev 2, TIE Drone (or Droid, if you prefer) and the TIE Avenger. Of those, only the Avenger has been done in real bricks. The Scimitar folder is there mostly as a placeholder. The design is around 75% done, so hopefully some complete renders will be coming soon.