TJJohn12

Eurobricks Citizen
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    119

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by TJJohn12

  2. Posted

    So when I worked on my Retlaw 1 consist, I was also sketching out a Retlaw 2 consist for the Holliday. It's still on my "someday" list, but it's slid down a bit as I've both been moving into Disneyland architecture and letting HO scale railroading steal some of my brain time. Here's where my boxcar sketch was headed:

    50592245211_0c31350f4b_z.jpg

    My designs are aimed at keeping the "toy-like" style of the original sets, so they're a little more chibi than others. I've been trying to strike the balance between prototypical and fun, if that makes sense. *But* I just caught this really nice and far more realistic set of Retlaw 1 mocs by DejaDoink that might help spark some ideas for you too:

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/62279378@N08/50592254132/in/pool-disney_lego/

    I'd love to see where your sketches have been heading though. 

  3. Posted

    First, I'm really liking this proof of concept. I think @Andy Glascott is right that the tracks could be made a little less industrial and/or roller coaster with some creative ballasting.

    For me, what starts killing the concept is the radius of the curves, particularly for real scaled rolling stock like yours. This looks comical going around those curves, which I know you realize. I think this solution could work for minifig-scale narrow gauge models that have a shorter length - maybe 8-9 studs max - to look a little less awkward on the curves. But then the struggle becomes cramming the motors, battery, and gearing into that much smaller footprint.

  4. Posted

    4 hours ago, SD100 said:

    That's appropriate that they print train stickers as they're right next to the tracks.

    How did you make sure your sizes were correct?

    So, I was designing specifically for their 3" x 3" inch sticker sizes using Inkscape. I set my work-space to 3" x 3", and then dropped small calibration squares into the corners (so that the image always sizes out to full measurements). You can see my calibration squares in the corners of the sticker photo actually. I didn't really discover that bumping up sticker size doesn't make them much more expensive until recently, or I'd have likely designed to 3" x 5" for my rail cars to avoid two-part stickers.

    I have a set of cheap digital calipers that help me size parts. Then it's as simple as creating a shape in Inkscape the same dimensions and designing within those boundaries. I've found knocking a millimeter or two off that shape helps a little because Stickermule prints *close* to exact size but not always 100% on. Designing with a little white space at the edges can also really help make sure everything fits. Export as a PNG with the transparency and BAM! it's sticker time. Shipping turn around time is really quick, too. So if you botch something majorly it's relatively cheap enough and quick enough to fix.

    I haven't done many stickers that span multiple parts, but if you take the measurements of your target space for the sticker well it shouldn't be that hard at all.

  5. Posted · Edited by TJJohn12

    So, I haven’t shared these details, but seeing the plethora of locomotives churning out from all you guys of late and the custom livery of many of them, I thought it would be appreciated.

    When I was creating my custom Santa Fe & Disneyland Railroad cars - and the engines to go with them - I wanted to make sure the stickers looked as accurate as possible but still within a LEGO-ish design aesthetic. I did my research and worked up some SVGs scaled to the proper size. I used LEGO color RBG values, traced historic photos, etc.

    But how to print the stickers?

    This is where the tip goes afield of what most of us use. No custom printed waterslide sheets. No need for a printer at home. I paid less than $10 and had way more stickers than I needed.

    49364026853_1d83c386cb_z.jpg

    [See these stickers on the loco]

    The secret is Sticker Mule. They make an intriguing product I’m using entirely off-brand: clear product labels. The quality is great. They use a white base print with color on top, so color is bright and full saturation. The color was a dead-on match for LEGO colors as well (I used these RBG values). For my Disney trains, I fit my stickers to the basic 3”x3” footprint - but bumping to larger sizes doesn’t up the price much. They send AT LEAST 10 stickers when you order a custom sample - some orders I get include 3-4 extras on top of that.

    They aren’t absolutely perfect solutions - the stickers are obviously uncut, so you’ll need to use a razor and tweezers to make sure they get in the right spot. But for the price, I thought the hassle of clipping out the stickers was well worth it. And with so many spares, if it got botched it was no big deal. The train stickers were so good I've branched into other applications:

    50200579326_a1af978b5f_w.jpg50200035303_2a65dce552_w.jpg

    Hope this can help some of you bring your locos and rolling stock to life economically.

  6. Posted

    On 7/31/2020 at 10:46 PM, Karalora said:

    YESSSS! I'm always thrilled to see anything related to Disney theme parks built out of LEGO! One of my dream sets is an entire suite of Fantasyland ride vehicles with appropriate character minifigs.

    Thanks! I'm slowly getting there. Parts are on order for 1956-style Skyway buckets next. Though there's a few (Snow White, Pinocchio, Pooh) that aren't all that interesting at this scale that I'll likely skip, frankly.

     

    On 7/31/2020 at 10:57 PM, Sheesh417 said:

    That looks great! I also love Disneyland builds! would love to get the instructions to your moc!

    Peter Pan will likely never get a good set of instructions - the build is just too complex and it's hard to get the order of operations right. There's some gravity-pinned elements that happens to get the hull shape right, and it's so hard to explain that in print.

    BUT! Stay tuned - I might have a fun set of instructions for you soon. :-)

     

    On 8/1/2020 at 4:16 AM, carebear said:

    WOW!

    Love this!

    the colors are just right!

    Greetings!

    Thanks so much!

  8. Posted

    4 minutes ago, supertruper1988 said:

    This is incredibly accurate. I design and sell lots of instructions, probably more than most folks in this hobby. It takes a lot of work to even just sell a PDF+decals for the builds. A crucial step and determination of making a build is designing it, but then actually building it. I can learn more in 1 test build with physical bricks than I can in 100 hours on the computer. 

    For example, I designed and sold a small 0-6-0 steam locomotive for Iron Horse Brick Co. We sold a physical instruction kit which included the side rods, decals, power adapter, and the printed instruction manual that was 100+ pages. When I designed it, I put together the drive train and tested it for 25+ hours before I ever considered even building the rest of the locomotive. That is no small time investment. I want a product that looks good and works well. Sure next time I design a 0-6-0 or any X-6-X locomotive, I will start with that drive train because I have run it for more than 100 hours at this point with 0 issues. I will of course have to test pilot truck designs and frame designs for any non 0-6-0 locomotives but at least I put the time in to make it work correctly and sell a product I can fully support. 

    LEGO also does this but even if they put 1000 man hours into a design/test/instructions cycle on a product, they can expect to sell 100,000 or more copies which means the added cost to each set is pennies. If I put 100 hours into a design/instructions/test, and sell 10 copies, then I have to get 10 hours from each sale. If I gave my self a "wage" that would be $200 per sale in labor time alone and I have only made instructions at this point. If you check out the links in my signature, you will see that the pricing means none of my instructions will pay me back for my time in near future time frame. 

    All this!

    Instructions are REALLY hard to get right. It's part of why when I released my SF&D passenger cars, I released the instructions for free... I wanted them to exist so the idea of the cars gets out there in the world, but I didn't want the "pressure" of getting them 100% right. So releasing them free meant they didn't need a warranty. In opposition, I'm working on a non-train instructions book, and the amount of brain cycles and revisions I'm having to put in is INSANE. I think I'm about to render out every page of the book for the 20th time because of not only step order tweaks, but just general graphic design and layout changes.

    Is this train out of my price range? Yes. But I'd love - after @coaster sells out of his run, which will happen - to take a gander at the instructions to learn from them. And with the price he's charging for the model, I can rest assured that the build is a solid one with damned fine instructions when he releases them for sale. :-)

  9. Posted

    Guests were put in the shoes (tights?) of Peter Pan himself, flying from the Darling's nursery on to Neverland to battle Captain Hook. Guests did not quite grasp the concept of *being* Peter Pan, wondering why a Peter audio-animatronic wasn't present in the ride named after him. This was true of all of Fantasyland's dark rides - placing guests into the shoes of the main character. Audiences weren't quite ready for the new idea, so later Peter Pan AAs were added to the attraction when it was rebuilt in 1983.

    Peter Pan's Flight is still reliably one of the most popular rides - and longest waits - in each of the "castle parks" around the world.

    -----

    This model was a real struggle to get right. The vibrant and varied colors of the pirate ship ride vehicles offer very particular challenges - so many colors in such a tight space required extensive SNOT work. Like the real ride vehicles, the LEGO version seats two minifigures in a somewhat cramped space. The model has studs facing every direction.

    The diorama at the base depicts the iconic show scene over London's street, a fantastic use of forces perspective in the actual ride. Just like the ride, the line of headlights in the street are illuminated - in this case with LED fairy lights.

     

    Peter Pan's Flight (1955)

    [See more on Flickr]

  10. Posted · Edited by TJJohn12
    added MOC referenced

    12 hours ago, Hod Carrier said:

    @LEGOTrainBuilderSG Do you mean swapping the plastic rails for metal ones, such as 9V? Yes I guess that’s possible. 

    You wouldn't need to power the rails if you designed the system right - there's one intriguing part that could let you do it at this scale:

    https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=5313a&idColor=10#T=C&C=10

    That 4-wide motor - along with notched train wheels - would allow you to run on just the plastic. You'd need to position and hide the power bases every so often (tunnels? covered station platforms?). But in theory, it could work nicely. I've seen one MOC build a narrow gauge line with this concept in the past.

    EDIT - found that MOC: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=371934

  11. Posted

    1 minute ago, SteamSewnEmpire said:

    ...have you ever considered trying something that would result in slightly lower-profile rails?

    I'm liking this idea too, but I'd liken the difference to Bachmann track versus laying track on a cork bed and ballasting. Each has a useful place - yours looks more "toy-like" and @Hod Carrier's looks more HO-layout like.

  12. Posted

    22 minutes ago, Hod Carrier said:

    What sort of curves are you looking to use? The standard LEGO narrow gauge ones (R28?) or some of the custom curves that other builders have come up with?

    So I've been playing with the hybrid curves others have made out of 12v rail recently, trying to get them to a point I'm happy using 1x6 plates as ties. But I haven't tackled the problem in earnest yet because the train I'm designing requires some rarer parts I need to source first (red 2927 wheels to be specific). No train, no need for rails. ;-)

  16. Posted

    On 4/17/2020 at 10:26 AM, zephyr1934 said:

    There is an extensive set of "things to fix" on the EN in one of the old railbricks issues found here: https://brickmodelrailroader.com/index.php/download-railbricks/

    (I don't have time right now to find which one but post back if you can't find it)

    The first thing I would try is temporarily disabling the cylinders by removing that 6 long technic liftarm. The technic axle "piston" might be binding.

    Found it thru a quick search - Issue 7:
    https://brickmodelrailroader.com/wp-content/uploads/railbricks/railbricks_7-print.pdf#page=31

  17. Posted

    Take a look at parts that aren't visible - stuff that's just structural. I typically set the color of these in my wanted list to "(Not Applicable)" which will then make Bricklink fulfill those parts with the cheapest color. It's not foolproof, and you need to pay careful attention to each cart. But I've trimmed off some cost on LDD models I've uploaded when the structural bits I used were for some random reason rare in the color I used. The real struggle with virtual building is overusing the rare and not realizing it.

    Another tactic I use is trying to know what parts I already have in stock and build from stock. This can really cut down on what you need to buy. Then I "buy" from my collection first, and mark the "have" quantity on my BL wanted list as 999.

    One more idiosyncrasy I've found is when removing an item from your wanted list. If you simply set the quantity to 0, the system will still try to find stores that stock that unneeded part.

  18. Posted

    19 hours ago, SteamSewnEmpire said:

    ... but then, I counter by saying "well, PennLUG and other big groups mostly do 8w! What if I one day want to join a group, and my engines are all too fat?"

    And therein lies my hesitation.

    Here's a moment where looking to BMR might be a good idea. The engines @Cale features over there (at least the ones he built) run on PennLUG's layout, along with a ton of other clubs' layouts. So I wouldn't worry as much about sticking to 6 or 8 wide.

  21. Posted

    The limiting element for any modification of this train will be the nose of the engine. That part has *only* been released in Flame Yellowish Orange:

    https://brickset.com/parts/design-37493

    So unless you want to take a radical departure from the design, you can't lose the nose color from your scheme. All that said, are you really unable to disassociate a train's livery from a sportsball team?

  22. Posted

    49143659393_3f8068aaac_z.jpg

    In 1959, LEGO was granted the patent for the system of play we all know today. This delivery truck imagines what a LEGO System Delivery Truck might have looked like traveling a city's streets in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
     
    This model was created for LEGO Ideas’ "Build a Vintage Car…” contest. It’s inspired by LEGO S@H promotional sets of the 1990s - 2148 LEGO Truck & 3442 LEGOLAND California Truck - this GWP playset includes a delivery truck, driver, and crates full of vintage LEGO sets.

    The model was nominated as a finalist by LEGO’s judges and could become the next Gift With Purchase set with your help. Voting closes December 4th.Help make this set a reality!


    49143659368_f09cd2e5f8_w.jpg     49144356857_82109a8530_w.jpg

     

  25. Posted

    As Phil was alluding to, there is no “correct” way to MOC. But in general, creating your own custom LEGO trains can be addictive . But you need to get your - ahem - wheels under you first. Which is why a set is your best bet. But once you see how the mechanics work, tear that baby down and have at it with customization.

    I know in the US, 60197 has been reliably in stock at Amazon since it was released. Sometimes a scratch-and-dent Warehouse deal comes up for a a punctured box that knocks a good percentage off. But for train sets, it’s very hard to find them on clearance or discount. Retailers seem not to stock tons, which means they aren’t the sets that gather dust and get clearances.