Pellaeon

Death Star seems to have a bit of an infestation... Tarkin's got the technicians looking into it. Well, there's your problem! It's just a little vignette I put together while playing with methods for building walls and doorways. I'm pretty pleased with how the Imperial technicians turned out, though I'm sure the AT-ST driver uniform and black cap combo has been done before. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

Thanks for all the complements folks, I'm glad you enjoyed it. The one thing I haven't decided about is whether the mouse droids are a legitimate infestation, or if Tarkin's angry expression is because his technicians are morons. The wall pieces are "Brick, Modified 2 x 2 x 6 with Groove", which is typically appears in castle sets for mounting a portcullis.

Lego 8039 Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser Review by Pellaeon Theme: Star Wars Released: mid 2009 Pieces: 1163 Price: US$119 Minifigs: 5 Welcome to my first-ever review! Today I'll be talking about 8039, a play-set take on the Venator-class Star Destroyer. I plan on disassembling this set later this weekend, so I figured a nice review would give me something to remember it by. To start, the traditional pictures of the box. There are in fact six sides to this box, but I'll just be focusing on the front and back. The back calls out most of the play features, though interestingly, not all of them -- the escape pod goes completely unmentioned. Inside, the box is mostly full. Not too bad. 15 bags total, with several of them being matched duplicates -- it is a big, symmetrical ship we're building, after all. The dreaded sticker sheet. Nothing too offensive here, and the one in the lower-right is a rather nice status/control panel with a diagram of the ship on it. Since I plan scrap the ship for parts, I've not applied any of the stickers. Ah, instructions. Two books, standard fare. Among the pieces, these are probably the most interesting... 6x6 tiles, originally from Scala says Bricklink, but now available in light bley. There are a handful of other pieces/colors that are somewhat uncommon, or at are new to me. If you bought the AT-OT, you have 16 of those dark green chairs... I have one. Oh, and a couple printed pieces! Grate! Palpatine

Also, the printing is symmetrical... you can see in this pic, there are windows in both the front and the back:

1 to 5... hard to pick just 5, there's lots of good work out there! A-wing by Jerac T-47 airspeeder by Lars Venator Star Destroyer by thire5 Luke's Landspeeder by Lars Snow Speeder Crash by Kaitan

I didn't really keep track, but it was maybe 3 hours with a bit of a break in the middle...? To the various folks who are leaning toward the Tantive IV instead of this: I heartily agree with you. Though the playability of the Tantive IV is sort of comical (Sit in a empty bridge! Or sit in an empty escape pod! Here's Leia's office, you might remember it from... er. Anyway, it has all the excitement of an office! Also, it comes with some sort of luggage cart! ) it looks to be hands-down the best non-UCS version of a capital ship they've done. It's pretty spot-on as a replica, so if you're looking for a display piece, Tantive IV looks like the way to go. Thanks for the complements, folks.

I dropped by the Target in Redwood City, CA, this evening, and they'd restocked all the new Star Wars sets and they were on sale as advertised. Endor and the Venator did not have the sale signs on them, but showed the discount on a price scanner. None of the older sets they had -- Attack Shuttle, Hyena Bomber, AAT, and Attack Tank -- seemed to be marked down. Ambush in Cairo was $12.09; it had been $9.99 last weekend.

That's interesting to hear, though I'm not surprised. Though it's not clear quite what midi-scale is, the fact that Vader's TIE can fit a minifig and is so lacking in detail does imply it's not midi-scale. They certainly aren't to-scale with each other, but I doubt the midi-scale ships will actually be to scale with one another (assuming we someday get another midi-scale ship). Personally, I imagine "midi-scale" means "Less-than-ultimate Collector's Series". Models for middle-income fanboys. Those are really nice, Dark Zion. I especially like the X-wing's canopy. These fit in well with sort of "stubby" look of Vader's TIE, making them inaccurate but cute. They remind me of the "Galactic Heroes" Star Wars figures (link 1, link 2). We could call them chibi-scale.

This is awesome work, Artizan! Color me impressed. The design of the center leg is really nice, and I like how well the old-school grey wings work on the front -- none of the newer wedge plates would fit as nicely. I will agree with the others that you should bump the feet up a dish size, but that'd be my only complaint. I'm working on a few midi-scale ships myself, but I don't have nearly as fast a turnaround time as you seem to. Someday I'll finish one and post it, I swear... Until then, I look forward to more of yours -- got any CIS vessels in the pipeline?

Thanks for the great review. It seems like a pretty decent set; I'd love to see a CW version of it, maybe replacing the dark bley with that metallic silver we see all over the Agents line. I hope we at least get a nice CW version of Grievous next year, maybe with some color on him this time around. This version is decent, but pales in comparison to the Magna Guard figures... I'm sure the General would hate to be upstaged by his guards!

Duplo Thomas the Tank Engine set! ... ftw? http://shop.lego.com/Product/?p=5547 Whatever, Duplo haters, Sir Topham Hatt is awesome.

Here's a couple pictures of my work-in-progress TIE Fighter... sorry the pics aren't too good, I didn't manage to get around to taking pictures while it was still light outside. The body of the ship is fairly straightforward, as there isn't much detail we can add at this scale. I'm still playing with the back of the fighter, but I'll probably end up using some boring dish on the back. The wings I've played with quite a bit... with this particular design, I'm trying to show the ridges in the black panelling. I don't have all the tiles I need in all the right colors, but the upper-left sections should give you an idea of what I'm going for. I feel like it's a neat idea, but I feel like it's not quite working out. A black 1x3 tile would help, if only they existed... I appreciate whatever feedback y'all have on this stuff, and don't worry, I'll keep tinkering with it.

I picked it up at a LEGO Store. They had a ton in stock. The mod is a little hard to explain, but it's stupid-easy to do if you have the model and instructions in front of you. I can take a picture tomorrow to give you a better idea of the finished mod, but here is a picture from the instructions: Basically, it's that 2x8 red panel in the middle that is causing the problem. The hinge will go right on the end of it, on the left-hand side (the front of the ship). If you simply slide the panel back one stud (it will hide under the panels at the back of the ship), the hinge will sit lower. I added a normal 1x2 brick under the end of the 2x8 so it'd be supported. I hadn't seen that mod with the LEDs... it's pretty neat, but yeah, I wouldn't pay $150 for it.

Long time lurker, first time poster... hopefully I'm following all the rules! 10188 is pretty much spectacular, with one exception: Vader's TIE Fighter. It's designed to fit a minifig, but as a consequence, the whole thing is sort of so-so. It's certainly not up to par with the "realism" in the rest of the set. So, I decided to mod it... by ditching the cockpit, I could lower the roof and move the wings forward to where they belong. Alas my childhood LEGO collection is about 2500 miles away, so I only had a few sets to poach from (primarily a couple of battle packs). My color options, in particular, were pretty limited. Still, after much trial-and-error, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out! The front-on silhouette is much improved: Moving the wings forward really helped, though now the fighter doesn't fit in the "docking arms" in the Death Star. The back was the hard part. Off-setting the wings a half-stud allowed me to avoid having a gap like the original, or a bunch of visible jump plates. I am not sure about my use of the light bley slopes on the back, but I only have the underside slope in that color, so it'll have to do for now. Brickshelf (when moderated): Full gallery: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=381718 Earlier designs: A and B Whenever I get around to ordering some pieces off of Bricklink, my thought is to redo the raised part of the rear in light bley (the two vents and the 1x2 plate). Seems like that would help break up all the dark bley while still fitting with the color scheme. Comments and suggestions welcome!

Thanks for all the kind words, everybody. That'd be pretty excellent -- if they ever make one that would pass for a TIE pilot, I may have to give it a try!

I'll try to take some pictures and post them in a day or two. For the wings, I made a couple designs similar to Dateman's, but didn't really like them (though they are more "in spirit" with how the wings are done on Vader's TIE). My current wings are using lots of black 1x1, 1x2, and 1x4 tiles on top of dark bley wings. The entire front of the cockpit folds down on the original 10188 TIE Fighter. Behind that front hatch, there is just barely enough room to shove a Vader minifig inside. I think if you check the reviews of 10188 in the Review Index, one of them surely has a picture of it with the front opened up. [EDIT] They do: this one has good shots of the model itself, and this one has a picture of the opened cockpit. As for scale, it's significantly smaller than it should be.

I picked up this set yesterday, and I'm very pleased with it. The model looks great and it was a fun build, so I'd consider it a pretty decent value for $39.99 (US). One thing I wanted to mention: In ever picture I saw of this model, the raised panel in front of the gun (see first picture) bugged the heck out of me. Thankfully, it was quite easy to lower the hinge under that piece and make the ship look, IMHO, worlds better (see second picture). I don't know if that panel was bugging anyone else, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.

I had a very similar reaction when I finished my 10188... except I'm going for more accurate models at the expense of room for a minifig. I modded the 10188 Vader's TIE for greater accuracy, and am working on a TIE Fighter (photos coming soon). I also just started on an X-wing based on dateman's work (haven't quite figured out how he attached the wings), and I picked up the Midi-scale Falcon a few hours ago--just finished it! I agree with you, though, that a TIE should be fairly easy, based on the TIE Advanced design. I played around with the wing designs a bunch; I can share what I've tried, if you're interested. Dateman has one on brickshelf you could check out too. Now making an X-wing wide enough to fit a figure, that will be tricky!

FAIL! I think it means it's the debut of a General Calrissian figure, which is accurate. The A-wing pilot, however, doesn't seem to be anything new.

Batman: The Animated Series did plenty of Joker hideouts over the years, I'm sure you could find pictures online. Candy factories, implausibly large toy stores, stuff like that. A Poison Ivy greenhouse could also be pretty awesome, but you'd need an awful lot of plants. Something like a rural farmhouse-style hideout might be easier... The Animated Series did a few of those, too. You could have her growing those evil pumpkins they made for Scarecrow. Besides those, I really like the idea of a lab for Mr. Freeze. Other locations might be a sewer for Croc, a seedy bar or nightclub (maybe one for Two-face?), and warehouses and docks... the action always seems to be at the docks. As a gruesome aside: I'm pretty sure he takes it through the eye. He definitely hits the table face-down.

I think the plates are meant to reflect the stonework and the narrow windows. It's odd that the stone parts aren't in gray...

Nope, it can't fit a minifig anymore. I think it'd need to be bigger if you wanted it to both fit Vader and look accurate.