rocketandroll

Hi folks So, this is something I've been toying with for a good four or five years now on and off.... I have always though the Executor Super Star Destroyer (I don't buy into the Star drednought nonsense) is one of the coolest ship designs from the Star wars universe.... I always wanted to build a Imperial fleet in the same scale, Executor plus three or four attending Star Destroyers... all on flying stands.... and BIG. I am still not quite convinced it's big enough but.... the scale of the original studio model (approx 1/4000th scale) at just over 9ft long seemed a good size for the Executor herself. This just conveniently happens to match the scale of the Mid-Scale Star destroyer that LEGO released a few years back. So, I know people have made some big models of the Executor but i haven't yet seen a LEGO version that large (I'd like to get some ideas off it if someone HAS done one that scale!) I am still considering making it larger still, perhaps 12ft long, but will have to see how finances go :-) So... I'm keen to see what people's thoughts are on core construction of something THAT long? The idea is to build it around a welded steel base which will support it in two bolt-together sections (I need to take this to and from shows in a van) however i don't want to rely too much on that providing the structure as I still want this to be a LEGO model first and foremost. One thought is (as I have a pretty vast amount of grey brick) to build the core structure that shows through in the ventral cityscape, aft engine area and the underside hangar area all in brick, all in a studs-up orientation, reinforced internally with some technic beam for longitudinal strength. If all that is in one piece then at the 9ft scale the brick-built section ends up about 6ft - 7ft long and 3ft or so wide at it's widest point... which isn't an insanely large brick structure (especially if split in two with a steel frame through the middle). The triangular outer 'wing' structure of the ship would then all be two-layers of plate on top, two underneath with technich beam 'honeycome' between them and would attach in huge panels over the brick structure. It needs some experimenting but... does this sound vaguely plausible to anyone who has done very large stuff before? I've had a very quick stab at recreating the greebling style of the original model, which is lots of horizontal flat sheet detail stacked in layers to make the cityscape... here's a small section i built... about 1/75th or so of the top area alone.... but I do have a LOT of light bley :-) Thanks all! Ben

Hi folks Well, I grew up in the hay-day of LEGO space and re-discovered the hobby (like many did) with the advent of LEGO Star Wars in the 90's. I've been an active AFOL and member of the Brickish Association for about 5 years now and won a few online competitions for a few of my space craft designs a few years back... I've been away from the hobby for a little while and I'm just getting back into things now having been drawn back in by a commercial project I am involved with which is LEGO related (but which I had better not post about yet for fear of lookinglike I'm just here to advertise that :-) I am just embarking on a project to build a large scale (same size as the studio model, ie; 9ft long) Executor Super Star Destroyer for a couple of shows next year. Looking forward to sharing the project and geeking-out with other AFOLs :-) Ben

He he, yep, i already have one to hand to put in there :-)

Yep, although I considered sailing closer to the wind with the name, it does just say 'Fried Chicken' in Japanese :-) Gonna put up some pics of the 'Mr Sushi' restaurant later too :-) All anyone seems to do in Neon City is eat fast food and visit dubious nightclubs :-) Ben

Hi all Well, having only joined recently I wasn't going to shout about the project yet but, seeing as someone has already mentioned it, as the creator of it, I'll try and answer the questions... though 'darkblane' seems to have kinda said most of what I was gonna say already :-) Yes, although AFOLs form a big part of the target market for this, they are not the ONLY market for it. I'm an AFOL, have been for many years... I'm also into miniature painting (for competitions) and gaming too.... this is a cross-over product between a few hobbies that I am passionate about so, although I think we've done a fairly good job of appealing to everyone, the old addage about pleasing everyone all the time comes into play a little :-) This is something I've been working on for about 4 years now (since the original idea). It's taken up 100% of my time for the last 18 weeks or so with a few weks of sketching and part time work before that. I agonised for weeks and weeks about the design and overall plan for the project I can tell you... yes, I considered just making body-armour/exo-suits for minifigs as I knew that would appeal to the AFOL market even more, however, from a gaming point of view, that made bulkier, more costly models and made the core idea of the game-play taking place around LEGO scenery harder to achieve due to the larger scale. I also looked at the idea of becoming a clone-brick producer and making the mechs from compatible bricks, but I don't want to be the next Megabloks (shudder). Yes, we could write rules and just sell those and allow people to make mechs from existing LEGO but... that's not much of a product, and it's been done. This needed mechs of a standard size with standardised weapons options using our custom gaming base that allowed you to track the robot's shield level. If this is successful we have plans for two follow-on games to this that take it to a macro and micro level from the 1/144 scale (yes, scaled to the trophy figures as has been mentioned) that Mechabrick is set at.... specifically one at minifig scale with troopers, robots and Minifigs in Exo-suits fighting in a more role-play like game... we also have 'Supermassive' which is essentially a micro-scale space battle game that also ties in to the Mechabrick universe. That's only happening though if this gets fairly well over-funded. This game however, we wanted Gundam scale mechs in a nano-scale city, so that's what we did :-) As for assembly of the robots... yes, the arm issue we knew would freak out some AFOL's and this was the bit we agonised about the most. We went through over 20 designs that used different methods to clip on to Minifig arms and make them larger but nothing worked and it always looked and was mechanically the weakest point in the design... we also wanted to create additional attachment points for weapons/upgrades and add the extra joint in the arms which was even harder using existing Minifig arms. Again, it was just a decision we had to make to make this viable according to our vision for the robots and the game. The robots (in their current design) have 25 parts which you add to the Minifig torso and legs to create each mech. Every single component has been designed with LEGO dimensions and interconnectivity in mind. Every joint, be it the joints between two mechabrick parts, the mechabrick parts and the Minifig, or external attachment points (of which there are a LOT), every one uses standard LEGO part dimensions (either rod diameters or stud diameters) and everything will be very carefully tolleranced so that fit and finish (we are even matching the plastic mix used and colours exactly) will be as good as LEGO. I won't clog the boards here up with explanatory images etc, there's a whole load of extra info about it and pics of every part (I actually just took some more today to show the leg assembly better following this discussion) on our Flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/mechabrick/ I'm here and happy to answer any questions anybody has, and take suggestions. Ultimately we want this to be an open-source and creative poroject and we are encouraging people to take it where they want to... if people want to buy our game and play it with mechs they've built out of LEGO then, cool! Likewise if they want to only use parts of our mechs and use LEGO for other parts, or for the weapons/upgrades, then cool! If people want to glue the mechs together and paint them up and enter them in miniature painting competitions... awesome, do that! (I know i will :-) We want people to have fun with it, if it's not your cup of tea, that's cool too! Cheers folks Ben

Very, very cool :-) A few years back I was (semi)seriously proposing a group build of a minifig scale Nebulon B... yes, that does work out as huge as you think it would, about 19ft long I seem to recall? This is about the best model of it I've seen made.... looks very much like it could be a UCS model, very cleanly designed and assembled. Want one :-) Ben

Yep, it's a big old build.... I have the advantage of having an office and, running my own toy design company that is launching a LEGO related product, I have not only the space but a good excuse to buy lots of LEGO ;-) I'll be using bley (light bluish grey), trying to even build something 1/10th this size out of an obsolete colour would be a nightmare :-) I actually took a load of photos and did some research on the original studio model when it was on display in London some years back, specifically for this project.... it's actually a very light grey colour, not the dark grey it appears in the films. I already have a good 20,000 bricks and parts in the right colours but recon only some of it is actually going to be any use... it's going to take a LOT more plate and tile than I have and is gonna require another 10,000+ specific elements to get it built. My nearest LEGO brand store has lt bley tiles in the pick-a-brick at present so I'm stocking up :-) Should be fun! Ben

It was an awesome show, I was there exhibiting the Mechabrick demo game-board both days... and this was my first STEAM event (despite being in Brickish for six or seven years, which is a bit slack!) The attendance last year was just under 9000 people, this year it was just over 8000 people (official numbers from the venue) so a few hundred less this year than last... it still seemed manic to me though, I could barely breathe on Saturday, kinda glad it was a little quieter on Sunday! Ben