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Good evening all. I thought I would finally get around to posting my sci-fi/space MOCs. So far I have just been over in the the digital forum for LDraw. Every MOC I make is done in LDraw. So renders for everything, and what I have built in real bricks or actually taken time to photograph I have pictures for. Everything is over on my Flickr role, and files in LDraw are over on Brickshelf. The biggest thing for me when I am making an official themed MOC is that I stay as close to original design as possible. This means that I limited myself to the parts that were available at the time and try to keep my build techniques like those used in the original sets. I hope I do them justice. So, Futuron to start it off... "Winged Attacker" This MOC is "Midway Station," meant to bridge the Futuron and Unnitron monorails.
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Hi everyone, This is my first MOC post on Eurobricks! Any feedback/comments suggestions is great! I first decided to build this after one of my teachers (knowing I love LEGO), gave me a huge bin of LEGO to sort for her robotics class and gave me free rights to take anything I wanted. There was a lot of interesting classic space and castle stuff in there, but the thing that struck me the most was this (http://www.bricklink...m.asp?P=2345p44) piece. I asked if I could have that and some classic space torsos, and immediately was inspired to build a Blacktron MOC! Here it is! I drew my sources mainly from 6984 Invader (http://brickset.com/.../6894-1/Invader) and embellished on it. Here it is! I tried to make it more streamlined than the previous incarnation, so unfortunately I had to use a trans-black windshield instead of trans-yellow (please don't kill me ) Here's flight mode. And, true to the original, it separates and can even combine with my Alienator 2.0 (pics coming soon) And here's the cargo container, it holds a minifigure. Cockpit! This was made quite a while ago, and I really do not care for the gray piece on the cargo section, it detracts from the overall look. However, I have already replaced it with another black piece and I think it looks a bit better More pics can be found on my flickr account! Thanks for the comments in advance! legozebra
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I got nothing to do today so i made this vignette. Blacktron is my favorite faction in space theme, i hope lego continue this theme :) I made a minigun (kinda) for one of the troops to make it look more badass :D The Invasion of Blacktron by diazcen, on Flickr Feel free to comment ! thanks
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When Blacktron Reconnaissance discovered the value of pollen from Persei Six, they created the Harvester Drones to steal as much of it as possible. Unlike the Nalongii Pollinator the Harvester has received some inbuilt aggressive programming and the accompanying "wing chung" unarmed combat techniques. Side by side with the Nalongii Pollinator!
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First of all, happy 2014 everyone! What better way to kick the New Year off with a new MOC. Not just that, what you are about to see is pretty much a fresh format, almost like a reboot. Now that POV-Ray is working well, it means that the detail is much more real compared to the old method of just using LDraw snapshots, making it almost cartoony, in some ways it does look cool and old school, however I’d much prefer it looking more real. The logos have also been given a revamp and made sleeker with an overall less excess baggage look, hopefully you’ll enjoy seeing the changes as much as I enjoyed working on them come together. Right, my next MOC you might recognise is a modern nod to a certain older Blacktron ship design Lego released in 91, and one of their best in my view. There have been modern remakes of it, however I felt it was a good idea to break the mould a bit and make a bit of a different design approach. I give you the Blacktron Revenger, while small, it makes up for it in sheer speed, agility and flexibility of being able to pretty much fit in and be a use anywhere. The fastest single piloted craft in the galaxy. Four powerful weapon heads on each of the four wings, and with top secret research and development by mischievous Blacktron scientists, the ship can fire either lasers or torpedo’s, or for even more it can fire all four lasers into one to make a more powerful destructive beam. Yellow Version And as a further extra, some more generations of it. Future Generation Version Yes I know, it rendered trans yellow, although I thought it looked pretty cool and a bit different but still looking like Future Generation so I kept it like that, they look more trans yellow in the catalogue pictures too to my eyes. Blacktron 3 Version My personal take on the Blacktron 3 look. And finally some space shots. There are a lot of pictures so the rest can be seen in this link. I also while I was at it revamped the last few MOC’s that just used the less detailed LDraw picture format. Anyway, enjoy!
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It has been a while since I have shown anything, I'll admit I don't think this one is anything special, it is more filler if anything, although because the Star Wars windscreens went together well and the drill weapon on the front was ok, I suppose a craft is a craft at the end of the day and I found it passable enough at least to make it a nifty fighter. I am however looking forward to showing what I have coming after this over time, as I am much happier with them, it's only just about to get better, and if I can get POV-Ray to work as said before in other threads then even better. Anyway, I present this time the Blacktron Stealth. Original Vintage Yellow Space Shots Enjoy!
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My next Blacktron ship is ready to show, this time it forms off one of those general Vic Viper/starcraft cockpit design ideas that is pictured on FlickR somewhere, with some added folding wings thrown in. Rather fittingly it is the Blacktron Demon, fast, powerful and dark/sleek enough to launch attacks on unsuspecting craft. Given the name and backgrounds, this is one of those crafts that lurks around in the darkest, deepest places in space. A nebula might look fine to explore, but behind it or lurking in the dark near it you never know what is there. Original Yellow Space Shots Enjoy!
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Going back to an original design idea and not a remake now, I wanted to this time build something small but agile, that could seat two people. A bit of inspiration actually came from Star Trek Nemesis from those Scorpion attack fighters. I wanted to do something like that because as since it seats two people, you could see it being hijacked by some protagonists in order to get away from where they are being held captive, whether it be a base or a large ship. Out of all of it comes the Blacktron Insector. Space Shots
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Right, I've been wanting to show off some more space MOC's I had done since last time, however the problem is the fact that I just don't have the cash to get the parts. Thankfully I can at least use MLCAD/LDraw since I made my first MOC I showed a few months ago, which does at least mean I can show off the models. Who knows I might end up being physically able to build them one day, but for now I suppose computer generated design still works well enough. So here goes, I've got a few more I'll show soon. Anyway, not a very big one this time, I decided to do a remake for 2013 of the classic 1875 Blacktron Meteor Monitor. I combined some older traits of the original set, along with some of the more modern design of 7049 Alien Striker (I don't like Alien Conquest to be honest, however some parts like this model were good), and the end result is this. Space Shots Small yes, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Enjoy!
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Yup. It is finished. Well, it has been finished for awhile, but I just finally got around to taking some proper pictures. So without further ado, I present my life-sized Blacktron 2005 series Dalek. More pictures in the Photostream
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I wasn't expecting to review anything, and this is the only review you'll most likely see me do, however given the set it is then I'd be only happy to review it. Some facts: Released: 1988 Pieces: 569 Minifigures: 5 Build time: Around 2-3hrs Price paid: Just over £50 The set is the all time classic Space base from my favourite Space subtheme, Blacktron. It is the one and only 6987 Message Intercept Base. The best space base made in my opinion and pretty much the peak of Lego space. Many say that the bad guys got the biggest base, but in a sense when it was released in 1988 for its first year it was kinda a good guy base too, it was only in 1989 when Space Police came out that Lego changed the space story/canon somewhat and made Blacktron become outcast in a way and splitting away. Either way that doesn't stop it from being amazing, the Star Trek: First Contact of Lego space bases. And sometimes its good to be a little bit bad. The story goes that a while ago I managed to get a new example of this set, however the box wasn't great and was missing the front flap/lid, I managed to get another empty box which also wasn't great in other areas, but had the lid. I carefully took the lid off and carefully glued it to the new examples box successfully. I still had somewhat of an original box left though, so I decided to buy a complete set unboxed with instructions to pair with it so I can sell it back in better more complete condition than before. However that gave me a great excuse to make it and while I'm at it post a review. So let's get on with the details. It looks like this new. The Building Process With all that out of the way, time to empty the parts, get out the instructions and start building the detailed model. First, the set comes with some pretty nice parts, some of the more special ones that stand out are shown below. The trans yellow windscreen parts as always look great, there is even a 4x6 trans yellow plate, which rings back to the old classic space days. A nice use of castle wall pieces too, as well as the large black panel piece with the iconic Blacktron logo. The Minifigures/Crew The base comes with 5 classic Blacktron astronauts, sporting the mostly black body with grey detailing, and the intimidating pure black visor, becuase not being able to see your face is just cooler and so much more badass. It has a good amount of crew, however an extra figure or two would have been nice for a base this large and detailed, but oh well, at least its better than a lot that came after where the numbers seemed to go down to about 3. Instructions Being released 25 years ago now, the instructions that came with the set were harder to follow than now, less pages but more work on each step, I like that though. The front cover shows the base opening and closing as well as two of the four alternate models that can be built. A massive walker (basically a much larger Alienator) and a spaceship, which looks a bit like a much more fearsome Spyrius Saucer Centurion (6939) released some years later. The Baseplate This is pretty much the last big space base set that still used a flat surface studded plate before the raised baseplate came along afterwards. It actually consists of two plates, one large flat one, next to another one the same size with some cool crater detailing, another nod to what was used in classic space. These two together as you are about to see makes for one hell of a large home. Vehicles The base comes with two vehicles, a small but nimble buggy and an agile spacecraft. While not as large as separate models like the Battrax (6941) or Renegade (6954), they are still cool and give the base a sense of being complete. The buggy doesn't contain a lot of parts, however despite that it is the little details that make it rather nice. Those large tyres make it compensate for the not too many parts it has, and it just looks so space like. Even the transparent red rocket piece at the back with the transparent red cone at the front while only being as few pieces just make it look sleek and a lot of fun. It could totally ace the car chase scene in Star Trek: Nemesis. The spacecraft is one of the gems of the set, it is a small Vic Viper like craft. The wings can be adjusted to fold up and down, in some ways it resembles one of those mini Klingon fighters from Star Trek Into Darkness. Very clever design, even the thrusters are neat and it has enough firepower at the front and on the wings. It resides in the hanger of the base and actually stems around one of the main functional features of the base which will be revealed. It must be great being him. Ready to boldly go...where no one from Futuron has gone before. Space... The Base Itself Now onto making the big part, the base itself, what a joy it is to make. Here's a shot of part way through making, to show how this set is full of detail, this actually feels like a base, a place where if you are a Blacktron astronaut you really can chill out here after a hard days work. Control stations, tool/weapon holders and the spacecraft launchpad, plenty of stuff to do. The base is now complete in all of its glory. As you can see, there is a control tower to the right, which quite cleverly using a sort of gear piece below it can move backwards and forwards connecting to the base or separating on its own and making things look bigger and more spaced out. When separated it allows you to open up the walkway/corridor in between. Another part that uses the same method is the hanger itself, which again through the use of a rotating gear piece opens the hanger right out, to allow, yes you guessed it, the spacecraft to jet off. It also makes the unique and rare yellow 3x3 dish pieces at either side open out. One small flaw with this mechanism is that it is a bit fragile if you aren't careful. The Blacktron astronaut not in the craft can only just about hide his jealousy that he's not in it. And now back to work, can't be long until its is my turn to fly it, or mine. Another load of excellent interior detail this set offers. Dammit, I want the car! Well at least I have this weapon. The detail just doesn't end, revealed in the middle towards the rear of the hanger is a small and cute control booth that can be accessed via ladder, just below is another control area. Going back towards the right end of the base are more control areas, including another raised area with a yellow seat, although how the guy gets down is anyone guess. I may find it hard getting down, but I'm still higher up than you are. Relax, I know what I'm doing. And now my final and favourite part of the base, the corridor/walkway in between. This may not seem like a big bit, bit it is so nicely detailed and feels really realistic. You can lift the two windowed areas up via the hinges to put someone in the staring or walking down the corridor. In order to lift the one up at the front of the base you have to move the control tower forward a bit, otherwise you won't be able to get your hand in, it's a bit annoying but doesn't take much to do at least. I gotta get to that craft now! Well that's it, to sum up this is a fantastic base and my favourite, so many nice touches that overall make for a sweet build. It does have some minor flaws, like as mentioned no stairs to the top part in the control tower and no way of getting up to the base itself from the outside, but this is Lego so I'll just use my imagination. A bit flimsy in places and an extra minifig or two would be nice, however that could be solved easily now. As a whole it makes for an amazing space base that could even be modded to make even more detailed, while its obvious the colour scheme is also classic too, can't beat mostly black with some yellow highlighting. It gets my seal of approval, and it was fantastic having the chance to make it again. Pros +Amazing design and detail +Superb colour scheme +Nice vehicles +Many nice compartments +Great playability Cons -Flimsy in some places -One or two more minifigures would have been nice Overall: 95% Anyway I hope you enjoyed my review, thanks for reading.
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Here is the SHIP I built for the SHIPtember challenge on Flickr: It clocks in at 120 studs long, and 60 something studs wide. Many features include a large shuttle bay that can carry many different things. Comments and criticism are welcome. And I seem to be having troubles using the enter key here. Had to type this all elsewhere and copy it here.
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Hi there, I'm new here but have been lurking for a while. Long story short, I was into Lego from when I was young and then lost interest in about 2008 or so and sold all my Lego stuff, which was a mixture of nice example older sets from the 90s and before, along with a load of older Lego sets I got when I was younger at that time and predictably at that age mixed them all up, so essentially a massive lot of pieces. I also sold most of the NIB older sets I had (big mistake there I was kicking myself soon after that!). At that time I was more interested in having the older sets on display as I'm not really a fan of what is being made setwise now mostly, however I do find the newer parts useful as you'll see next. I still have a soft spot for Lego though and this year decided to come back but not to buy and display older sets anymore, no, this time I wanted to let my creativity show and build my own stuff every so often when time, money and space allows, also to buy a few of my favourite older Lego sets new as I am a bit of a collector too. I've already managed to obtain a few. Anyway, over time, my favourite Lego theme grew to be Space, and from it my favourite subtheme was easily the original Blacktron faction, nothing beats that in terms of coolness to me. After I saw all these MOC's of them going through Flickr and all, I felt that it would be cool to do my own version of Blacktron. I know some people will say that it needs some yellow highlighting bricks, however when I saw pasukaru76's Phase Black Blacktron spacecraft on Flickr, I personally felt that looked amazing so for my personal version of Blacktron I have gone down that path mostly. From that I began work on my first Blacktron craft and first MOC. It started in June, I purchased a few sets for parts along with part orders and took me about a month to get the majority of it done, since mid July I have been finishing and tweaking little details, the last one being what the minifigures will look like, I wanted to make them a bit different while still being recognisably Blacktron. It has now all come to this, I give you the Blacktron Xerra. All pictures. I'll add a few details/story about it later on, for now though I hope you like it.
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Greetings community! I am here to share something like an unfinished project of mine. Maybe someday I will finish it. Spyrius Minifigs Spyrius Reloaded - Figures by The Mugbearer, on Flickr Well, nothing special about minifigs, but here's surveillance drone and assassin droid. Spyrius Vehicles Spyrius Reloaded - Recon Mech by The Mugbearer, on Flickr Spyrius Reloaded - Recon Mech - Open Cockpit by The Mugbearer, on Flickr Recon Mech. Revamp of my favorite Spyrius set 6889 "Recon Robot". Spyrius Reloaded - Spy Saucer by The Mugbearer, on Flickr Spy Saucer. Something between revamp and independent MOC. I was obsessed with idea of transformable vehicles for Spyrius. Space Police Minifigs Space Police Reloaded - Figures by The Mugbearer, on Flickr Here's three Space Police outfits made after old SP designs. Ice Planet Minifigs Ice Planet Reloaded - Figures by The Mugbearer, on Flickr Two Ice Explorer Outfits, and my pride - service droid. Ice Planet Vehicles Ice Planet Reloaded - Snow Skiff by The Mugbearer, on Flickr Snow speeder with two slide rails for maneuvering. Ideal for long single trips out in the snow plains of Ice Planet. Equipped with some instruments and survivalist's pack. Blacktron Minifigs Blacktron Reloaded - Figures by The Mugbearer, on Flickr Simple Blacktron operatives. Traditional Blacktron-II color scheme. Metallic parts represents artificial limbs. Blacktron Reloaded - Agents by The Mugbearer, on Flickr First Blacktron color scheme is great for making some shady persons like raiders and secret agents. I don't know when but I'll upload more stuff.
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I have enough SP3 officers, now it's time to build up the other guys. Ordered some parts, going to have to paint a few bits black, easy stuff. I'm annoyed that the one guy who has a bunch of Rench (New Blacktron) torsos wants over 2 dollars for them. I'm not too keen on spending 20 bucks for a few torsos, but I may not have a choice since Rench figures sell for even more -_- Anyway, here are some made up Blacktron troops. Just imagine them with Blacktron torsos: From left to right: Sniper, Infantry with pistols, Infantry with fancier goggles and rifle. Laser Armor-cutter (to wreck tank treads, walker-legs, break into fortresses, etc), Commando, Armored Artillery Guy lol Robot Drone Demolitions Guy (he ran out of hi-tech explosives!) Space Assault Troop (capable of fighting in space, zooming around sabotaging enemy craft and being a general nuisance) Experimental Weapons Guy (they test fancy new weapons in the battlefield)
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Came across this article about the old Lego themes. Found it interesting as it appears to be written by a literature student who is not an AFOL. He is starting an analysis of the Lego space factions from a story telling perspective. I wanted to share as I though some other AFOLs out there might be interested, especially those of us who are a bit older and can remember the days as far back as Blacktron I and Futuron when the factions got kicked off. Link is below: http://pendream.blogspot.com/
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I recently got my old childhood collection back. I unboxed it yesterday and took some photos to share, if anybody is interested. If you have any advice or comments, feel free to post here. I have yet to sift through pieces. Everything seems to be packed up into these Ziploc bags and sorted surprisingly well. I think my mother must have done this. I have to say, it's so strange because my memories of my Lego collection are different from what is actually here. I remember us having repurposed paint buckets for our toys and the Lego was just kind of jumbled up in there, but what I unboxed here... it almost seems to be sorted by set, or at least theme. Who sorted this? I don't want to ramble on too long and bore you all, though. Anyway on with the photos. Here is a shot of everything together as it came out of the bin. Don't squint too hard, because I have other better photos with things grouped. DSC_0044 by ZeyaV, on Flickr I must admit, I had feared the worst. I was expecting everything to be a hopeless jumble, scratched up, abused. But I think we were pretty tame kids and my mom made sure we took care of our things. Rarely would we leave toys out overnight, and it would all go back in the bucket for storage. Sure, there are a couple plates and things here and there that are snapped. But by and large, this is in pretty good condition. Of particular note are the instructions. I would have bet these were long gone! I'm going to have to go through this over time, but these instructions are in good shape. A couple of the ones from way back that we inherited from our cousins are a little torn, but still usable. Again, don't squint too much/long at this photo, but here are all the instructions together in one shot: DSC_0030 by ZeyaV, on Flickr And here are the instructions laid out by theme. Pirates! My favorite theme, especially as an adult. DSC_0033 by ZeyaV, on Flickr And castle! Wow. There's quite a few large sets here. These were some really nice Christmas presents. I remember my big Christmas present at the bottom of my stack was almost always a big Lego set. Well one year it was an Erector set. DSC_0037 by ZeyaV, on Flickr Space! I'm fairly sure the classic space sets were my older cousin's, originally. I definitely remember the parts, such as the technic pieces that make a bendy thing and the brackets with side-facing studs, and the little rocket-like things that face down (usually used as missile cannons or something, hehe). The couple of Blacktron sets were mine though. DSC_0039 by ZeyaV, on Flickr And here are the other instructions for what Brickset terms "Basic", "Legoland", a Town racer set, and a McDonald's promo thing. Also 3 advertisement inserts that probably came from some of these sets. DSC_0041 by ZeyaV, on Flickr And two random Technic sets. DSC_0032 by ZeyaV, on Flickr And last item for the paper goods, the Lego Idea book. Inside, I found a sticker sheet, and one pristine sail from a Castle set. I think I got this when I was getting on the older side, maybe 12 years old, and I don't think I used this book too much. Hardcore video game phase. Spoiled brat. :/ DSC_0010 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0011 by ZeyaV, on Flickr Anyone know if those stickers came with the book? Edit: L@go confirmed that these stickers are in fact from the idea book. Okay, on to the gratuitous shots of bricks and elements. Keep in mind I'm just sharing photos at this point for anyone interested. I also want to say, this is going to be a long project for me to get these all washed and parted together. I'm thinking that 2013 and into 2014 are going to be light on the Lego purchasing for me. First up, here are all the baseplates (except maybe some very small ones): DSC_0042 by ZeyaV, on Flickr Those are 48x48 light gray baseplates. Do those even get made anymore? They're huge! Also, I'm not sure what the broken plate is on the far right, but it's got to be older, probably from my cousins. I have a dim recollection of snapping it in two as a kid. Lessons learned. On to bags of mostly Pirate stuff: DSC_0013 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0014 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0015 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0016 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0017 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0018 by ZeyaV, on Flickr And now onto Castle, which probably makes up 1/3 of all the bricks. So much gray. DSC_0019 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0020 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0021 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0022 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0023 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0024 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0025 by ZeyaV, on Flickr This is some of that Blacktron and other space stuff: DSC_0027 by ZeyaV, on Flickr And onto some more miscellaneous bags. This is mostly that Basic theme stuff, and I'm hoping the classic space is mixed in there too. DSC_0026 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0027 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0028 by ZeyaV, on Flickr DSC_0029 by ZeyaV, on Flickr And that's all the photos I took. Like I said, I have my work cut out for me. My mom liked to use moth balls, and that stuff stinks pretty bad. It's all going to have to get washed. I know there's a thread here somewhere on how to clean Lego, which I'll read up on again. I plan to wash everything (gonna have to be a dishwasher or clothes washer), and then try and put together every set. I figure some of the really old ones like the Sea Plane and Classic Space sets might be lacking some parts, for which I might turn to Bricklink if it's not too painful. I might also try my hand at writing some reviews for these sets, if that would be welcome. But overall, I'm pretty excited. It's going to be a lot of work, but it should be fun. So what do you guys think? Please share any advice or thoughts.
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Hi there, my name is Tobi, I'm 28 years old and live in southern Germany. (this kind of went out of hand, but I hope some will enjoy reading this. My not so common Lego-story) Growing up I was a major fan of Lego and spent most of my time playing at home building and demolishing stuff. I used to have a giant Lego City in my room, way over 2m² big. My interest in Lego grew exponentially when, I think it was sometime in 1991, my parents helped out a neighbour of ours, who at that time was hgoing through marital difficulties or something. This subsequently led to that Lady gifting me with her son's (who had 'outgrown' Lego, as she said) entire box of Lego as a way of showing her thanks to my parents (they were kinda rich, so I assume this was nothing to her and she was propably getting rid of some stuff that was only taking up space). This box was about 60 x 40cm and 40 cm high and more than half-filled with all sorts of bricks. And, on top of that, there where pieces of a white & blue monorail with lots of track parts and a - mostly intact - giant black and yellow space station. As you propably can imagine, I basically freaked out with joy when I saw that box standing in my room. Unfortunately for me, that box must've sat untouched for a few years, as it was all covered with grime and dust. Additionally, as I soon discovered, its previous owner had thrown all kinds of stuff in there, among them a lot of old batteries, some of which leaked battery fluid all over the place. When my mother saw this, she decided that I wasn't going to get to play with my prize until after she gave all the bricks a good and thorough scrubbing. Perfectly understandable looking back, but back then I was horrified and begged her to be extra careful with that space station. But, when I got home from school some days after, she told me she had tried to clean the space station and it broke apart, so she went ahead and disassembeld it completely in order to better be able to clean its parts. She was certain I'd be able to rebuild it. Right... I was heartbroken, because one thing that wasn't in the box was the instructions. Our neighbour claimed she used to throw those away along with the packaging as soon as the set was built... (7-year old me did an inner facepalm when he heard that) I managed to identify the space station (as you may have guessed, it was the magnificient Blacktron 6987 Message Intercept Base) and the monorail (Futuron 6990) from an older Lego catalogue (both already were no longer produced by that time), and also guessed at some other sets that the neighbours kid may have had (as I found out soon, most of those guesses were wrong), and my parents actually wrote to Lego with my story and asked if they had spare instructions for these sets they could send us. Incredibly, Lego responded and sent us several instruction sheets, along with a 260 idea book, and a letter in which they explained that they didn't have inctruction sheets for all the sets we asked for. So I at least got the instructions for the monorail, but not for the Message Intercept base. I had heaps of fun with my legos, built my city, and oftentimes would put together the monorail (it was the entire thing plus the monorail expansion pack) and some mock space stations with all the space parts I had (apart from the monorail and the parts of the base; I also found a lot of other special space bricks, some of them with print, and I guessed from their overall design (correctly, as it turned out) that they were even older than the few sets I was able to identify. But I never forgot about the Message Intercept Base and started several attempts to build it from the picture in the old catalogue (I treasured that). I never got even close to the original, though. As I grew older, other things came into my life and at some point towards the end of the 90ies, I packed up all my Lego stuff and moved it to the basement. Fast forward to 2012 My lego stuff still had its home in the basement by the end of 2012. A different basement in a different house now, but a basement nonetheless. For christmas, I decided to give some of my old playmobil stuff to my young niece. I dug it up to give it a thorough cleaning, and while on that task, stumbled over my lego boxes. With the big transparent blue and yellow panels from the base and the monorail lying on top. Somehow; i couldn't stop thinking of it, and soon found myself on the internet, doing research. It didn't take me long to find the instructions for the Message Intercept Base on worldbricks. When I clicked through the pdf for the first time, I virtually got goosebumps all over and was filled with joy, because I knew that now I would finally be able to built it! Whenever I thought of Lego over the past two decades, that station never was far from my mind, haunting me being so damn close with virtually all the parts being there, but so far because I had no instructions. The fact that Lego never made a station that looked this awesome (in my opinion) for the later space themes didn't exactly help. I remember doing some internet research on it several years back, after a lively discussion about lego with a buddy, but back then all I found was pictures. So, after the Christmas holidays; I decided to get my lego stuff up from the basement, clean it and put finally together that station! During the cleaning process I came across all the other space bricks, and with help of Brickipedia, peeron and also this forum (I had quite some fun reading Rufus Classic Space restoration project: http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=74458) managed to identify some other space sets that I apparently had from unique or special bricks that only came with those sets (e.g. 6950, 6932, 6890, 6783 and the grandmother of all spaceships, 928). In the first week of January, I went ahead and built it. I was amazed to find that I still had almost all of the relevant pieces. I'm only missing the transparent panel for the small space glider - which I don't remember ever having - one of the sloped bricks needed at the back top of the station, 4 small black/yellow antenna/lever thingies (I used all black ones for now) and one yellow 4-high antenna (I used a white one which stands out like a warts :D). I will try to get all these online somewhere, also an intact 5th Blacktron astronaut - I only have four complete ones left. So here it is, in all its current glory. My Blacktron Message Intercept Base: It has to be the most awesome Lego-thing I ever saw. I absolutely love the design, the perfect color scheme, the way it opens up and manages to put whole stories in my head even at age 28. I can't even begin to imagine how much fun I could have had with it as a kid... But it gives me great feeling seeing it, because something that I longed for for so long and so hard as a child, and which intrigued me even years later is, finally there. Even a week after finishing it, I have to smile everytime I see it. I need to get better pictures of it, though :) I may do a series of posts about this and all the other sets I managed to rebuild (for my first time ever in almost all cases) in the Space-forum if people are interested. So far, I built 6950, 6932, 6890 and of course 6990. 6783 and 928 are left as of now, but I'm missing a few vital parts for both of them (the others are all complete, or only miss a few minor parts). So, yeah. Hi from Germany ;-)
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Hi all! Here’s my entry for the Micro Sci-Fi Contest: This is a microscale Blacktron mining plant, situated - obviously - on Planet Blacktron. You say: weren’t Blacktrons a group of raiders? Yes, you're right, but they also needed iron to make starships, so… :-) One thing I noticed during the making of this vignette: I’m really bad at building microscale stuff (this is my first one), so I had to “cheat” with the addition of a flying Blacktron mining droid, just to make everything better eh eh! Anyway everything fits a 16 x 14 studs baseplate, so I'm still legit (or at least I think so). Additional notes & credits: some mecha building techniques are taken from flickr user IronSniper (I think he’s the best at it). The overall idea of the mining plant is taken from classic Lego sets and from The Brothers Brick administrator Nannan Z (see his “Oasis” diorama, it’s one of the best Sci-Fi Lego things I’ve ever seen). Hope you’ll enjoy it and forgive my english…
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I have been developing the new Monorail system suggested by Masao Hidaka on LEGO Cuusoo Folder when moderated My layout has straights, curves and slopes well proven. The sizes are 1.5x the original - 48M curve radius and 6-wide (or wider) trains. I also tried a figure-eight with the crossing. So far I have a 5-car train with 2 motors, LiPo battery and IR Receiver. Top speed is a bit more than the original but it is also variable with the train remote. I am working on a flat crossing, which TLG patented for the original monorail but never released. Shown here is the rail-flattening version but I also have a turning rail version. I am also working on the motor switch function using a PF pole reverser on the train. I have yet to do points but Hidaka has started on these, as well as a crossover. All tracks are made from sustainable basic parts. TLG can't take away our monorail again - as long as there are basic parts there will be monorail! There is also more variation possible. I have an 80M/10-brick slope and two 48M/5-brick slopes. Both use the same angle modules at the ends, calculated not to strain parts and each joint fixed with two clip/bar hinges for robustness. I got into 0.1M offsets to make the angles! The black and yellow colour scheme fits with Blacktron quite well but you can vary the colours to suit your chosen theme. TLG will never make the original monorail again, no matter how much we might wish for it, because it is not commercially viable. I believe this system presents a sustainable future for LEGO Monorail. That's why I decided to help develop it. Please try it yourself and support it on LEGO Cuusoo Mark
