greg3

Thanks for all the comments. Re: CUUSOO... I've only just discovered the that site but once I have a few more "sets" I might just give it a try. Should have the River Tribe family house done this week ( just waiting for parts!) Cheers

Awesome stuff! An amazing amount of detail in such a small scale... I love it! (I think the " twisted" skyscraper is my favourite) Great work!

Nice street! I really like the way you've used all the architectural details to made each house unique. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the town!

Absolutely stunning! The amount of detail makes it really come alive! Great work

Excellent stuff! Looks spot on ( I especially like his eyebrows! Very clever...)

Hi I've always thought that a Prehistoric/Stone Age theme would be pretty cool so I'm working on my own!! Called "Tribes". This is my first MOC for the series, a stone age dugout fishing boat for the River Tribe (I thought I could come up with different tribes, each based around a particular environment; river, cave, ice). I tried to make it the sort of set that TLG might actually bring out... (I hope I've posted this in the right place!). The whole set (boat, fisherman, river bank and crocodile) The boat (I tried to copy the shape of a stone age dugout boat I found online... not sure about the bow but I think it looks OK) It also should be brown but I couldn't find the right parts in that colour so settled on black. The fisherman can use his spear and net to catch dinner! But look out for the croc!! Alternative design for the bow of the boat.... the carved face of a river god to protect our brave fisherman on his adventures!! (need to find some of those new 1x1 round tiles in white for the eyes) Thanks for looking, any comments are more than welcome... I'm currently working on a house for the fisherman and his family!!

After finishing my version of the Interstellar Queen, I thought I'd have a crack at building another ship from the book "Spacecraft 2000-2100". The ACM113 or "Minnow" is an Alpha Centauri ship. Designed as a scout/raider it has a crew of 2 and is armed with several laser beam weapons. This was a lot harder to make than the "Queen" (I'm not especially good at this SNOT business and hull's not quite right) I'll probably have another go at it someday but for now I'm pretty pleased with it... Reference pic (although in this modern CG version of the pic is slightly different to the book version it gives a fair idea of what it should look like!) Anyway thanks for looking...

As a child in the early 80's I remember a series of large hardback books that told the story of the fictional Terran Trade Authority (TTA). My favourite book was Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD which described a range of combat and civilian spacecraft. I recently rediscovered the book and have had a go at building a micro version of one of the ships... The Interstellar Queen. Described as the world's most advanced spaceliners, the Interstellar Queens were introduced in 2046 to carry passengers to Alpha Centauri. My version tries to recreate the distinctive shape of a "Queen"... Reference Link I'm planning on making more ships from the book (probably in micro scale as micro building is a whole new thing for me and I need all the practice I can get!!) Thanks for looking Comments are always welcome!!

Not sure if this the right place to post this... please move it if it not. The Tower of Refuge sits on Conister Rock (also known as St Mary's Isle) a rocky reef near the entrance to Douglas Harbour in the Isle of Man. It was the brainchild of Sir William Hillary who had helped establish the first organised and trained lifeboat service in 1824 (later to be known as the Royal National Lifeboat Institution). In 1830, a ship called the St George struck Conister rock during a fierce storm and Hillary (now aged about 60) took command of the Douglas lifeboat in the rescue of the crew. During the rescue he was swept overboard and had to cling to the rock until he could be picked up, along with all the St George's crew and passengers. Following this, Sir William proposed the building of a structure on the rock to act as a warning and to provide shelter for shipwreck survivors awaiting rescue. The tower was completed in 1832, and cost £254 (a combination of public donations and Hillary's own money). It was designed by John Welch and was stocked with food and water to allow shipwrecked sailors to sit out even the worst storm (a bell allowed them to summon help). Since its construction, no ship has been wrecked on the rock (which now lies much closer to land following development of the harbour and seafront) At low spring tides the rock and tower can be reached by foot but at high tide the rock is completely submerged and just the tower can be seen. The tower got its name after William Wordsworth wrote a poem about it during a visit to the Isle of Man... The feudal Keep, the bastions of Cohorn. Even when they rose to cheek or to repel Tides of aggressive war, oft served as well Greedy ambition, armed to treat with scorn Just limits; but yon Tower, whose smiles adorn This perilous bay, stands clear of all offence; Blest work it is of love and innocence, A Tower of refuge built for the else forlorn. Spare it, ye waves, and lift the mariner, Struggling for life., into its saving arms! Spare, too, the human helpers! Do they stir 'Mid your fierce shook like men afraid to die? No; their dread service nerves the heart it warms, And they are led by noble HILLARY The model itself is my first attempt at a micro scale building (building in this scale was harder than I thought!) I'm pretty pleased with tower itself but I'm still experimenting with the sea (want to make a stormy version!!) Ref pic (taken from my window earlier this week) Thanks for looking!

Very nice... I like the Traditional style and signs. As for a tram why not a cable tram... I made one a while back based on a system operated in Melbourne in the first half of the 20th c. The original post seems to have gone but here's a couple of pics (hope you don't mind me hijacking your thread)

Hi Try Here Hope that helps!!

Ideas book 200 had a clothes shop sticker.... I found a pic of it online My link

Very nice!! Like the ring and the stools/buckets etc and excellent minifig choices for the trainers. Just a small thing, but personally I'd have used some different colours for the ring side and maybe white or tan tiles for the "canvas". Thanks for sharing...

The chain mail is a Harry Potter Dementor's cape turned back to front and trimmed to size.

NIce tutorial... I like the method you've used for the hull. Might try it myself!! Cheers

This is a custom fig I put together ages ago... and just rediscovered!! (apologies for the long post but the history behind this guy is fascinating - well I think so!) All lego parts (apart from the paper eye patch) Jan Zizka was born into a minor noble family in Bohemia. Despite being half blind after losing an eye as a child, he went on to become a soldier, mercenary and a captain in King Wenceslas’ palace guard but it was during the Hussite Wars (1419-36) that he made his name as a military leader. The Hussite Wars were actually a series of crusades launched by the Catholic Church and the Emperor Sigismund (the ruler of Bohemia) against the Hussites. These were the followers of a Bohemian priest called Jan Hus who had been burnt at the stake in 1415 for calling for religious reforms and an end to corruption in the Church. As one of the few Hussites with military experience, Jan Zizka took charge of the Hussite army. This force consisted of mainly peasant men and women with no training and few weapons. To withstand the crusader armies (which consisted of some of the finest knights in Europe) Zizka had to develop whole new ways of fighting. He had farm tools converted to weapons, crude but highly effective weapons such as the war flail became particularly feared. He embraced the new technology of firearms - up until this time, firearms in Europe had only been used in sieges. The Hussites would be the first to use them successfully on the battlefield, where they were deployed alongside large numbers of crossbows. His greatest innovation though, was the war wagon. These were large farm wagons which had one side built up with wooden armour. Able to carry up to 20 people they made the Hussite army incredibly mobile and also formed the basis of Zizka’s battle strategy. The wagons (full of Hussite troops) would form a circle (called a Wagenburg) with the hussite cavalry in the middle. When the Catholic crusaders attacked, they were met by a hail of fire from crossbows and firearms fired through loopholes in the wagon walls. Any knights that reached the wagenburg would be unable to get past the wagons and were easy targets for the pole arm wielding infantry. Once the enemy attack lost momentum, a gap would open in the wagenburg and the Hussite cavalry would be unleashed. With these tactics and Zizka’s leadership, the Hussites defeated every Crusader force sent against them. Then in 1421 at the siege of Rabi, Zizka was hit in the face by an arrow. He survived but lost the sight in his good eye. Now completely blind, he continued to lead his army, with the help of his advisors, to victory after victory. Zizka eventually died of plague in 1424 and legend has it that his dying wish was to have his skin used to make a drum to be beaten at the head of the army! Whether that’s true or not, his legacy did live on as his successors continued to use his tactics and eventually, after 17 years and 5 separate and unsuccessful crusades against the Hussites, Sigismund gave in and allowed the Hussites their religious freedom. Unfortunately, without an enemy against which to unite, the various Hussite factions then began to turn on each other and over the next few decades the Catholic church was able to gradually reassert it’s authority in Bohemia. Thanks for looking Cheers Greg

106A I've been sorting through my photos and came across this MOC I did a while back. While it's been posted at Classic Castle and MOC pages I don't think I ever posted it here so here it is... (not sure if it should be posted here or in the history forum but as it is a boat and dates from the 1600's I thought it fitted better here) The world's first working submarine was built in 1620 by Cornelis Jacobszoon Drebbel, a Dutch inventor and alchemist working in England for James I. My vessel is based on descriptions of this early submarine which supposedly made underwater journeys up and down the Thames. It's propelled by oars and air is supplied via hoses attached to a float (it's also been suggested that as an alchemist he'd also discovered a way to purify the air using a simple chemical reaction). Inside the boat, and attached to holes in the bottom of the hull, are rows of "animal skin bladders" which are allowed to fill with water to make the boat sink. To surface, the water is squeezed out using wooden levers. (In the last photo you can see the bottom right lever in the down position). The boat is steered using the oars and the crew would navigate by compass. The original boat was built for the Royal Navy but the idea was scrapped when Drebbel was unable to develop a weapon to go with it!! On the surface Underwater Interior (think I could have come up with a better idea for the air bladders!!) Thanks for looking (and apologies to those who've seen it before) Comments are always welcome Cheers Greg

Great set up.... love all the little details especially the tyre marks!! (great idea) And of course that spaceship's great... good luck in the comp.

I know what you mean, and according to accounts at the time the boats handled very poorly unless the wind was dead astern (they also needed a crew of over 40!!) but I wanted to stay sort of faithful to the originals!! I think that as they were river/lake craft they were usually rowed and only used the sails when the wind was favourable.

Fantastic looking lighthouse!! I especially like the way you've done the shield and the landscaping/vegetation around the excellent entrance... simply stunning!!

Another quick update now I've added some sails.... I originally planned to make custom sails and add as much realism to the rigging as possible (having them furl/unfurl and be able to trim them etc) but after lots of attempts I ran out of patience!! So instead I've gone for for official Lego sails (while keeping a bit of realism with the addition of the sheets and tack lines) I think it looks ok, although the topsail should really be smaller (at the moment it rubs on the forestay) and the main sail probably a bit lower... but as a Lego ship inspired by an actual vessel rather than an attempt to recreate it exactly, I'm pretty pleased with it (and it can be "played with" without it all falling apart or ending up in a big tangle!!) Reference image Next I'm going to add the rest of the guns and an awning to cover the deck. Anyway comments are always welcome...

Absolutely stunning!!! The amount of detail (even down to the cobbles - how many 1x1 round plates did you use?) and the sheer size of this is fantastic (so much so that you've managed to make the flagship seem just a tiny part) I love it!!

Brilliant!! Great lego versions of a really unusual vehicle.. nice work!!

Very nice - great interior. I really like the details like the menu and the kitchen (and of course the staff uniforms!!) Thanks for sharing.

2 houses based on "Bill & Mary's" house in ideas book 6000 (as a kid, all my Lego towns had at least one of these houses in it!!) Now Bill and Mary Jnr (the twin offspring of the originals) live next door to each other in their own versions... They may look identical on the outside but the interiors are very different... Mary's has the more traditional interior. Living room with fireplace... Upstairs bedroom with bed, storage cupboards and radio/alarm clock... Bill has gone for a more open plan layout... (might add a skylight in the roof) Microwave and sink (the black tile between the windows is a plasma TV (waiting for a sticker!!) Storage and fold down bed... The houses in their actual location... It was a real challenge to fit out the interiors but hopefully they look ok... comments are always welcome Thanks for looking