sparkart

Lightsabers seem to have been a part of Star Wars from its illustrative beginnings. Presumably, George Lucas was formulating a space adventure and thought some kinda futuristic melee weapon, like a laser sword would be super cool. In Ralph McQuarrie's early Star Wars illustrations, Imperial troops had lightsabers (and shields!), Han Solo had a lightsaber, Vader had a light saber, etc. Somewhere along the way, lightsabers were reserved for the more elite warriors, Jedi and Sith, but early on, lightsabers seemed to be a more commonplace weapon for heroes, villains, and minions, alike.

Got the brick to put my entries together. Pretty much done, just have to clean up the LDD files a little and upload them for sharing. Let me know what you think (even if you think they stink). The Star Wars Imperial Shocktrooper Speeder Rogue One Rebel Dropship

I thought your A-wing was nice, I like this build even more. Can the dropship carry the troops, too?

Across the ball cockpit and onto the angular parts of the pylons, there's no problems with stiffness. Those areas are made up of bricks and plates turned on their sides, studs out, so it's very stiff. The problems start happening at the round 4x4 bricks and plates on the ends. They are held together with Technic axles and 1xN tiles that connect back onto the angular parts of the pylons. The Interceptor panels apply torsion and twist these round sections, introducing a bit of droop. The wide support on the pylons is because the bottom of the ball cockpit is a 6x6 dish. I haven't figured out how to support the large model without it falling down by just holding up that dish. Olav did a good job designing a sturdy support solution for the official LEGO set.

Hey, don't dump on my man, Olav, he did a great job designing the model.

LEGO UCS TIE Fighter by SPARKART!, on Flickr. LEGO UCS TIE Fighter by SPARKART!, on Flickr. LEGO UCS TIE Fighter by SPARKART!, on Flickr.

Yeah, I was really trying to avoid buying a whole TIE Fighter, and figured spending 15% to get the parts I wanted was better than spending 100%. BUT THEN! I saw the TIE Fighter in my local LEGO shop and was so captivated by it. It's close to a studio scale model size. I figured, even if I don't use the ball and pylons out-of-the-box, I will have a use for light bley slopes in the future.

This playset is a kind of alternate universe foil to LEGO set 7668 Star Wars Rebel Scout Speeder. The Rebels have little chance of success against three Imperial Shocktroopers and a Supercommando in an armed speeder! The Star Wars Imperial Shocktrooper Speeder by SPARKART!, on Flickr. If you appreciate Dark Horse Comics' The Star Wars, you understand the impetus to create this slightly askew rendition of the familiar Star Wars Stormtroopers. The Shocktrooper minifigures in this set are inspired by concept artist Ralph McQuarrie's early drawings for George Lucas's Star Wars, in particular, this illustration. The Supercommando with the brick-built rocketpack is inspired by the artwork that evolved into Boba Fett. I wanted the rocketpack to resemble the real-life Bell Rocket Belt that would've been familiar to the concept artists in the 1970s, when the nascent Star Wars story and movie was taking shape. The Star Wars Imperial Shocktrooper Speeder by SPARKART!, on Flickr. The speeder attempts to evoke the imagery of McQuarrie's sleek speeder bike designs, as seen in the lower right of this picture. Swoop into the fray with the sleek speeder! The Star Wars Imperial Shocktrooper Speeder by SPARKART!, on Flickr. Detach the speeder's rear cannon and create a standalone armed defense point! Fire the spring-loaded cannon! The Star Wars Imperial Shocktrooper Speeder by SPARKART!, on Flickr. Deploy the Supercommando with his rocket pack to scout the area! The Star Wars Imperial Shocktrooper Speeder by SPARKART!, on Flickr. Instructions available <TBD>, so you can examine, modify, and build this playset. 95 pieces total, 49 pieces for the speeder

This playset is a foil to LEGO set 7667 Imperial Dropship, but is inspired mostly by the Rogue One concept artwork revealed at Star Wars Celebration VII. Rogue One Rebel Dropship Battlepack by SPARKART!, on Flickr. The daring Rebel commandos deploy from the dropship by "mynocking", hanging facedown from the dropship doors. The dropship carries three rebel troopers and a pilot. The cargo doors and cockpit open, the flight deck chair swivels, and missiles are fired from the top-mounted spring-loaded launchers. Rogue One Rebel Dropship Battlepack by SPARKART!, on Flickr. Help the pilot and crew ready the ship for takeoff! Rogue One Rebel Dropship Battlepack by SPARKART!, on Flickr. Swivel the flight deck captain's chair and remind the troopers of the rendevous point, then deploy the rocket commandos! Rogue One Rebel Dropship Battlepack by SPARKART!, on Flickr. Create an explosive diversion with the spring-loaded missile launchers! Rogue One Rebel Dropship Battlepack by SPARKART!, on Flickr. Instructions available <TBD>, so you can examine, modify, and build this playset. 118 pieces total, 95 pieces for the dropship.

Thanks for the kind words, guys, and thanks for checking it out! Racker, regarding those sagging cantilevered parts...yes, I actually think some UCS models are too big for the manufactured material properties, but I guess that's part of the appeal of large models, pushing the limit of LEGO buildability. H_Solo, it's hard to see, but there is a black pilot in the cockpit. I lined the cockpit in white pieces to get light to bounce around so the pilot would stick out more, but the light reflection from the front canopy glass pretty much obscures everything inside. "All in the Reflexes" (reference to Jack Burton? Who? Jack Burton. Me! I love that movie (Big Trouble in Little China)), yes, those flat silver parts stick out a bit annoyingly. In bright light, at the right angle, and if you squint, those pieces look like light bley. Sorta. My next experiment is to fit this cockpit ball and pylons onto the 75095 UCS TIE Fighter panels.

I couldn't wait for those two printed dish parts and ended up buying a 75095 from a local LEGO store this afternoon. TIE Interceptor Front by SPARKART!, on Flickr. Here's the album with more pics.

I snagged the first available offerings on Bricklink for this part, and this part, These are the only parts I need to truly call this TIE Interceptor model complete, or as I like to say, "plateaued". Many LEGO MOCs evolve as you learn new tricks or new pieces are introduced, so they're never really "done", but have just reached a plateau of completion, a point at which they typically stay for a while, know what I mean? If you are around the Los Angeles area on May 16th-17th, you can see this model on display at BricksLA in the vendor room (but not for sale). When I get the printed dish parts, I'll try to take and publish more pictures of the completed model on Flickr.

Thanks for the kind words. I can't say I enjoyed making BB-8; I had to use tweezers during assembly. I'm a bit disappointed that he's not very sturdy, either. At least he doesn't show a lot of studs. I like it when people unfamiliar with LEGO see a model of mine and say, "That's LEGO? Where's all the bumps?"

Keep Them Doggies Rollin' by SPARKART!, on Flickr.

I think the new movies will definitely look amazing (like the prequels), just hoping they'll have amazing characters and writing, and be entertaining on the whole. With the Disney branding, Star Wars seems to definitely be aimed more towards kids. Let's just hope they don't forget that adults like to be entertained with Star Wars tales, too. I'm wondering how LEGO is going to put together a BB-8. This model relies on some tenuous single-stud construction to hold assemblies together. I don't think it'll fall apart just by looking at it (if it's even buildable, at all), but it's not a play-thing, more a display-thing, a scale-ish model, a 16+, if you know what I mean. You don't have to have the manual dexterity of a typical 16-year-old to put this model together, but it won't stand up to heavy handed play. I'm guessing that a buildable LEGO version will be more blocky and sturdy, with more fidelity to detail. I've got a philosophy about LEGO models that they can merely suggest detail, and don't have to be spot-on to be recognizable and appreciated. That philosophy is also called "laziness". Ha-ha!

Thanks for the insight and info!

When I saw BB-8 was a real, rolling, practical prop robot onstage at Star Wars Celebration VII, I was blown away! One of the most impressive things I saw at the convention, for sure. The experience inspired me to start working on this: LEGO BB-8 WIP by SPARKART!, on Flickr. Just a static model, nothing moves, no play features. I don't think the head can rotate either, but I won't be able to tell if it'll work at all, 'til I get some real bricks and piece it together.

This is still a bit of WIP. I can't say that my LEGO model are ever really done, as long as LEGO still makes new and interesting pieces. On this model, I'm replacing a couple of the round bricks with the new round bricks that have a pin-hole to suggest additional detail that appears on the reel [sic] Millennium Falcon. I'll post up some disassembly pics later (probably after Star Wars Celebration VII is done). Not too hard of a model to Bricklink, either, nothing really exotic used on it. I think it looks a little better with different shades of grey and bley, old and new gray, to suggest the paneling detail. LEGO Mini Meta Millennium Falcon by SPARKART!, on Flickr. LEGO Mini Meta Millennium Falcon by SPARKART!, on Flickr. I'll post a parts breakdown and assembly of this eventually... I know it's going to be really difficult, super-hard to do, but I'm going to try to modify this to look like the Episode VII Falcon, too.

The UCS TIE fighter seems to be an amalgamation of the animated TIE Fighter in Star Wars Rebels and the classic TIE seen in the movies. The ball and pylons of the LEGO UCS TIE look blended together, similar to the ball and conical shaped pylons of the animated TIE fighter. The proportions of the panels are of the cinema-screen TIE, though. In any case, I'm looking forward to getting that TIE canopy glass dish and the top hatch dish. The variants of TIE fighters that the AFOL community has in store will be amazing, I bet.

What's the community's and forum owner's opinion on using ad-supported file-sharing sites like adf.ly, depositfiles, and uploaded.net to share LDD LXF files? My thinking is that they are generally frowned upon, for being a type of spam advertising? I've got an LDD LXF file for this model, LEGO TIE Interceptor by SPARKART!, on Flickr. I'm willing to share it, but only if there is the possibility of a little compensation for it. That may sound petty to some, but being out-of-work for over a year (like I have) puts a new perspective on the worth and value of things I have that could turn into lunch money. So, are ad-supported file-sharing links good, bad (and/or banned), or ugly?

Cool, thanks for the tip. As a kid, I never applied stickers to anything, knowing that with play, they'd start to peel. Even today, i rarely apply stickers, and when I do, I use tweezers. I will definitely use the info here, thanks for sharing it.

Paddy, yes, I plan to use two printed/decorated dish pieces from the new UCS TIE, the top hatch, and the cockpit window on this model. On the bottom, there's already a printed/decorated dish, a 6x6 Sith Infiltrator dish. The two red lines on this piece add a dash of color (albeit hard to see) and look like some kind of special hash mark, or special squadron ID to me. Paulie, LDD is an acronym for Lego Digital Designer, LEGO's own (free) CAD program. I know what you mean about difficult to build sets. I'd rate this model of the Interceptor on the difficult side. If you make a mistake while building (which I did many times), to take some things apart is a difficult, because there's a lot of plate-on-plate construction and/or many studs holding pieces together, so when you finally get enough force to pull things apart, it's sometimes explosive force that sends LEGO pieces flying across the room.

LEGO TIE Interceptor by SPARKART!, on Flickr. If you're near Carlsbad, California this weekend (2015-03-07), this model will be on display in Legoland's Star Wars Days Fan Gallery. Even with the little mini-fig, it's hard to get a sense of size of this thing in still photos. When Olav pulled out the UCS TIE in the LEGO Designer Video, I was immediately wowed by the size of it in relation to him and his partner in the video. Similarly with this, when I see photos of it, they don't convey the size of it real life. When I was putting it together in real brick, I knew it would be large, but still, seeing it all together...I like it!

Tie me up! Tie me down! by SPARKART!, on Flickr. The donut-like pieces are not light bley. LEGO calls the color Silver Metallic (315), Bricklink calls it Flat Silver. In bright light, that shape in that color looks close enough to light bley for me, but in subdued lighting, looks out-of-place on the model to my eyes. Can't find those pieces in light bley, so it's easy to make a decision, when you don't have a choice, and Flat Silver it is. The torque from the hanging panels is supported by the sides of many studs, so it's not just a clutch or friction connection that holds up the wings, it is a mechanical connection. I've tried a couple of different solutions to stand-in for the cockpit window, until I can get that piece from the UCS TIE, and they all look terrible. Any suggestions? Just wait for the UCS TIE? Ok.

Nice looking display! Pictures don't do justice to seeing the physical objects with your own eyes. Sometimes shape can affect the perception of some colors in LEGO, too. For example, What color is this dress? by SPARKART!, on Flickr. The curved piece is flat silver. In bright light, it appears to be close to light bluish grey, but in shadow, it looks like dark bluish grey. My guess is that there's some kinda multiplicative specular effect with metallic colors and curves - the more light there is, the much more light is bounced back, and the lighter the color appears.