ZeldaTheSwordsman

I know, you've said as much already. I was just thinking that dyeing white ones would be a way to have the detail sculpted rather than just printed.

This is quite definitely a remake of King Leo's Castle, but while there are some improvements in design in some areas, it ends up coming up short due to things it lost. The stickers aren't one, though. People need to quit whining about those, they really do. If you look at LEGO as a whole, the idea of everything being tampographed was nothing but a brief fad that we were spoiled with in the 90s. And frankly, modern stickers have an edge over tampographs because human skin oil doesn't rub them away and they've got a sort of plastic coating that makes them less susceptible to damage than old stickers were. Going back to the castle comparison: where this one has rather dinky catapults, King Leo's had proper shovel-scoop ones that could fling larger pieces or multiple 1x1 cylinders at a time. It was open-backed too, but whatcha gonna do? Most LEGO buildings outside of Creator have been, for purposes of play access. As far as mini-figures go, the Knight's Kingdom 1 characters trump this lot tremendously. They've got lovely torso armor printing where this lot have bland breastplates (and do nothing to make them look good, unlike some older castle sets), they're actual unique characters for the most part too with some lovely faceprints (King Leo himself looks like Sean Connery!) and there's a complete royal family (King Leo, Queen Leonora, and their daughter Princess Storm - who is the sort to prefer battle armor to a dress and joins the battle alongside her father). There's more battle-action features too, such as a spinning watchtower, as well as a wall that while a bit weak to the included spring-loaded cannon will in exchange drop a treasure chest on the head of the unlucky sod who fired the shot. There's also a nice throne room where during less stressful times Leo and Leonora can get some ruling done, and which has a secret passage behind a revolving stained-glass window for quick exits. As far as a "Legend" goes, LEGO should have gone for the true Legends style and just reissued the old product; this new castle clearly has minor gains in some areas, but the major losses in others make it come up rather short.

The image links are all nonfunctional; all that's showing up is that "Posted Image" placeholder.

Ah, okay. Thanks. I really like the use of "Classic whip"/dangling-vine pieces as brake pipes, it's very clever. As far as the cab windows go... The pieces that would do the job more properly might not exist in green, but they are available in white; that means it would be possible to dye them green using RIT dye with acetone added.

Though I am a train fan, I don't have much in the way of LEGO trains; most of my sets are Star Wars or Bionicle, most of my personal builds are to Star Wars instructions with some tweaks, and I don't currently have many MOCs. Here's what I've got for trains: 4561 Railway Express (First LEGO train set) 4708 Hogwarts Express 4534 LEGO Express The Hogwarts Express is not likely to get reassembled any time soon; while I enjoy it, it and the rest of the Harry Potter sets in the collection are currently being used for parts (some in builds, some loose in bins), so... The other two, however, are almost completely reassembled and I plan on doing reviews of them for the site. I love the futuristic look of the Railway Express, and it's simply delightful for play purposes. As a steam fan I rather like the LEGO Express as well. I wish I had some of the My Own Trains Pullman coaches to expand the train with, but alas.

Rubbing alcohol and Goo Gone are also good for cleaning model train rails. You might also want to check out PECO's Track Magic cleaner.

Oh, that is an absolutely gorgeous build. I'd love to see it next to the Emerald Night (which to me looks like a Peppercorn loco in BR Brunswick Green) some day. You've done a very splendid job. But why, oh why, oh why do you think the Flying Scotsman's smoke deflectors look good? The pair fitted to that loco ruin the look of the front - they're hideous slapped-on things! You haven't even built it with the Kylchap double-chimney that made them necessary! From what I've seen, the canteen tender was used fairly often in the UK, at least during the period the engine was owned by Alan Peggler after he rescued it from scrap. Said tender was his idea, and was converted from an existing coal tender. It has since been retired, as Flying Scotsman resides at the National Railway Museum in York rather than perpetually roaming the rails, and thus no longer has to be dealing with the lack of track pans and water cranes (in the end days of British main line steam, watering points between yards were removed at a rapid rate).

These both look very gorgeous, and I can't wait to see the cattle van when it's built. I'd also love to see the tanker added to this thread! Do you have any plans to build a tank engine for your layout, like say an E2? :3 That'd be neat to see. Of course you'd have to either battery-power it or kitbash a 9v motor bogie if you wanted it to have proper steamer wheels.. (I so wish LEGO had made steamer wheels for that bogie... Le sigh.)

Now that's thinking like a modeller XD. It's the perfect solution for this, looks loads better. If I ever get Emerald Night I'm doing the same thing, provided I don't just convert her to 9-volt (Yay for having two different 9v motor bogies thanks to owning both the LEGO Express and the Railway Express, plus a bunch of track) and thus have to slap bricks together to put the coal on.

Well, that MS Paint tutorial isn't very useful currently. It relied on instructional images... which are now replaced by Imageshack's placeholder.

Thank you.

Well, I don't know about children, but I do know about me. Han was one of the things that attracted me to buy this set instead of depositing the money and looking for a good eBay deal on 6207 or 7134. Mind you, I stuck his head and hands in a crate to use the body as a change of clothes for my Sarlaac Han from 2000 because I prefer the original face design (and my first fleshie Han from 4504 disappeared eight years ago), but having an actual Falcon Han complete with one of the blaster pistols was definitely a factor in my picking this set over its predecessors.

Stickers Across Multiple Parts. Which, when it happens, means that unless you cut the stickers at the brick seams with a sharp-bladed hobby knife, you can't separate the affected bricks without ripping the sticker. It doesn't happen much nowadays, but there were a lot of sets in the First Age of Stickers that were guilty of it.

So, this Wednesday I got some cash by selling some of my old textbooks. After class, I went down to Target and bought myself this set. And I decided to do a review. The third separate-sale LEGO A-Wing (And the fourth official LEGO A-Wing all told) comes in the standard 2013 Star Wars box, with the Yoda packaging frame. The front shows the A-Wing streaking through space near the Forest Moon of Endor, flick-fire missiles launching, explosions all around. Standard for this theme, but not too shabby. In the case of this set, the 1:1 images of the minifigs that I think of (and treat) as cut-out collectible cards are on the top of the box. Han Solo in his full Return of the Jedi garb (as denoted by the brown pants), Admiral Gial Ackbar, and -though the package simply calls him "A-Wing Pilot"- Arvel Crynyd, who flew as Green Leader during the Battle of Endor. Crynyd is the one here who's completely new; Ackbar has previously appeared in 7754 Home One, and Han previously appeared in this form in the big Battle of Endor set, and has appeared in other forms in many others. However, while there have been A-Wing pilot figures in the past, they've all represented Tycho Celchu. This time, we get Arvel Crynyd. The man who managed to steer his doomed A-Wing into the bridge of the Executor. The back of the box shows some alternate action shots as well as views of the fighter from different angles and a detail map of the features. I love the background of the one pic, which shows a Mon Cal cruiser shooting the crap out of the second Death Star. Here are the minifigures in person, and they look good. Each has an accessory. Han has one of the small blaster pistols, which is a very good match for his DL44. Admiral Ackbar has a clear mug, as he did in 7754. Arvel Crynyd has a large wrench, which in the previous separate-sale A-Wing sets was the accessory of the included mechanic. But, well, no mechanic in this set. Which is kind of a pity. Also a pity is that there's no blaster for Arvel. One last note: Han's torso print, while overall good, demonstrates yet again that printing light flesh on black plastic isn't working and LEGO needs to fix how they do it or stop. This is the front of the manual. As is expected, it duplicates the box photo with a bit of cropping to remove clutter. This is the back of the manual. It is the WIN kid, the same one we've been seeing for a while now. And it's the kind of thing that gets old. I miss the LEGO Maniac. I wish they'd bring him back. The angle of the photo is intentional; there's something on the manual I was obscuring. Here is the inside of the manual. Decent, clear-cut, unambiguous coloring. Although amusingly, the light blay almost looks like old light gray. The parts come in three numbered polybags plus sub-bags within the numbered ones. Sometimes when I get that, I'll go in order. Other times, I'll dump 'em all out in a big pile. Like so. I also pre-stickered most of the parts that stickers go on. The canopy was the trickiest to deal with, I had to try a couple of times to get it just right - the stickers for frame aren't long enough to go entirely from the bottom of one side to the bottom of the other, so finding the right amount of space to leave was trial and error. Everything else is easy, but that part is something to watch out for. And it could have been avoided by making the damn stickers longer. Still, with everything out and ready... Time to build. Admiral Ackbar has good news for Arvel Crynyd: His fighter has been delivered. Also bad news... okay, not bad news, just annoying news: It had to be completely and totally dismantled. Luckily, the maintenance crew is here to help him reassemble it. Han Solo lounges nearby, watching. Arvel and the maintenance crew are working well, it's already starting to come together. The core structure here is standard starfighter stuff. Got most of the body together now, including the cockpit interior. The instrument panel's details are pretty much those of the original A-Wing set, but rather than a tampographed 2x2 roof brick, we've got a 2x1 cheese slope with a sticker on it. Arvel Crynyd's got the removable reactor core and its cover assembled, ready to be loaded into the fighter. This is similar to, but less detailed and sophisticated than, the removable engine core from the A-Wing included in 7754 Home One Mon Calamari Star Cruiser. And like with that one, it's something iffy that comes at the expense of the first two A-Wing sets' rear storage compartment. Although with this set there is at least some space you can bung stuff in back there. Nearly there. Now the focus is on assembling the cannons. They've got the slant that the movie A-Wings' guns were sometimes angled to. But.... They can't rotate. I would rather have them be able to rotate. I don't mind them being made with flick-fire missiles (although it would have been nice if the missile shafts had been cast in black here, or if the missiles had been separate things mounted on the ventral surface), but I do mind them not being able to rotate. And, they're done! Overall, the fighter is great looking. Unlike the X-Wing, the A-Wing is supposed to be white so the consistent use of it rather than the original set's gray is a plus. The stickers provide a nice level of detail, and there's nothing annoying like STAMP going on. Although unfortunately the front outer stickers are mirrored compared to what they should be: The red flash belongs on the port side. Whoops. Oh well. The set is a fun build and a good design, even if it does lose points for the static cannons and replacing the storage compartment with a lift-out engine core (And speaking of engines, it perpetuates the running flaw of using translucent neon green instead of translucent regular yellow or translucent orange for the drive glow pieces). The parts are all good. The new version of the half-cone canopy is lovely, as it means a dip to accommodate the hinge brick is no longer necessary. And the long curved 1-wide slopes help this set do the best job yet of capturing the A-Wing's "strawberry with rocket engines" look. So in conclusion? This is overall a well-designed set with some good figures, including that are especially nice to get when you missed them the first time around, and very much worth getting. And I suggest getting it while it can still be found on retailer shelves. It's already pricey at $24.99 US, and once it's off the shelves the price tag will likely turn downright ugly. And I mean Palpatine-level ugly.

Speaking of upcoming things, I should have a picture of my CIS army up soon. I need to finish painting Grievous' lightsaber hilts.

Sweet collection Pablo94. I'm especially digging Jango's Slave I and the Mos Espa Podrace. Well, here is my humble collection of TIE craft:

I like this. And this could totally have been an episode of the Droids cartoon.

It's because he used both expressions during the flight to Grievous' ship.

Look out! It's a Decepticon! Ahem. This is a very excellently made model, the kind that makes me look at my available parts and busted MicroScout and cry. You've done a bang-up job, making such a beautifully-detailed, minifig-scale, motorized excavator.

In my perusal of collections of Star Wars torso decals, I've seen Rebel decals of so many flavors, Imperial officer decals and stormtrooper decals, Jedi decals, clone trooper decals galore, Mandalorian decals, decals for alien species and for civvy torsos, even KOTOR, TOR, and TFU decals. But do you know what I haven't found even once? TIE Fighter pilot torso decals. For some reason, it seems that no-one has made them. Could someone please rectify this?

Not anymore. It was working earlier to day, but now I'm getting redirected to a placeholder ad site.

Well, it ought to have that old-style Star Wars set look; it's essentially a recolor of the original Slave I set from 2000. The windshield absolutely looks odd, it's something cobbled together to fill in for parts I don't have And thank you.

It's the head printing that's new on Anakin. As far as the ship design being an upgrade goes... The original version of his yellow interceptor did not have an astromech socket, nor did it come with a complete R2-D2. Those were things introduced to the LEGO Eta-2s in the 2012 Jedi Interceptor design, and it's nice to see an official release of the yellow one with them. We can only hope there will be a similar release of Obi-Wan's red interceptor.

So, I got 75015 Corporate Alliance Tank Droid for my birthday. Among other things, this meant that I now had Jango Fett amongst my minifigure collection. And I thought to myself: "Okay, he needs his ship." So I built it. View of opened cockpit: I decided to base it off of 7144 since I had most of the necessary pieces for that, though I did have to craft multi-part substitutes for a few things (Namely, the wings and the canopy). I did the best I could to follow the color scheme, though I was hindered on that front by not having certain wing plates in blue. I also made a couple of tweaks. First, I used binoculars and additional rod/wand pieces to give the main cannons a more accurate look (This is something that could have been done for the original 7144 set, and the lack of it is the one thing I can really fault that set for). I also added the smaller laser cannons near the cockpit, the ones Jango fires on Obi-Wan with in the dogfight over Geonosis. Overall, I'm happy with it. I'd still love to get the Episode II set some day, though.

Thank you! And colorful parts is how my non-set builds, be they MOC or built-to-official-instructions, tend to go :P