Raskolnikov

Now that's a bold claim! Btw I put a couple high res, typical-AFOL-looking pics (you know, with that professional white background) on flickr. Still learning this photography business... Available here: https://www.flickr.c.../raskolnikov268

Thanks, Outworlder! I love the Eclipse, as well. Those of us with giant Star Destroyers in our living rooms ought to form a club or something. Really though, pretty much everything you've built appeals to me. It's quite a portfolio at this point. Can you clarify? When the hatch is open, there's just a TIE pilot in there.

The reference material that I used most frequently was a Star Destroyer micromachine, like the one on the left in this pic: https://echostation5...09/img_5540.jpg I had a bunch of those micromachines as a kid, and I recently sold them all except a couple on ebay. It helped a lot with the exterior. (I also kept a similar Home One micromachine, you know, just in case). Apart from that, I'd mostly just look at Star Destroyer pics online, during my downtime. I didn't have a computer in the room that I most often used for building, so I wouldn't usually be referencing anything in particular. The only time I think I actually was walking back and forth between the building room and the computer was when I was greebling the front of the bridge. The placement of individual greebles there is intended to resemble one of the models of the ship from the films. I also used the 75055 as a reference, sometimes. The four notches along the sides of the Tyrant simply are based on where they are placed on the 75055. I'd also sometimes compare with the 75055 just as a way to check my work. For example, it surprised me how narrow the "neck" of the bridge seems to be in the movies. The Tyrant's is a bit too wide. But the neck on the 75055 is even wider, proportionally, and it looks fine. So I didn't worry about it.

Thanks! It's something I'd like to do but no concrete plans yet. I've never been to one and and I have trouble taking off work. Anyone wanna see some moving gun turrets?

Sure, go for it. Be sure to link to the imgur album and my flickr, thanks.

The feedback for the Tyrant has been absolutely overwhelming, so thanks again everyone. I love how many lurkers came out of the woodwork to comment as well. Also an update: I am working on taking some high res/high quality pictures and making some videos, and I plan to post them here once they're ready.

I've always thought that those two sets complement each other rather well. I have the 2011 Echo Base set and two 2014 AT-ATs, so I think the UCS set gives me everything I need to complete a relatively comprehensive Hoth scene. We've never gotten an Ion Cannon or Shield Generator before, and the last version of the blast doors came out nearly a decade ago, in 2007. I'd have skipped the Wampa cave and snowspeeder, since we just got one -- but then again, there are lots of complaints regarding the lack of an AT-AT. I bet the designer sometimes feels like there's no winning. If the set had included an AT-AT, I suspect that there would have been a lot of complaints about how that was unnecessary since we just got one a a year and a half ago, in fall 2014. Poor guy.

Thanks, that's a print from an artist called Mike Mitchell. His website, and a bigger image of the Mario print, is here: http://sirmikeofmitc...ndex.php?/2008/ You have to click "next" a few times, though. I actually had forgotten his name, since I got that a couple years ago, but one of the commenters on reddit recognized the Mario picture.

I think one wave could have easily have an impact on other waves, though. Ree-Yees is a complete nobody, and he helped move that Sail Barge set. He's worth like $10 now on Bricklink. If Lego came out with him in a CMF line, I just think it'd be leaving money on the table. You could straight up sell that figure for more than $4. And if he came out in a CMF line before the Sail Barge came out, then some people might not have been tipped over the edge to making that much larger purchase. Even if he hadn't come out before the Sail Barge, the very fact that people know that a character might come out in a later wave of CMF minifigures might negatively impact sales. Considering the way Star Wars fandom is and the way even obscure characters can be worth a decent amount, I just have a hard time imagining any line of Star Wars CMF figures that wouldn't hurt overall sales in the long term.

Regardless of licensing issues, I just think it'd be really hard to design any Star Wars CMF line in a way that would make business sense. Lego really relies on exclusive and updated minifigures to sell sets. The CMF line would have to have only the most obscure characters. I might buy that, but I'm not sure that kids or their parents would.

Thanks! It's really just guesswork, but I'm thinking between 20k and 25k. Thanks, I'm glad you took a closer look!

This strikes me as a pretty realistic possibility for a UCS set, considering how sturdy it looks on those stands. LEGO would probably still have to cut back on the details a little bit, though. Is there any chance of modifying it to fit even a few minifigures in the front section? I do love my minifigures.

Speaking of kama cloths, I added one to General Hux and really liked the results. I wasn't a huge fan of how they tried to do his overcoat with printing, but that fixed it, I think.

Ah shucks, makin' me blush. Yeah, my budget is pretty big -- no kids (obviously, looking at that table it's perched on) and I'm a lawyer, so my salary ain't bad. Sometimes it really cut down on my available free time, though. A few months ago I switched from a firm to the government, so I took a major pay cut but am no longer working like mad on weekends and holidays. The Tyrant probably would have been delayed another couple months otherwise. Still probably work 50 hours or so a week, though. I do plan to keep building minifigure-oriented stuff, but probably not quite as large. Towards the end of the Tyrant, I was really just wanting it to be done. I dumped tons of hours into some marathon sessions the last couple months especially. I haven't been getting enough exercise, not been not bothering to iron my dress shirts, etc. And yeah, if you missed it, I am working on a WIP diary that shows some of the building and design process here: http://imgur.com/a/obQGE

I learned a lot (or probably "relearned" -- since I must have learned it in school at some point) about how to calculate volume during this build. So that idea scares me. I was thinking that I might make an Imperial ship of more manageable size to go with this one, like an Interdictor or a Victory-class SD -- sort of apply some of the lessons I've learned, but also learn how to use LDD and make directions. I'd like to make a playable Rebel capital ship as well, but I don't have a lot of ideas on that front, yet. Those Mon Cal cruisers are just so curvy.

Thanks again for all the great comments. It's been a little overwhelming how well the Tyrant has been received. But I gotta admit that I really enjoyed showing it to a few people in real life by telling them to "just google Lego star destroyer and it'll come up," heh. I have gotten quite a few questions about that, so I collected a few WIP pictures in an imgur album with detailed descriptions explaining some of it (it may be pretty dry stuff, though). I'm still adding to it, but feel free to check it out: http://imgur.com/a/obQGE

Yeah, I read that in an article for the first time like last month, dunno how I missed it. I think you said you bought like six of the Venator sets when they were out, and I scrapped at least six 75055s during the early parts of this build. I agree that they generators a bit small, and I tried a bigger variant using quarter sphere (edit: I guess they're eighth spheres, now that I think about it) pieces, but it just didn't look as good. Also, the movie ISD is somewhat bulkier than people realize. Jerac, in particular, "sleek-ified" his build a little bit, I think, with a lower profile on the superstructure, bridge, and generators. And it looks quite good, that way -- slightly more aerodynamic than the ship looks in the movies. I mean really, look at this shot here: https://www.flickr.c...N03/15514972332 That's a big ole office building flying through space, there.

It took a little over a year. No LDD or plans, since I didn't really know much about MOCing when I started it. My first idea was just to buy two 75055 sets and sort of mash them together to get a bigger star destroyer, and it evolved from there. I am not very good with my camera heh. I probably took more pictures in the last two days than I did in the last two years, and you're seeing the best of the bunch. Photography is something that I plan to learn about. I must have missed that, that's amazing. Trust me when I say that I've thought about that quite a bit. So yeah, there is this fairly official source that lists two cylinder version of that rank badge as a commander, the one code cylinder version as a captain, and implies that the captain is senior. It is true that in the movies we always see captains with one cylinder. But I really don't know where they got the "commander" rank from at all -- at least not a naval "commander" rank that we should understand to be a rank below captain. In every situation in the movies, more code cylinders seems to mean more senior. Tarkin has four -- he can barely fit all those code cylinders in his pockets! And the only scene I know of where you have a two cylinder and one cylinder "captain" badge in the same room, the two cylinder is senior. That's Jerjerrod when the Emperor arrives. He has two, and the other Imperials have one. And although Jerjerrod is addressed as "commander," it's not being used as a term of art or a sub-captain naval rank, since he's clearly the senior-most officer there (and a Moff in canon). ROTJ pretty much ruined rank badges, of course, but I'm pretty sure the two-cylinder commander idea originated from ROTJ as well. So I disregarded the fairly official source and went with my interpretation of the movies: Lego gives us just two kinds of generic officers, the one-cylinder and the two-cylinder, and I'd think the two-cylinder should be senior as between them. There you go. More than you cared to hear about rank badges, I'm sure :) it definitely is not. I sort of was hoping that it would be, and a long time ago my estimate was 30 lbs. Wasn't to be. If I have to move it, I remove all the removable sections to lower the weight. But that still leaves me with about 40 lbs of creaking underside panels and technic frame.

Thanks! Yep, here you go: http://imgur.com/D2igjtw It's not one of my favorite parts of the ship, to be honest -- been thinking about adding more computers or doors or something (right now prisoners are secured by force fields, presumably). I do like the floor, though (I tried black grilles, too, but the dbg looks better when it's actually in the ship -- too dark to see anything otherwise). This picture also show some of the semi-modular construction of certain interior sections. The floors of each of the square rooms on Level 1 (including the canteen and barracks) can be removed so that I can work on them. The walls stay in place and are partly structural, but nothing actually is attached to the walls in those rooms. I have thought about it and might do it at some point just to see how it looks. There actually were more studded parts of the ship until just like two weeks ago, when I declared war on studs on the engine panels and also tiled over some additional portions on the top of the ship (that thingy in the middle of the top of the ship, about a third of a shiplength from the front, for example). But alternating between studs and tiles for texture was one of the very first ideas I had for the ship, so I decided to just stick with it for some sections. I figured that leaving a few studs would go with the "supposed to look good but also is intended to be a toy" style -- but I dunno. I haven't had any regrets so far about the studded sections that I did tile over. Also, the turbolaser turret panels are fairly thin, and they might be too flimsy if I used tiles. It would require a significant redesign, at least, to tile them -- maybe have to raise them up one plate or something, but I'm not sure how that would look. Thanks. True story: during the building process I sometimes described the style as "no compromises" in my own mind. Gotta have it all, you see. Also, I really appreciate the praise from accomplished builders like yourself -- maybe the Tyrant and the Redemption can do battle someday.

Thanks to everyone for the great comments and the Eurobricks front page. I will be answering questions and posting more -- but I really have to get some work done today at my job or I'm going to get in trouble, heh. But I do plan to go back through and answer everyone when I have time, so feel free to ask away.

Picked up that idea in the updating your minifigures thread, actually, so credit to Eurobricks users on that one.

Hey, so I finished my Star Destroyer MOC, the ISD Tyrant, a 56-inch Star Destroyer with a full interior. Full Imgur album with detailed descriptions of each image is here: https://imgur.com/gallery/snxk3 Or, check it out on Flickr: selected pics are below, and there are more on my Flicker photostream (I know "selected" is still a lot in this case, but there's a lot to show!) Thanks to ISD Avenger for some inspiration and the naming convention. **EDIT May 6, 2016** So you don't have to read all the comments, I'll try to add additional content here. So there's now a brief video of the gun turrets: https://www.flickr.c...eposted-public/ Also, I'm working on a WIP diary that has early pics and explanations from the build process, here: http://imgur.com/a/obQGE And thanks again for all the wonderful feedback. My LEGO Imperial Star Destroyer: the ISD Tyrant by raskolnikov268, on Flickr ISD Tyrant: Bow by raskolnikov268, on Flickr ISD Tyrant: Engine Detail by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Tyrant: Underside 2 by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Tyrant: Bridge by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Play Mode by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Behind the Scenes by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Level 3: Conference Room by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Level 3: Sith Meditation Chamber by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Eno Rathis by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Untitled by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Removable Sections by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Level 2: Walkway by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Level 2: Ship Operations by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Level 2: Overview by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Level 1: Canteen by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Level 1: Barracks by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Level 1: Cargo Hold and Detention Center by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Level 1: Hangar Bays by raskolnikov268, on Flickr TIE Interceptors: Closeup by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Sentinel Class Shuttle: Close-up by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Main Hangar by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Now meet the crew (much more detail on Imgur and Flickr -- I'd try to add it here, but I'm kind of tired of posting things...): Meet the Crew: Senior Command by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Meet the Crew: Mid-level Command by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Meet the Crew: Specialist Enlisted by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Meet the Crew: Basic Enlisted by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Bonus Pic 1: Tyrant Overtakes the Milano by raskolnikov268, on Flickr Thanks for looking! Imgur albums and Flickr have about 20 more pics, which show more detail on how things come apart and have lots of wordy descriptions.

Yeah, I don't quite understand that either. I also think the 8017 is a pretty outdated looking set. Anyway, I was looking at the Ep. IV version the other day and was surprised at how compact it is. It's much, much shorter than the regular TIEs. So -- without taking screenshots and calculating exact angles and proportions -- the new version looks rather good to me. Unfortunately, I've already built a fleet of TIEs using the "hinged border design," so I may have to mod this one to match. But the hinged border is difficult to build in a sturdy fashion when a TIE has angled wings, so I understand why LEGO went in this direction. I wouldn't be surprised to see new versions of the Interceptor and Bomber be released using a similar style over the next couple years. I love your posts Fuppylodders, but sometimes I fear for your blood pressure.

I can relate to that feeling pretty well. I went through it a few times with a life-consuming MOC of my own that that I'll be sharing here in a couple days. It's a 1.5 meter Star Destroyer with an interior, so it is very heavy (30+ kg). To support all the weight, it has a ridiculously robust technic frame. I lost full days of work, more than once, fixing that frame. Sometimes it's hard to tell if something is lining up correctly until you've gone pretty far with the build. "Is that right? I can't tell, the unfinished parts of the frame might be temporarily causing sagging. When I finish more of the frame and attach everything in a sturdy fashion, it'll disappear... Nope, I literally built a Star Destroyer frame with gently curving sides." I became a lot more careful after that. Anyway, I like your engine mod. I'm just doing some final touch ups on my MOC, and as a matter of fact, I just was working on engine greebling yesterday. So the shape is very familiar to me, and you've captured the recognizable bits pretty well. Are you going to mod the rest of the ISD at some point? That's one UCS kit that can benefit a lot from mods, I think. Not sure, but I have no doubt that it's possible. It's sort of hard to explain, but I do not use magnets on my MOC -- the top and panels just slide into place on tiled "rails" that extend for part of the length of the sides of the ship. They basically trace the outer "V" shape. There is no hope whatsoever for directions, but hopefully I'll get all my picture taking done in the next few days.

Fantastic work!. The previous version was among my favorite Star Wars MOCs, and this certainly tops it. I also enjoyed reading the explanations that go along with the images -- you're a pretty good writer. I can't wait for the directions to be available. Do you know the final dimensions of the model? Like height, weight, and approximate number of bricks? Relatedly, do you have an estimate of the dimensions of the actual, albeit fictional, ship? A lot of the "official" dimensions for Star Wars ships seem to based on little more than some sci fi writer winging it.