alanyuppie

Its a non-issue to me as well. I would love my signature to be in all my MOCs .. but getting my fingerprints there is not bad too. :)

Perhaps they will revisit the goat again aftey they chickened out.

Shall I say I've yet to reach greater heights in my LEGO building.

In my youth, LEGO catalogues (1989-1996) and Archie's double digest were my favorite toilet reads. Due to their fragility + harsh treatment , many ended up mildly mangled and when my nephews were born... these catalogues were passed on to them and most probably are now torn beyond repair. I still keep my Archie's double digests in case I need to take a dump in my parents house again .

Yes we all know doing stuff standing up is good for well being.. But I can't see myself building LEGO in such a way. However... during my MOCing sessions (usually sitting on the sofa in the living hall/room), I deliberately keep some trays of specialized odd and ends parts 20 feet away in another room. This forced me to stand up and fetch them as my need arises . So in a typical 1 hour buildng session, I actually might have clocked about 500 feet of solid walking distance. heheh.

Future Flymech was made from parts from set 31034, and transforms from a jet plane to a mech without taking off parts. There are variety of hinges (frictioned and non-friction) and balljoints from this set, allowed me to pull this through with a mech with excellent articulations. (although the back kibbles does hinder the posability due to impaired stability ) Set 31034 is my first 2015 set I acquire this year. I quickly zip through building the 3 official modes last Friday and Saturday, then dismantle it and start building this guy. In less than 2 days I'm 99% done! One thing that I'm proud of is that I managed to streamline the orange parts underneath the wings.There are just a few orange parts from this set to utilize so placing them in the right place is challenging. The connection as shown by the red arrow is the mech's achilles' heel , easily pops out when transforming him. And the strongest hinges are used in the folding of the nosecone. The above shows how 2 cylinder shaped component are folded down to pad up the formed shoulders ,preventing them from sagging when the mech is upright later on. Check out more photos in my blog entry below: Alanyuppie's LEGO Transformers: LEGO 31034 Future Flyer Alternate mode: Future Flymech with instructions And of course... the building instructions in PDF format: https://www.dropbox.com/s/bccfhn4bxwvr4rm/futurefly-instruction.pdf?dl=0 OR a zipped version below, if you guys are uncomfortable downloading a pdf file =) https://www.dropbox.com/s/zm4afhskilk9q4z/futurefly-instruction.zip?dl=0 I'm currently very impressed with set 31034's parts selection. I think I just *might* churn something else out from it by building a mech that transform into something else (maybe a land vehicle or even a 4-legged mecha-beast). Will keep you guys updated!

MOCs price are not merely from the (cost per hour x hours spent in building it) + average parts cost. The culminated years from horning the building skill/techniques must be factored in too.

The assumption that MOCing as being viable only with adequate /required bricks is very wrong. LEGO parts are so flexible you just can make do with whatever you bought ... half the fun is solving the building challenge , not hoping for a particular part in a particular color to be readily available.

LOL. I just googled "Little Nellie" and actually like what I saw ! Anyway.. I was planning to make this MOC a civilian helicopter (not weaponized) but I got carried away afterwards with the cannons at the side.

I would say the blue car jack is my favorite accessory. Owned one from a <insert that tiresome argument> workshop set from the mid 90's, now I noticed it doesn't age so well, the hinged part seemed to discolor in a uneven manner and I fear it might snap into 2 anytime.

When I started this project, I plan to recreate an obscure diaclone triple changer* that was abandoned last minute by Hasbro as a official character in their G1 Transformers cartoon series back in the 80s. I used yellow parts to prototype it because it's been a while since I build something using this color. *try google "diaclone triple changer" to see which toy I am referring to =) After a while, I came to a realisation that difficult compromises must be made to ensure both vehicle modes (jet plane and helicopter) looks good. But the good thing is, my prototyping yielded something else.... instead of a jet, it looks potentially viable as a decent speedboat. So , there! TRIVIA: - I actually contemplating changing the color scheme to blue or white when this project almost reaches 90% completion, but changed my mind coz I had been building alot of blue LEGO creations lately (and I'm reserving white parts for another upcoming triple changer project) - One of the most trivial thing I spent many,many hours on was making a weapon for this guy that can be integrated in both the vehicle modes. - The retractable tyres on the back of the helicopter are quite weak. If I don't position them at the right angle (85 - 95 degrees), they fall down flat ,unable to hold the weight of the helicopter. - 5 mini balljoints (introduced in LEGO LEGO Mixels) were used in this built... including one applied to the robot neck making it more articulated that ever. - I initially used a pair of dark gray rudders for the speedboat mode, but I snapped broken the c-clip of one of the part and I don't have a replacement part. Ended up using black rudders instead. :| ^ the rifle is meant for the robot mode, now integrated into the vehicle as a non-weapon component ^ The cockpit can fit one minifig snugly. TRANSFORMATION HIGHLITES (to speedboat) ^ tailfin split into half to become pontoons. ^ the dark gray stud on the side of the tailfin are connected to secure the poontoons formation. TRANSFORMATION HIGHLITES (to robot) ^ As the nosecone unfolded, you can see how the minifig pilot is connected , via his feet to the light gray bracket part. ^ The yellow c-clip helps to secure the folded-up tailfin halves with a gap/hole to accomodate such c-clip. Without such mechanism.. they will be left dangling and disrupt the poseability of the legs. ^ Pilot ended up at the back of the robot mode after transformation complete, but his presence there prevents the waist from being rotated. ^ Thanks to the mini balljoints implemented on the shoulder, this guy can perform some serious kung fu stance. :) ... and not to mention, ability to hold the weapons with both hands. My favorite photo of all from the whole lot. To view more photos including detailed transformation sequence, do visit my blog entries below : helicopter and speedboat mode: Alanyuppie's LEGO Transformers: LEGO Triple Changer Stormracer Part 1 of 2: Vehicle Modes robot mode: Alanyuppie's LEGO Transformers: LEGO Triple Changer Stormracer Part 2 of 2: Robot Mode Hope you enjoy my works. thanks guys! This year will be my "year of the (LEGO) Transformers Combiner" as well, so I'll focus on that more.

Kreo's aren't particularly inspiring to me since each alternate modes require disasembly of parts. I would love to make use of their premoulded robot heads though, but I couldn't get over the lego purist in me. It's still pretty fun to build my own robot head using a dozen parts or so :)

If you meant transform without parts removal, yep. Thats the fun in building bots like these... and one MOC like this took me sometimes over a month to complete.

Back in 2009 , I made LEGO Springer* (v1.00) and kept it displayed on my shelf till now. Recently I took some of my best LEGO Transformers creations to be exhibited in a local LEGO event, and cloned them to show all their modes . *Springer is a character from Transformers G1 cartoon series with the ability to convert into 2 alternate modes. I hastily spent 2 days to retool my LEGO Springer to be more stable (scaring minor tremors made from excited kids on the display table might topple my exhibits). I end up redesigning 50% of him from the waist down, making use of the stronger balljoint parts LEGO offered from recent years. I took the chance to improve his land vehicle mode to be sleeker too. So LEGO Springer v1.5 is finally born! The exhibition ended more than 3 weeks ago. Only recently I managed to sit down and find time to snap photos of him to be published online. Like most of my LEGO TF creations, Springer transforms between modes without the need to remove parts, and he is bestowed with fair amount of articulations too. For more photos, visit my blog entry below: Alanyuppie's LEGO Transformers: LEGO Springer v1.5 (updated with building instructions!) While I'm at it... I am in the mood to share the building instructions with you guys (link below) https://www.dropbox.com/s/m4ud2vzq9irl9pp/springer-instructions.pdf?dl=0 ps: I noticed the current upper body of this guy looks kinda dated . I might revisit this creation again and improve his upper body if time permits in the future (as a filler project coz 2015 will be my "year of the Transformers Combiner (MOC)" )

Alpha Team comes to mind.

Creators offered me the best bang for my bucks so it remained on my top preferred theme. Chima and Ninjago are fighting for my 2nd place and recently Mixels are hot on the 3rd place in my private leaderboard. Tides will turn depending on which theme offer most (ball)joints and hinges for my MOCing need.

I believe these days the most important key competencies no longer lies in the engineering/freshness of in house themes *cough*repeated City fire/polis/hospital*cough*cough* of lego products. The ball is now more towards the business development and marketing to foresee potentially good prospects in securinf licensing to make products that can attract non-AFOLs to splurge and complete them.

As a programmer, I coded my own inventory system (a local JAVA web app) to help me store my parts needed for MOCs and parts fulfilled by bricklink so that I can easily calculate the parts list if I where to build n number of them. For eg. ( 3 x LEGO Optimus Prime ) - bricklink-seller-A - bricklink-seller-B = parts not yet fulfilled/ordered The interface of my app looks clunky but it saved me hours from coordinating multiple bricklink shop ordering sessions.

nope. I am not scentimental at all. but I got other prerequisite: I must have some form of noise (may it be from the radio or TV) while building LEGO. Complete solidarity doesn't make my brain work so well.

Initial observation: looks like a fuzzy looking hinge. I think its a part 30383 + 44302 http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/30383 http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/44302 I hope its just airbrushing gone overboard .

To me, prolonged MOCing sometimes causes burnout in me as well. A project must never drag for too long (say, over 2 months). There are always stuff to improve upon for a work-in-progress and and would prevent myself from overbuilding . As a remedy, I usually allow myself a timeout of few days to a week and revisit my halfway done creation and view it from a fresh perspective .

I MOC in front of the TV while watching the news and whatever's shown after work at night. On average an hour daily and few hours on weekend or so. Sometimes I totally give myself a timeout of few days off lego bricks to rethink what I'm doing too. When building LEGO Transformers I occasionally gotten myself into a deadlock due to my work-in-progress getting unsatisfactory or failed my structural integrity test (for eg, some poses made the MOC toppled over. duh).... hence causing a whole week's effort gone down the drain to redesign them in abother way. But it's all in good fun. I found out that I don't like to stress myself with time limit or MOCing competition because I think the outcome of my build will not be good.

Looks pretty well done! It's simply amazing how you managed to improve it tremendously from adding extra sets (this itself is also quite a challenge). You just gotta publish the instructions for others to follow.

Creator NEVER dissapoints. look at those juicy parts. The rounded slopes in various colors.. the brackets to make the sides smooth and SNOTty. Its a goldmine for my MOCing needs.

Been my companion for many many month before I pestered my parents for more sets!