anothergol

Well, the Sandcrawler (which was certainly nice) & Invisible hand suffered from the same oversize problem as the AT-AT, and I can understand why Lego wouldn't bother trying to sell packs of the 100 same minifigures (& that's not even an "idea", nor a concept IMHO). Yeah the hilts, they could have done that, I imagine. There isn't much that's worth it, SW-related. The UCS Landspeeder is great & on its way to gather 10k. I can imagine it passing, but it seems to be high in the piece count again. The probe droid probably won't be voted, but it's nice, and something Lego never did (I think?) The Venator thing, looks great, but too gigantic again, and maybe not iconic enough. The posable AT-ST, would be a shame if it didn't happen, because Lego never made a good version of it. And I plan to put my own on Lego ideas as well, when it's finished. (damn, I just saw that the good-looking DeLorean had gathered 10k as well)

cute reminds of me the 6040 set which I owned 30 years ago.

I was gonna write exactly that :) Totally in the MASK spirit. When I was a kid & playing Lego, MASK was still around, and tweakable vehicles (transformers as well) was all we were doing.

Question is, is Lego Ideas really about the ideas, or the models? I see people voting more for ideas, which is sad because it lead to ugly things like the BTTF DeLorean. I'm all for the IDEA of a BTTF DeLorean, but I didn't buy it because there are much (much!) better other MOCS out there. Worse, after it passed on Lego Ideas, Lego didn't improve it, it made it even worse. What's SW-based that hasn't passed on Lego Ideas btw? Sure, the AT-AT, but I can think of many other reasons for Lego not to produce it. It would have been Lego's largest release (I think?), that alone makes you think twice. Could also be a matter of children safety issues (a 8kg toy on legs). I'd have bought it, though. People now seem to be voting for things that are hardly more than minifig packs (why not..). But I wish there were more like the exo-suit. That was NOT an idea. Had it been a crap robot made by a child, no one would have voted, no one would have bought. The model alone sold itself. (and yes, Lego messed with it a lot, but this time they improved it, and it's also understandable that a model full of retired pieces and illegal techniques can't pass untouched) I find it interesting how it's licenses that Lego didn't have, that pass. At first, I thought the total opposite would happen. Not only I was surprised that Lego wasn't scared by copyright infrigement when "ideas" based on licenses kept stacking, I was assuming that Lego would never bother acquiring licenses for them (I mean, that's heavy work too), and that things based on what Lego already owned, would have more chances.

It's actually not too "wrong" to me, it's just different. In fact, the reason it's usually the object that rotates (in the real world), is that it's easier to rotate the object that the camera around it, BUT there are rolling camera gadgets to do just that too, not counting that in movies it's also the camera that's on rails (but here it's also because it's easier to move the camera than the whole scene). Both look good IMHO (especially since the light is good from all angles, otherwise moving the camera would have sucked), is it optional or fixed to object rotation now?

perfect! I'm sure this will change the way (LDD) MOCs are shared online. It's worth a thousand (well, 30) pics :)

the Cheshire cat in American mcGee's Alice :)

I'm still missing some parts in the right colors & the pilots, but I have it in a near-finished state now. It's hell to pose :( I can definitely stand up by its own, but it's lot of things to articulate, and it was scary to leave it the 2 min to take the pictures. I'm probably gonna have to build a display stand for it.

A twist on castles? I can think of 2 licenses that would be a dream & make great castles, namely GoT, and Mad Max (think post-apocalyptic forts), and that's so NEVER gonna happen.. However I can think of a great universe that has its share of castles, is both futuristic & classic, it's Adventure Time, and I can imagine that seriously happening.

nope, only got 1 out of 5 BL orders, 2 of which not even sent yet If everything goes right, eventually I will only need 1 more little order. thanks

I'm actually surprised that there is no atlernate Bricklink sites for other brands (or even filters, in BL itself). BL isn't sponsored by Lego, is it? Using any non-Lego part doesn't fit the rules I impose to myself (if I were to break those rules, I'd 3D-design & print & totally forget about Lego, the results would be much better but that's just not the same game), but if some people want to mix parts, it's indeed no different from using Brickarms stuff, chromed bricks, cut parts or whatever. It's not Lego, yet it's already in BL. Of course the LDD is another story, it's owned by Lego.. I'm sure its database isn't super-protected, though.

Yes, that's what I originally planned to get, but those are pilots for the Endor one. Couldn't find movie shots of what's in an AT-ST on Hoth, however this article tells about "imperial army pilots" used in AT-AT's as well as AT-ST's, and it would make more sense to be more covered in the cold: http://starwars.wiki..._Command_Crewer Thus it would be this one in the AT-AT: While this other one from the set is similar to the Endor pilots: But I'll certainly get an AT-ST pilot if I shop where there is one available.

Am I right that the crew to be found in a Hoth version is similar to the one in an AT-AT, btw? I don't have a Lego pilot that you'd find in an Endor version, but I do own an AT-ST (& AT-DP as well, but the crew seems rather different in there).

It holds!! Even the backmost hip balljoint holds well. Sure, it's not fully dressed yet, but the side plates aren't gonna change much. Of course, it's not gonna be kid-proof, it was never intended to be. Can't blame Lego for releasing ugly ones, theirs are kid-proof.

Bluerender definitely has replaced LDD to POVRay here. I think it just looks better because the default choice of lighting is better. Even though both tools don't look that great at normal precision, I always render 2 or 4x bigger. (edit: ah, hadn't noticed the aa setting, it's an oversampling factor? can't find what the values are for, but 4 4 seems to improve a lot. I'm guessing it's not X & Y oversampling factors, as it defaults to 0 1. I'm guessing the second value is the oversampling factor, and the first a coverage method or something?) I'd like to reiterate my request for animation, because this is really something that's not possible (in less than 1 year of render time) using POVRay, while BlueRender would do that in half a day at worst. A simple 360 rotation around the vertical axis would allow presenting stuff, like I tried to do here using a turntable, but it's horrible to do in the analog world, whatever can go wrong, goes wrong:

lego has used separated turntable plates in official sets, though. In fact, they now seem to be used more as "vents" than as turntables.

ah, the worst sin :)

Nice use of parts, the helmet glass fits perfectly. And the seat is a cape? Perfect fit. What's that part around the syringes?

thanks, around 600 the minifigs will have to raise one of their chubby arms a little, btw

I could still put it on lego ideas when it's done. I've built 3/4 of it using the parts I had, it'll take a couple of weeks to gather the rest. The head already shows its weight, it probably won't move around much, but it's mainly there for rotation and a little tilting. The hip bars.. I have serious doubts that they will hold, but I'll just dump them use a single ball joint, if it doesn't work. The ankles are normally not an issue. This is what I'm building:

it was a typo, I meant these bi-directional (as opposed to tri-directional for ball joints) assemblies: The big ratchet joint is still a perfect choice for the upper leg though, as it looks exactly like the AT-ST one (maybe Lego made it for the AT-ST & AT-AT?)

I believe that the top strongest joints Lego has to offer are -the ratchetted ones for the legs (-too- strong IMHO, I think they require crazy force to move) -the "bit-directional" ratchetted ones, but they're too bulky (although, they allow working directly with studs, they might actually be an option for the legs) -the ball joints, I think they're nice up to this size -mixel joints, I love those. They're actually holding the side panels here. -I would put friction pins last - even with dual pins, I can't imagine enough strenght, unless I'm missing some building technique to have strong pin joints

I'm not finding those 7M ball-joint bars easily enough (3 models apparently, in dark grey), especially in new state, so I hope it won't happen to me. But I suppose that they break as you detach/attach them, not when tweaking? is there any trick for a strong joint using T-bars? I normally only use them for very light builds. I mean, they're normally much weaker than ball joints(?) thanks I had seen it, I didn't know it was an official one. According to that blueprint, I have pretty accurate head metrics. The body could be a bit thicker & wider, but length is correct. This said, the legs should be right under the big side gun, and they currently are. Thighs have the correct length, legs too. Lower legs could be 1 stud shorter, but not possible using the ratchet join, but that's still ok. Feet: correct width, length should be 1 stud shorter, but there is no smooth wedge that would allow this. So it's actually all pretty correct afterall. Only legs are much thicker, but since there's no way to do this better using lego in a safe way, I'm all happy with it. The side "gun cups" should be much flatter, but there aren't parts to do this, I'd have to either sacrifice the additional disk, or change the 5x5 scala dish for a 6x6, which I had in an early design, it doesn't look bad but a little off.

Not much to see inside, the chubby minifigs will take all the room. Pics of AT-ST interiors that I found are pretty boring, all filled with 80's style little lights. It opens from the front, no working hatch. I think they will, because there are other minifig-sized AT-ST's (like, the one on Lego ideas), thus probably of a similar weight, that use them. The question is more, for how long will they? I never really "played" with bionicles, so I don't know. They're certainly very strong joints when new, athouth that varies with parts. The foot ones shouldn't be a problem, as the center of gravity is normally at the front. That is, it looks worrying that they will lean backwards, but gravity should be pushing them front-downwards, -in theory-. We'll see about the joints of the inter-leg beam, in the worst case I can ditch it. Those only have to support the weight of the head, though.

If this is the Hoth one: & this is the Endor one: the difference is massive! So I guess mine would be the Hoth one. Probably better, with the light blueish grey color anyway. Back (using Bluerender, nice tool btw): This said, this is a render, and between the height of a render and the actual height after all parts & joints have bended under the weight of the head, it should be noticably shorter.