Cjd223

Quick Update: A lot of the bricks have come in, just waiting for about 1500 more, which means I have about 9,400 pieces for BB-8 right now. Unfortunately, I cannot build any sections of BB-8 until a few more orders come in, so I'll just have to wait for then. The bricklink sellers did an excellent job organizing pieces when shipping which made it incredibly easy to sort out what I have onto a table. I still have not started designing a base for BB-8, but that's on my list for the next few days, then I will hopefully be able to build it all next weekend, if that's enough time to build BB-8, it may take two weekends given it is almost 11K parts. Here are some images of my current setup:

With the recent release of The Force Awakens, the seventh installment to the Star Wars Franchise (If you haven't heard of TFA, I wouldn't be surprised, almost no advertising and no merchandise was made for the movie), fans have been in love with the newest droid, BB-8. The new look to the droid caused many Lego builders to desire their own, and HenrikLego did just that. Totaling at nearly 11K pieces, Henrik built an enormous droid for a local theater of his, and even included the local community of AFOLs with an LDD file for it. His original topic for this MOC is here: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=116949&st=0 After seeing it, I immediately wanted one of my own. After an incredibly long and difficult debate with my wallet, I decided to pursue my own BB-8. Using the LDD File, I generated a parts list for bricklink totaling 10,909 pieces. I looked over the parts needed for this and took note of some of the nuisances. White Brick 2 x 4 (1184 needed) - The part itself is not all that rare, but getting it in new condition (Getting White Bricks in used condition is a nightmare) in that quantity was a challenge. It ultimately ended up costing me 25 cents per brick. White Plate 1 x 2 (1385 needed) - Also very difficult to get in large quantities, but I managed to find it for about 10 cents per piece. White Plate 1 x 3 (527 needed) - It always seems like 1 x 3 plates are a pain to obtain, this was the case here. About 15 cents per piece. Orange Plate 1 x 8 (25 needed) - I did not imagine this piece being very rare, but I ended up placing about 5 orders for it, despite it being cheap. About 10 cents per piece. White Plate 4 x 10 (24 needed) - The large quantity drove the price way up. 48 cents per piece. White Plate 2 x 2 Corner (374 needed) - Once again a hard to find piece that I never would picture as rare. About 12.5 cents per piece. That rounds out the worst bricks and pieces for me, the rest are not very difficult to find, but prepare yourself for about 11 cents per piece, I optimized smaller amount of orders over saving a few cents per piece because shipping charges really drive up the final price. To date I am glad to say that I have ordered all 10,909 pieces, just waiting for them to arrive. However, I have not started designing a desert base for BB-8, I need to work on this ASAP. Once the pieces come in, I of course will have to count them (I am not looking forward to this at all, but more and more it seems that bricklink sellers don't have the ability to count) and check off that everything is in my possession, including parts for a base. I hope to keep you guys updated as much as possible throughout this process, but for now I need to explain to my wallet why an enormous chunk was taken out of it.

It seems like the issue is with the import from rebrickable to bricklink, i guess the best way to go by this is to import then check over to make sure everything is alright. Unless theres a different way to download the parts list and then import to bricklink

I updated the parts list about a month ago to make it match the manual rather than the LDD files. I understand your fristration with this, but to account for over 6200 parts took some time to figure out exactly what was needed to build the AT-AT. Here is the current parts list for you https://rebrickable.com/mocs/cjd_223/cavegod-ucs-at-at-instructions

Wow you certainly did an excellent job documenting the whole process of obtaining and replacing bricks, a lot better than simply summing it up shortly, you definitely helped make this model more affordable. I cannot wait to see how your build progresses and I am glad that my manual helped you out. One thing is that could you please edit the cmj223 in your one paragraph to cjd223. I assume it was just autocorrect or you trying to finish the post as quickly as possible given you got it right in the heading.

Nice job!

I was able to bricklink this set last year, worth the cost, but a big help was painting the three large wheels. Since then, I have replaced them with official wheels, but for the initial build, painting was fine with me

Great job! Captures the ship beautifully, not to mention an excellent sticker, it is a great accent to this mini MOC

Glad to hear that he has been stopped. Mission Accomplished!

I had one of them from an Alpha Team set if I remember correctly, and I found one on bricklink but just used black 4 x 4 macaroni pieces for the others

My favorite UCS set is a tie between my 10030 Imperial Star Destroyer and my 10179 Millennium Falcon, they both are just awesome display pieces. For non-UCS sets, I would have to say my favorite is the 2014 Cantina. Mainly because I love the minifigs that come with it, and it is small and clever.

I bricklinked this set last year, it was quite simple. Now I did have about 1200 pieces in my collection but they were all just small bricks and plates, probably worth like 5 cents per piece. The rest of the model costed me about $120 if I remember correctly, so bricklinking this set is likely to stay around 10 cents per piece, making it an awesome set in terms of price per piece to make, and a good starting point for anyone who has never bricklinked any large sets.

This is so awesome! The Lego Group should take down 75098 and put this up. I would buy it in a minute! I love the border that you added to it, nice touch.

Props to him for getting it printed, but he needs to read the first page of the manual! Reported

I really wish that TLG would realize that many of its consumer AFOLs enjoy vehicles much better than playsets. I would much rather get a Tie Bomber or even an Invisible Hand rather than a bunch of random Hoth stuff with a lot of minifgs

Never thought of doing that! I'll have to try it next time I need one

Now I have a question for everyone else on here due to an issue I had. Did anyone else have issues attaching the head and neck to the body? Every time I have tried to build this MOC, I have had issues with this and I wanted to know if anyone else had this same problem.

I am so glad that you enjoy the manual! Small technical mistakes probably came up while I was learning the software to make the manual. The fact that your son is abke to build certainly means to me that I achieved what I set out to do, to make this model buildable to more than just AFOLs (which even for AFOLs it was really challenging due to LDD). I would really love to do this again with another MOC, but first I need to make one.

Glad to hear that you like the manual

I probably will look into some modifications, but this is the basis of what it will look like. There are some missing blue stripes right now, which I plan to fix soon. I cannot completely see too many differences other than color scheme given well, it's the same ship, nothing structurally changed. I never owned this set so I can't speak on how sturdy it is, that may be an issue that I am not aware of

So I was thinking about bricklinking a UCS Tantive IV but when I was going through some of the parts I noticed that some of the dark red pieces were extremely expensive, as in 11 wheels for over $20 each expensive, as well as a few other pieces. However, I got over my immediate sulk that I could not do it by figuring out an alternative. That night I watched Revenge of the Sith and saw the Tantive IV with a different color scheme, immediately pausing the movie and sprinting to my desktop to open up LDD. I imported the original model and changed all Red pieces to Blue, all Dark Red pieces to Dark Blue, and all Tan pieces to Black. The result was a lot cooler than I would have thought, and honestly, I like it a little better with this color scheme. Obviously there are a few pieces that do not exist in Dark Blue, but luckily for me there are spray-paint cans that exist in Dark Blue. I know, I know, spray-painting Lego is so crazy, so against purists, but hey I am only painting because the pieces do not exist in Dark Blue. As of right now, I do not have a current time expectancy for this project, but I will try my best to get it done as quick as possible, a new Graphics Card and a new Camera are not helping my funds out very much

This looks like Anio's Star Destroyer. If that is the case, then this is not custom and I cannot see people funding you to build someone else's MOC. If it is not Anio's MOC, then obviously people want to see MOC designs, not just your word saying that you are going to build one.

The parts list has been re-uploaded and is now 100% accurate to the manual. I apologize for an inconveniences during the building process. Take a look at the parts list if you haven't already. https://rebrickable.com/mocs/cjd_223/cavegod-ucs-at-at-instructions

I feel like the minifigs and the cannon are the only two good things about this set. I'm afraid I will be passing on this one

Anio, do you have any plans for MOCs coming up, I am going to likely do your two newest ones, but if you are planning something big, then I may have to only do one