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Murdoch17

Eurobricks Grand Dukes
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Everything posted by Murdoch17

  1. Murdoch17
    Just finished watching Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi + all the deleted scenes from the original trilogy about half an hour ago on Disney+. Can't tell you how much I've watched the films over the years. I still prefer Episode V over anything else: one of the few SW films (III, V, and the despised VIII) are the only ones where the good guys mostly lose! EDIT: Oh, and I watched "Casablanca", "The Maltese Falcon", and "Meet Me in St. Louis" last week. I loved the first two, almost fell asleep for the last one, even though it takes place in my hometown. (Snow in December so deep you can make six snowmen and a snow dog? This isn't Alaska: I don't think it's really snowed on Christmas as depicted like that in eastern Missouri since the last Ice Age!)
  2. Murdoch17
    Or a smaller scale version of the fabled UCS Dobby's Sock! ...maybe even the knife that killed my least favorite character (Dobby) will be included too, as it's Deathly Hallows related? Get both ends (kinda) of the series in one set, like a pair of bookends! (Sorry to all the Dobby fans out there: I've hated him more than Jar Jar Binks since 2002... and I was in the target age range of less than 10 for both of them at that time.)
  3. Murdoch17
    Thank you to whoever front-paged this topic! It's much appreciated! Building like Lego does is something I strive to do with most of my models, so thank you for noticing @Ropefish! Makes me feel like I've "hit the mark". Thanks @Jack Sassy! I can't believe it's been nearly four years since that silver mine was built... feels like yesterday! Thank you! Just wait @Paperinik77pk: I've got two whole trains that go with these engines already built, plus the possibility of a small station and a 4-2-4 switcher tank loco for the future. (I'll make a separate topic when the time comes for all that!)
  4. Murdoch17
    Ever since buying my first copy of Toy Story 3 LEGO set 7597 in May / June 2010, I've wanted to make the steam engine in the set look more realistic. The lack of tender bothered me greatly, and so did a few other things I talk about below. I created my first steam loco MOC I could call my own from it's framework, but that failed hard to even make turns at all when built in real life. (I suspect R120 wouldn't even work with that model.) So, it was scrapped in 2012 after sitting around for two years despite my best attempts to get it working. The Lone Ranger sets came out the following year, and I forgot about the odd 7597 engine as years went by and my skills increased. Then, in July / August of this year, a decade after I bought the original copy, I saw set 7597 sitting complete in a window of my local LEGO resale store. It was purchased, and I started working on a design soon thereafter. Of course, the person who purchased it for me (It cost a bit) wouldn't let me get at it physically until November, but nonetheless, here is that design all polished up and ready to roll into your collection via the free LDD file you can find at the end of this post. The locomotive as it is in LDD upon opening the file, which you will find at the bottom of this post. Almost all the needed parts for this MOD are grouped in the file. Everything else should already be on the stock loco model from the set, though it will need to be mostly taken apart to allow you to rebuild it with my changes. if you are building the MOD from set 7597, there are only two printed 1 x 4 green bricks on the tender that should be printed like so. However, if you are building the loco from scratch, use four of the above parts, (two on tender, two on the loco) and one of these 2 x 2 red printed bricks for the number on the headlight. 99.8% of the parts needed for the conversion from the set are shown above. The printed parts are unprinted as shown, and the red wheels are shown, but not available from BrickLink. You will need need one of these custom wheel parts packs in red color (plus 4x part 2878 for holding said custom wheels) for the tender wheels from BrickTracks to complete the tender. Among my changes, I lowered the loco cab floor of my copy of 7597 (Western Train Chase) loco by a brick or so to compensate for the roof being a brick fewer height-wise and to better match the floor of the tender. This still allows for the taller 2010 Toy Story figures to still fit inside the loco cab, and also making for a smoother transition from train cars to steam engine. This change also made the left-to-right swiveling driving wheel section impossible to keep, (I didn't like it anyway!) and by extension the front bogie had to change too. Thus, the connection to the leading wheels from the driving wheels was changed to a 10194-syle design to allow for you to push the train on the track without derailing. I also never liked the awkward original piston design in 7597, so I changed it to have a more stable, non-floppy connection to the engine via a double Technic pin connector. Actual working cylinders connected to the new side rods will never be a thing on this engine due to the way the pistons are attached to the new moving front bogie instead of the boiler, but I can mimic the effect pretty well with the design I have here. You can find the LDD file here at my Bricksafe page for it. I haven't quite finished taking pictures of my version of the model, but this photo of it and it's sister loco (dark blue steamer NOT Included in file!) will do for now. Please note, the model shown has color changed side-rods and "pistons" due to parts I had on hand from my collection. It isn't quite like the LDD file because the parts in said file are cheaper when colored like they are. (Thought I'd save you guys a couple dollars / yen / rubles / euros, etc.) Plus, it makes my different than everybody else's! Thoughts?
  5. Murdoch17
    It's a futuristic space mailperson. The end destination of the slowdown of the U.S. postal system / global shipping nightmare is now known: literal snail-mail.
  6. Murdoch17
    The last freight engine was green, so I don't think either possible 2022 models (freight or passenger) will be green. I could be wrong though! As for a passenger prototype, it may not be modern, but what about any of the 1930's Zephyr's? (The Mark Twain Zephyr might work, as it + the fourth car from the original Pioneer Zephyr are being restoring it to working order in Wisconsin, so it might be a good choice) After all, the streamline craze and Zephyr-mania of the 1930's pretty well started with this type of train. Part 73878 would do well for the front window, and the shovel-nose front end can be made using studs-up 2x2x2 slope parts, or can be SNOTed to make a more gradual slope using other parts... this would solve the problem of it potentially being a one-piece nose.
  7. Murdoch17
    Thank you @Paperinik77pk! I was hoping the staircases would go over well. Thank you, @Man with a hat. This project would would cost around three hundred US dollars (or more) if I didn't have 850 of the more expensive parts already found from my own collection and with serious help from my brother. Sadly, the Disney Station MOD's canopy has been sacrificed to make this project work as well. (Using those parts knocked it down to about $160 for what you see above.) Thoughts?
  8. Murdoch17
    I love a good Monty Python reference, so I couldn't help but make a comment. Great work with this MOC! Now, I must complete this post with the accompanying song (even though the name no longer works in your case, you get the idea): Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore, riding through the land, pistols in each hand, Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore, he steals from the rich to give to the poor, Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore, forevermore... (I may have gotten some of the song wrong, couldn't quite remember it fully!)
  9. Murdoch17
    Thanks @XG BC, it wasn't easy how to puzzle out how to assemble it in real life from the digital model I made based of Zephyr's photos. Was easily the hardest thing I've had to assemble recently.... way too much SNOT! Good point @zephyr1934 on the metal flags... completely forgot about them being a thing. Thanks again for making such an awesome MOC! That's funny, @Feuer Zug, because Bill Peet also wrote the original 1952 short-story of what became Suzy the little blue coupe for Disney, which eventually became the stylistic inspiration for the Cars / Planes universe. I guess the idea has gone full circle now, right back to Bill Peet's 2-D creations.
  10. Murdoch17
    Heavily inspired by @zephyr1934's MOC of "Katy" from the classic children's book "The Caboose who got Loose". His version can be seen here in his topic. As for the book itself, it is a children's picture book written and illustrated by ex-Disney employee Bill Peet. (You might know him from his work on film "The Sword in the Stone" which he storyboarded and designed the characters of.) Anyway, Wikipedia had this to say about it on it's entry for the (quite wonderful and well-done) book: The Caboose Who Got Loose, published in 1971, tells the story of Katy Caboose, a caboose who is tired of being dragged around at the end of the train by the Engine. She dreams of being part of the beautiful sceneries she passes during her trips, but she cannot because she is always on the move. One day, when the engine is pulling the train up a steep mountain grade, the caboose is jolted loose from the train and flies back down the track towards a turn. Upon arriving at the turn, she has too much speed and she flies into the air off the track. Luckily she gets wedged between two trees, and she spends the rest of her days happy living in a beautiful place. I didn't want to use stickers for Katy's eyes like what's being done by Zephyr1934, so I decided to use the eyes from set 43186 (Bruni the Salamander buildable character) from the Disney Frozen II line. I also added a actual mouth, as just the two eyes without something between them looked kind of odd, most likely because of the specific eyes I chose. The MOC I based this on used a different method for the mouth using a lot of SNOT-work.... I used a brick with 2 studs on the sides and two quarter tiles to give her a open mouth. The "rear" of the caboose is the forward facing part closest to the engine, which is a part of Katy we never see in the book. Confused yet? I took some liberties with his design, such as changing the ladders at each end to black from red, removing two wheelsets + the roof chimney, and redoing the roof itself to be much simpler. (This last one was done because I couldn't figure out the original MOC roof's curved design!) I did keep the basic SNOT-work design, but made it so both halves would be stud-inwards. All of this makes the models less accurate to the book it's based off, but I don't really think anyone in the general public will notice. (The general LEGO community might know of some discrepancies and fellow train modelers not of the LEGO-type will not care even if I did make it accurate, as it's not a "real" train.) Now, as a train head, this model and the book it's based on only bother me in two ways: There is no red light for the end of train, and where in the heck did the conductor go when Katy landed in the trees! It certainly makes a guy wonder what kind of Mickey Mouse-organization this railroad is running here! As usual, comments, questions, and complaints welcome!
  11. Murdoch17
    I was at the store today @jlsm511. Preorders are online only... physical store is first come first served.
  12. Murdoch17
    All 981 parts found so far of the 1,500 total used on my Harry Potter / Polar Express house. Some have been pre-assembled into furniture and the car, but most of the parts are loose. This includes a bag of two hundred reddish brown 1 x 1 bricks (modified, with one stud on side) just arrived a week ago from LEGO Bricks and Pieces.
  13. Murdoch17
    Yes! She is Moana of the water tribe!
  14. Murdoch17
    It's funny, I was listening to Alan Parsons Project's while opening this topic.... and no, sadly the song was not "The Raven" from the Tales of mystery and Imagination album. (It was actually playing "Eye in the Sky", which is still ironic!) Great MOC, and I love the cawing feature, although I think I know what he's actually saying / cawing: Quoth the Raven: "Nevermore"
  15. Murdoch17
    To be quite honest, I don't see any Lego logos on any of the bricks that are visible. It's quite possible the motors that were mentioned in the first post are the only Lego parts on the MOC. (I could be wrong though!) EDIT: Nope, they aren't Lego either, upon closer inspection.
  16. Murdoch17
    That's a wonderful MOC of Katy, I can't wait to see her finished! I may need to get one for myself for my collection of trains from multi-media of various sorts, such a the BTTF-3 Time Train, Polar Express, Conjunction Junction freight train, as so on. How fiddly of a MOC is it to build? If you don't mind, @zephyr1934, I'm going to try to reverse engineer Katy for myself.
  17. Murdoch17
    The MOC is done! However, I thought robots were "To Serve Man"....
  18. Murdoch17
    (This isn't really a licensed funny, unless you count the Lego Movie as a license. However, parts of set 76155 "In Arishem's Shadow" were used, so I don't know if it counts or not! Also, there is no sci-fi funny's thread!) "To Serve Man"
  19. Murdoch17
    Blacktron I war-bot - real world MOC progress (some assembly required) "The Foot bone is connected to the Ankle bone, The Ankle bone is connected to the Leg bone, The Leg bone is connected to the knee bone, The knee bone is connected to the thigh bone, The thigh bone is connected to the... (fast forward cassette tape noises start, then end) Them bones, them bones, them dry bones, now that's the working of the Lord!" All I have built for now is shown above. The last BrickLink order should be here today, so expect final real world pictures soon.
  20. Murdoch17
    Now we just need an actual Moose mold, to go with the Squirrel mold. Yes I know there is a brick built one from Creator, but it's "Badinoff" (bad enough) to have one and not the other. Real question is, can the Squirrel fly? (If you have no idea what I'm going on about, click here.)
  21. Murdoch17
    Sorry for the large four-year-bump, but I didn't want to make a whole new thread for this with one already existing! The station building itself (as shown in first post and the one directly above this post) has been built since 2018. I've been trying to add a good looking canopy and passenger stairs to it since about late 2020, but gave up and added one that is solid in roof panels to my Disney-lookalike instead in early-to-mid 2021. Then, on the 8th of October I saw 76183 (Riddler face off from the new "The Batman" line) and knew I had found a solution to the pedestrian staircase between both platforms. I hashed out a better, more see-through version of the canopy on the MOD Disney station which should work... it has a half stud gap right now, but it most likely is an LDD problem instead of an actual design one. (at least I hope so!) The stairs are a color changed MOD of the ones in the set with more space between the tracks and a bit more height in the middle section by way of bumping the whole structure up a brick or two. There is eleven bricks of clearance from the railhead to the bottom part of the arches, meaning the twin staircase's fit most of my trains through with room to spare. However, the pantograph's on electric loco's and a caboose cupola for a freight train won't fit under the bridges. This view also showcases the neat little hanging lights used under the canopy area itself. The bridges are missing eight black candlestick parts for the lights on the part of the walkway, where the stairs have their landings. I'll also have to cut the two 48 x 48's down by eight studs on one side per baseplate to better fit the footprint of the canopy. I've currently found about 574 parts found for this model out of the 1228 total at start. I also got it down from three hundred plus to about $190-something. (I have still a lot left to find before I can order any parts as that's way out of my monthly price range!) Any thoughts, suggestions, questions, and comments would be greatly appreciated for this MOC!
  22. Murdoch17
    That "Tinic" is actually quite cute @kbalage! I just wish I could part it out to do a smaller White Star Line ship instead of buying the set. (which I can't do anyway) Anybody going to do a waterline version of the set, instead of a full hull so the Titanic can seem like it's actually "sailing"?
  23. Murdoch17
    Don't forget Polar Express and Lisbon Tram projects also got chopped. (the latter was more about the buildings than the tram, but hey, it had a train IN it!)
  24. Murdoch17
    I wonder if Evil Emperor Zurg will be in the movie / sets... he's the only fig from the 2010 Toy Story wave I don't have, and the only "tall fig" I wanted but never purchased! (I would also love to have figs from the original TV show from the late '90's, but it's so neglected I know that won't happen. )
  25. Murdoch17
    This Classic Space modular rocket was inspired by the original Nexus Tower rocket from the 2010 massive multiplayer online (MMO) game Lego Universe. It lasted a little over a year, until early 2012 when it was shut down due to not making enough money to make it worth the LEGO Group's while. Out of this seemingly small game came a multitude of modular rockets each with interchangeable cabin, engine, and nose cone sections. (You can see all of them on the LU Wiki, which still exists nearly a decade later.) The heavily revised build you see here is an updated version of the original Nexus Tower rocket modeled in Classic Space colors, which now has weapons to fight off enemies and a boosted engine unit, where once was a single engine there is now two. NOTE: The LU modular rocket-style had to be abandoned upon building in real life, as it was weakened by the increased weight in the bulked-up model. Also of note, I gave up on ordering the correct windscreen from the STUNTZ line for Benny's '70's muscle car and just used what I had on hand. This required a hood modification, which still isn't done yet because of a single part I don't have... consider this a teaser for the 99.8% done model. The two 75311 (Imperial Armored Marauder) MOD's behind the car are in the parts finding stage, with everything left to find shown on the screen. They were supposed to be built last month, but the complications from the Wild Western military train impacted the budget there. These Marauders will be (most likely) built in November, but sadly they will not be done in time for the show GatewayLUG is doing soon. (starting around Thanksgiving, clear through December, and up to January 1st of 2022.) NOTE: I had to mess with the color balance on this picture as there just isn't light in here right now to show both the car and the Marauders at the same time. (Some storms are rolling though soon.) Any thoughts?
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