Kit Bricksto

Sure thing! Just send me your email adress via PM and I'll send you the file. I don't know what's wrong with the Eurobricks file sharing tool but you're not the first person who wasn't able to download the file.. I hope to find a way of fixing that issue for myself sometime soon.

Thanks everyone for your great feedback! Really glad so many people are interested in the instructions! No, I must admit that the lighting is just photoshop.. there is quite a nice glow inside the white wheel pieces though in reality too, completely without any LEDs. I had a lot of other stuff to do lately and haven't had time to work on anything Lego-related. I did manage to complete most of the raw instructions before that though and I will take up work again as soon as life has settled down a bit again. I am not planning on keeping you lads waiting for too much longer!

There it is, finally. ;) I said it before but I really like how this turned out. I think my favorite detail's still gotta be the gun emplacement. That curve is just so smooth.. :D I hadn't noticed this on Flickr, somehow your stuff doesn't show up on my Activity-Feed.. :/ So, sorry for commenting only now. :D

@Schneeds The model is about 100 cm long, 30 cm wide and 20 cm high. It's at a third of minifigure scale (about 125 studs long). While I do like the official set I was never so lucky as to get my hands on one and I wanted to build my own version with more accurate proportions anyway. ;)

A few people have been asking me about instructions for my Tantive IV and I decided to give it a go. I've made quite a lot of progress now and am confident that it will turn out as good as I hoped it would. That's why I decided to post this teaser and see how many people would be interested in buying them. I want to make them as affordable as possible for you guys while still keeping it worth while for me, as making these instructions is a long and tedious process. If you are interested in buying the instructions (hopefully in a few weeks time) please just leave me a comment or send me a PM. :) Here's a little teaser of the current state of things. Coming soon.. by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr

Wow, I'm really happy to hear that worked so well! I assumed that you knew Psiaki's X-Wing and had adapted your mechanism from his. As he uses two arms per wing I thought you had probably ruled that option out for a good reason. Maybe you didn't have enough space because of the droid slot or something like that. Glad to hear that wasn't the case though and I hope you get even more joy out of this already fantastic model! And you're very welcome for the tip, that's what these forums should be about. You didn't share this WIP to show off after all but to discuss it with other builders. It always makes me sad when WIP-Threads just get One-sentence-answers, so I'm glad to have been of help. :)

I see. I thought the problem was that the wings flopped open and closed when the model was tilted. Fixing the twist inside the individual arms is a lot harder of course. If you wanted to have two arms on each wing you'd need four studs length for the mechanism (plus one on either side to have room for the technic 1x2s). If you have that kind of space and don't mind the additional work of rebuilding the wings yet again, then I can assure you that it makes a great difference. I orignally thought I'd get away with the slim version on my X-Wing too but it just didn't work to my satisfaction. If the model is just meant for display anyway though, it probably doesn't matter that some parts are a bit wobbly. ;)

If you have room for another 1x2 technic brick on the other side of the mechanism, you could swap that 3L technic pin for two standard black ones and feed a 4L bar through them. That's what I did with my X-Wing and it really makes all the difference. The wings stay in position but are still easily folded back into flight mode, while it's not as stiff as Psiaki's original concept.

I don't think they had the CR-70 in mind when they designed the set but it is true that the resemblance is remarkable. I think it's more likely that they used something like the blueprints @NathanR linked to when they were designing the set and it is quite hard to tell from the angles the movie is shot at how long the Tantive IV really is. There is only one shot in ANH where it is clearly visible from the bottom in which it becomes clear how long and sleek the ship actually is.

Thanks! You should have given it to me! In exchange for free access to the instructions for my model!.. :P

Your other pod racers look really good too, but you've outdone yourself with this one! I really like how compact and elegant the model looks. No unfinished edges or parts that appear random. Fits together really well! I'm looking forward to that Mos Espa diorama. Already started collecting cool figures for the crowds? ;)

Well if you want to get really technical about it a SNOTed brick is 2 1/2 plates high, which would make a T-65 wing in closed position five plates thick instead of four and visually that does make quite a difference. I think that isn't the main reason most people don't do this though. The mechanism for hinging the S-foils properly is quite complex and changing the direction of the bricks in the wing doesn't make attaching them any easier. And making the wings sturdy enough without loosing any detail in their shape and coloring isn't that easy either. I haven't seen any model yet that managed to achieve all of the above at minifig scale, yet. That doesn't mean that it's impossible though. You are very welcome to prove me wrong. ;) Cheers, Kit

Thank you! Yeah, I feel the same sometimes, it's always the same stuff at the top of this forum and a lot of builds get swept to the second or third page really quickly. And again, thank you very much! Yes, bridge is probably a more accurate word than cockpit. For it to be minifig scale the whole thing would have to be three times the size of my model, which is ridiculously huge. As a matter of fact I am working on a LDD-file for this model and would say that it is roughly 3-4 hours from completion. I still haven't decided how to make instructions for it then and how to sell them but I would certainly like to do so (for a much less crazy price than most instructions out there of course..) I think buying the parts for this ship will be enough of a financial burden for most people, no need for me to make the instructions one too.

Thanks a million. I'll give you credit for your designs of course! My Snowspeeder is about 14-15 studs wide and 16ish studs long. I can't say exactly because of the angles of some areas but I built it according to the dimensions I found online for the Snowspeeder. I remember them being just slightly off but it is pretty much exactly minifig scale. If you'd like to use the design for your base just let me know. I must warn you though that it uses some 'illegal' techniques and is quite a delicate build. It does fit two pilots though. Will you be designing the whole hangar in LDD and order the specific parts then or are you just roughing out the layout and figuring out the key details in LDD before you start working with real bricks? EDIT: Jhaelon Edwards built his own version of Marshal Banana's Falcon with a full interior and made full instructions for it as far as I know. His model is not perfect but it's a step in the right direction and seems to be incredibly sturdy. While you might want to change some of the design choices the structural base of the model might still be of use to you? I've been working on my own Falcon for years now too but it is much closer to the scale of the Episode V set piece, about 70% of minifig scale, so it's probably of no use to you.

Hi Cehnot, I really enjoyed reading the summary of your research. While I already knew most of it myself (I have a bit of an obsession with Hoth too) you pinpointed the problems very well and gave great visual proof of your findings. Thanks for sharing that. Your builds so far are looking very good. I might have to steal some of those cargo crates if I may? I'm really looking forward to seeing more progress on this project. Keep us posted! Have you already got the UCS Falcon or are you planning on getting it for this project? I'd imagine it would only be a fraction of the overall budget you'll need to pull this off.. Cheers, Kit

Thanks guys! I am in the midst of creating the LDD file for this beast and I only have the engine block left to do. That said, the first half took me about nine hours and depending on how quickly I can recreate the technic structure inside the engines the second part might take as much time again. I have not decided what to do with the file yet once it's finished but I'd like to try and make some decent instructions from it. I'd normally give instructions away for free but considering the amount of time that is going into creating them for this 5000+ parts model, I think selling a pdf-file for a small fee isn't asking too much. I'll post further news on the instructions in this thread. :)

I think there are several TIEs close to that scale but the first one that came to my mind was this one by my buddy Inthert: He even has these free instructions on his Flickr and I'm sure he'd let you use the design in your diorama. Just make sure to give him credit where it's due. ;) I hope this helps and keep us posted on your project. It sounds interesting! :)

That's an interesting scale for this ship but it definitely works. I like your solution for the rounded hull with the sharp "beak" at the front and there is an impressive amount of interior space, certainly looks smaller from the outside. The colour scheme might be a bit too brown but then, no one says that the ones in the movie were the only ones. ;) I've started fiddling around with some of the shapes on this ship too and I must say it's really hard to get something like this to look smooth and be stable at the same time, so kudos to you for pulling it of so well so quickly. ;)

Hey Andrew, I don't know how to fix the problem with the uploaded file but if you PM me with your email address I'd be happy to send you the LDD file.

Thanks guys! Really appreciate it! :) Thanks! It is really incredibly fragile and I am not exactly proud of the building techniques I used. I might rebuild the structure of it sometime and then I'd be very happy to share some breakdowns! I'll look and see if I can manage to carefully take it apart in a few days time though. I think MThomasF ist right here. I haven't done the math on Raskolnikov's model but as far as I know it's slightly smaller than minifig scale and my model is a little too big. They'd be in much better proportion with each other than the official sets of the two vehicles.

Thank you very much! Yeah, I was quite happy that the microfiber happened to be the right scale. I really don't know. I already had quite a lot of them in my collection and most of the tiles and 1x3 curved slopes were found in a shop selling used Lego by the kilogram, which probably saved me quite a bit of money. They are so small because it fits my reference images and I must say that I don't really see the similarity to mortesv's design, other than the use of those 2x2 dishes.. You are not totally wrong though, feeling like something is out of proportion. It is not the turrets however, but the main body. To fit in the interior I wanted I ended up making it ever so slightly too large. And the antenna looks to be just the right size compared to all my reference, if anything it is too big on mortesv's model (which I still think is fantastic) but anything like the one on the UCS Falcon would be way too big. Still, thank you for stating your opinion, I don't mind if people disagree with me and am more than willing to discuss my building choices. :)

Thanks so much guys! Your feedback is really appreciated! :) Thanks! Yeah, you're not the first to suggest that. ;) I would have liked to have added some more damage like on the red part you can see in the top-view but that was really hard to do with all the slopes and curves. And too many off-colored panels would have looked too messy in my opinion.

Thank you, Ellis! Yes, those things were very important to me. Of course I do.. :D Thanks for pointing it out! ;) Thanks guys! Really appreciate the positive feedback! :) Thanks! I'm afraid I have no idea how many pieces it is, a few thousand. Probably around 6000-8000 but I really don't know. There are a lot of jumper-plates in it to create curves though, each engine has 26 jumpers. That makes about 290 parts just in jumpers for the engines..

INSTRUCTIONS are available now! Check out this post for further details: So here she is, finally! I had planned to build this for the 40th anniversary of "A New Hope" in March but I never managed to finish it in time. Well, at least it's still the right year.. :D Tantive IV (1) by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr Although I quite like the official Lego sets for the Tantive IV their proportions were highly inaccurate. I tried to get as close to the original as possible with this model. To get the scale right I started with the hardest part: the cockpit. I wanted it to fit at least two minifigures and that pretty much set the scale for the entire model. Tantive IV (2) by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr The CR-90 Corvette is 126 metres long in universe. My model is pretty much exactly 126 studs long, which makes it 1/3 of minifig scale and to scale with the microfigs. This should give you an idea of just how huge the ships in the Star Wars galaxy are. Tantive IV (3) by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr The top view shows best how off the proportions of the sets (both UCS and playscale) are. The corvette is much longer and sleeker than the Lego-models. Tantive IV (4) by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr The cockpit was the first part of the model I built. I started off with an all-studs-exposed version but didn't like the feel of it, so I tried to figure out a way to get it as smooth as possible. This worked out quite a lot better than I had hoped. Tantive IV (5) by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr One of the trickiest sections to get right was the connection between the cockpit and the main hull. At this point three cylinders meet which is always hard to get right in Lego-form. Tantive IV (6) by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr And of course I can't build anything without adding some interior detail, too. This did result in the main body of the ship being a little larger than it should but personally I don't mind so much. Tantive IV (7) by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr The cockpit seats two pilots and two communications officers. The captain can stand behind the pilots and oversee all manouvers. Tantive IV (8) by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr The main body houses a conference room, that seats four minifigs comfortably, even leaving room for a protocol droid. Behind the conference room there are two comm-stations, one of which has just received the Death-Star plans! Tantive IV (9) by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr Aft of the comm-stations there is the access-tunnel to the escape pods, where C3PO is looking for R2-D2. Tantive IV (10) by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr And finally, in the tower underneath the radar dish, there is room for one more crew-member manning the radar-station. Tantive IV (11) by Kit Bricksto, on Flickr I really hope you like it. This project has been a real work of passion for me and I am very happy to have finished it. Please leave a comment if you like it, I'd really appreciate it! And if you don't like it, well, constructive criticism is just as welcome! ;) Cheers, Kit

This is just fantastic! I am stunned again every time I look at it, and I've seen it quite a few times already.. :D I just spent a few hours working on my own N-1 again and thought I'd repost it and now here is yours, making my design look just pityfull! :D