ProvenceTristram

Yes, I am going to be Bricklinking the parts for this one shortly. Given how small it is, and the fact that the only rare piece is the dome in the back, I hope to keep prices rather low - potentially even limiting it to 1-2 sellers.

Just LDD, processed through Bluerender. Thanks!

Nothing too special here, just a headhunter variant. I tend to prefer the old four-engine version over the newer types with just two. Also, this particular vessel has been retrofitted to carry cargo (in place of the concussion missile bay) and fit an astromech droid. The good news it's a pretty part-thrifty model, at only 395 pieces. Protoype: Model: And one more screenshot minus Bluerender's white-on-white glare:

Yup. The design has evolved over time - it's still strictly legends material, but so are half the Armada ships out there. Part of me kind of wishes that someone would have added additional engines to the underhull... but another part kind of likes the sort of bare-bones design, especially when so many other Mon Cal boats seem to be all hyperdrive in the back.

Honestly, I wish they'd do a "normal" release of the Tantive IV - I own 10198 and I almost regret buying it; the thing is too big to fit in with the scale I model, and still rather on the fragile side. It strikes me that they could probably do a ~$100 kit in the same ballpark as the recent 75158 and probably still feature some kind of small interior + passable detailing without too much issue.

I purchased a Count Dooku from 75017. They're not cheap.

I miss baseplates terribly, especially flat ones. I absolutely despise this wave of "vignette" sets that have no footprint. Having said that, this dude did an excellent job making due without.

No, those schematics date from the guide to vehicles and vessels first published in the 1990s. Not sure if the author just winged it or not, but they predate the prequel trilogy by quite a wide margin.

I'll be honest - that model is such an enormous mess, I would be inclined to either sell it to a collector or part it out and see what's reusable in putting together a smaller, but more robust (and usable) MOC.

Is this on Lego Ideas? If it isn't, it should be. This is precisely the type of small set they like to produce.

Eh, I just named it that because I like the show. It never ever occurred to me that it was essentially wearing "Shiroe colors," though that is kind of amusing.

Well, it wound up being bigger than I projected. First, though, a little background. The MC40 light cruiser made its initial debut way back in the mid 1990s, being featured (relatively) prominently in the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games. In the latter in particular I recall it being quite the tough nut to crack - lots of concussion missiles; a forest of ion cannon batteries; and boasting a full squadron of Alliance fighters... in a word: filthy. In a Lego sense, one of the nicer things about the MC40 is its traditional shape - kind of a fat, stubby MC80 Liberty type. This makes for a great deal of usable interior space - which I took advantage of, while also making sure to cram every other gap with reinforcing full-height bricks. The result, I think, is fairly pleasing to the eye (I went with a white-based color scheme as opposed to grey simply because I believe the rebel ships should look different from their Imperial counterparts when set side by side), and should be sturdy enough to be moved, displayed, etc. without showing any signs of sagging or completely falling apart. From a purely practical standpoint, I view the model's 3,500 pieces as essentially representing a 'max attainable' capital ship for most people (ballpark $1000). That's a lot of scratch no matter how you look at it, but for a 'centerpiece' model like this, I feel like it's worth it - this is the type of vessel you can truly build a fleet around, and in conjunction with a few supporting ships (say, my Dreadnaught and a couple of Peltas or a Nebulon-B) it could definitely realistically hope to take down a Star Destroyer. Anyhoo, on to the model. First, the prototype: As you can see, there's a wide disparity between 'takes' on this ship - with people failing to agree even on which side the hangar bay is located on. I elected to lean most heavily towards the recent renderings by people who construct models for Star Wars: Armada. Not only did I feel like this was the best compromise version (though it conspicuously lacks a hangar at all), but it also embodies a bit fuller look than the more traditional circa 1990s incarnations. The exterior: You might note that I tried to keep the SNOTing at an absolute minimum this time. I went this route largely out of consideration for the model's size - the more crazy a modeler goes with all that side-mounting, the more fragile the final product actually is. With so much open space inside, I wanted the base hull form to be rock solid. The interior: Admiral's quarters, featuring a bed, desk, shower, toilet, lamp/night stand, computer, and holo-projector, all enclosed in a fine wood-paneled cocoon: Command Bridge, with front windows overlooking the hangar bay via forced perspective, a briefing room with Star Destroyer projection, and the main bridge, with windows looking out onto a studded star field (difficult to see in Bluerender, but it's there), and the Mon Calamari's preferred arm-mounted CO's chair: Medical Bay/sleeping quarters, with four beds, an accessible Bacta tank, and other odds and ends: Cantina, with serving droid, exotic drink wall and beer barrels (not visible, but behind the droid), table and bar: Main engineering: Full exterior (unpainted) with all panels open: Please let me know what you think!

So the MC40 is progressing REALLY well. I started it last night, and expect to finish it either tomorrow or Wednesday. Ballpark estimate is about 2,500 pieces, though it could be less. So far, it's easily the equal to my Dreadnaught, and may frankly be my best work in Star Wars capital ships.

Lol. HOW DO YOU KNOW MY MIND?! This one will have to wait - I am still receiving parts in the mail for my dreadnaught, and it was really expensive. When all is said and done after Christmas, I hope to have 2 Pelta refits, an out-of-scale Tantive IV, the Dread and possibly orders out for LDiEgo's fantastic Nebulon B. Plus, there's the MC40 WIP I've got cooking - I've already got the hull outline laid out, and am working on fleshing out the form. If I can make it look good and manage to keep the parts count manageable, I will construct that before this, because the MC40's basic shape allows for a LOT more interior space. By the way, if anyone wants the LDD for this, just PM me.

I like it a lot... though I lament its lack of interior for that size.

Thanks! I actually started working on the MC40 last night, so I should release another in the coming weeks.

Thank you!

So, I've been kicking around designing a smaller Mon Calamari cruiser for a while now, but had always held back. For one thing, I don't think MC ships tend to translate well into Lego unless you go almost obscenely large, and I wanted to do something that would A) fit in well with the small fleet I'm assembling, B) occupy roughly the same scale, and C) not be something requiring the mortgaging of property to assemble. This, of course, ruled out the largest of the Mon Calamari ships - the MC80s and above (well-know Liberty and Home One types), but I wasn't totally in love with the smaller options, either. If I was going to stick strictly to cannon or even legends material, I was really forced to choose between the smaller MC30 frigate and the bigger MC40 light cruiser (the latter from the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games), and I didn't feel confident enough working with these fleshy-looking warships yet to to do the MC40, and did not care enough for the MC30 to try (although, looking back on it, the MC40's simple shape would have been easier than the ship I wound up constructing, so I may do one of these later). Ultimately, I settled on creating a hybrid vessel of my own design - the MC35 destroyer escort. Even though I don't really like the SW: Armada ship overall, I really appreciated the efforts of the MC30's creators to incorporate some exposed details into the more tradition Mon Calamari lines, so my boat would employ these, too, but restrict them to a single compartment - engineering, which would be open to aid in cooling the ship's large hyperdrive. Like with all my capital ships, I did my best to build in multiple interior scenes. Anyway, this is what I came up with: Exterior Interior Captain's Cabin: Bridge/Briefing Room: Engineering: Obviously it's not perfect, but I feel like it was a pretty decent first effort. Total part count is a little under 1,700 pieces, which makes it roughly 1,000 pieces smaller than my Dreadnaught (though I still consider that the superior build). This isn't too bad considering that they're about the same size:

The Eclipse was the big black EU one, right? If so, good luck on the lower hull. That curvature makes a real-world battleship look easy.

Nice video, though I'm inclined to write off the set as one we're going to look back on in 5 years - when they release a far superior version - and shake our heads.

I think you've really hit on something here - that the evildoers in all these lines lack any kind of flexibility for buyer empathy. When I look back at the Black Knights and Blacktron and Wolf Pack and so on, while these factions were clearly intended to be some kind of antagonists, it wasn't written into their themes that each and every Lego man in their service possessed a heart of stone; a soul as black and bereft of feeling as obsidian. It was up to the kid playing with these themes to determine who was who... and, in fact, in many ways these lines mirrored our own universe of moralistic ambiguity; they dwelt within shades of grey. That isn't to say that there aren't bad men out there - that, say, Blacktron as a whole (like the Empire in Star Wars) wasn't evil - but what drove them to do what they did rested on the imagination of the child playing with them. By contrast, Ninjago, Chima and Nexo Knights, in addition to being a carnival of bizarre, wacky, off-the-wall concepts with almost no grounding in the real world, are rife with foes who are absolutely iron-cast into role of pure malevolence. And it robs us builders - old and young - of the ability to see them as anything else. The wonderful thing about the old lines wasn't just that they were connected to historical themes that opened the mind to a world many choose to see as boring or drab - it was that you could be a pirate or an bluecoat and, from both perspectives, see yourself as the hero.

Admittedly, I'm a Star Wars and town aficionado first and foremost. But I do own a lot of Castle dating back to the late 1980s, and as I stood in my local Walmart tonight, staring down the massive display - front and center - of Nexo Knights, I have to admit, I could think of nothing else than what a waste the whole thing was. Let's set aside the fact that, in this particular store, the line didn't seem to be selling (at all); let's set aside my own personal bias against Lego genre blending - what a sad thing that in a year with no pirates and no real castle, this is what was dumped into our collective laps. Of all the dozens of historical time periods - previously visited or otherwise - that Lego could have invested in developing a line for, we get space squires. Space jesters. Space skeleton guys. I mean... really? Really? Why not just purchase the license to He-Man and be done with it, Lego? Or, goodness, why not at least ape something cool like Warhammer 40k and do space knights that way? You know, space-paladins and such? I know there are people buying Nexo Knights - I know that, somewhere out there, there are folks who think this is the best release of all time. But I cannot for the life of me conceive of them as even approaching a majority. The castle/pirates crowd has to be larger, if not individually, then certainly from a cumulative perspective. Are the majority of them really spending their hard-earned cash on tank-castles? I doubt it.

Why can't Lego ever produce an accurate model of this vehicle? It boggles the mind. And let me second the call for an LDD of that AT-DP - that's awesome.

TRU was doing an over $30, get an "A-wing pilot" (re: recolored B-wing pilot) giveaway last weekend. My parents got me 2 sets separately for Christmas, and thus two figs. Not bad.

So, I am going to go ahead and bump this thread to ask a few questions: 1) Anyone done this recently? Or not recently? How are the bricks holding up? 2) Any advice on technique? How far to hold the can from the piece you're working on?