Daddy_Stardust

I’ll have a further tinker tonight, see what I can do. But as I said, it’s not the type-of-trooper affecting anything at all, it’s headspace due to a technic T-shaped bracket in the seating area closest to the cockpit. Wouldn’t matter if it was a stormtrooper or even a basic bald mini figure, they sadly can’t sit far enough back because of that bracket. But I might be able to generate a tiny bit more space with a pair of centre studded 1x2 plates... As for the price, was just a one day flash sale on Amazon, dropped to around £50 and because I’m not on the mainland, VAT was deducted too. I don’t ever get to enjoy cheap or next day shipping from anywhere, or good local shops, but do enjoy the VAT coming off

The sandtrooper backpacks aren't an issue, that's why they're on the old 80s space seats, it has room for them (well I'm using custom Clone Army Customs packs on them anyway) not the smooth standard chair piece like the other troops and commanders. The issue is the technic piece that holds the fuselage together behind the head of each of the front sandtroopers; they literally can't sit any further back in the container because their head hits the wall (which isn't an issue where the regular troopers are sat). Like I said, I can technically fit two more troopers in, but the backs of their heads hit the chins of the sandtroopers, so when opening a container I'm not a huge fan of it looking cramped on one side and spacious on the other. I prefer a one stud gap between the troops and them being able to sit on actual chairs - but that's just my personal preference. Here it is so you can see how it looks with 8 troops onboard. But still, it does annoy me to no end that a "troop transport" can only hold a measly 4 figures by default from the retail set, whereas it can comfortably hold 8 in my configuration and even extended to 10 if you don't mind getting really cozy. That gangplank is such a ridiculous waste of space and such a pointless play feature that I'm left all the more convinced that this set was just an absolute shameless display of laziness on TLG's part. How it retails for £80 I have no idea. I bought it for £40 and has taken at least another £20 in parts, crew etc. to bring it up to a standard I'm proud of (and even then, I'm just winging it, I'm sure someone else with more talent and engineering skills could make it look a hundred times better). However even before all my own changes, it's so dwarfed by the utterly beautiful Shuttle Tyderium that had 300 more pieces but the same price tag that I struggle to comprehend how they can justify this in the slightest. Even more insultingly, it standardly holds less troops, has less play features, has a worse interior and a far worse fuselage design than the 2007 model that retailed for nearly half its price. Haha, sorry rant over!

Liking the new rebel trooper, any idea what set he's from? Absolutely HATE the new Stormtrooper though. He looks ridiculous. It took them 13 years for them to finally look like real stormtroopers facially yet only had them available with two massive expensive sets, then they flooded the market with the exaggerated Rebels ones (I didn't mind them, just silly having two types out at the same time that were painted on the exact same helmet mould), then the 2014 movie-style stormie was *nearly* available properly in the Battlefront battle pack but those guys were all covered in battle damage so it wasn't until 2017 in the imperial battle pack that we finally were able to get them affordably more than one at a time... and now that's discontinued too. It still feels like a novelty that decent stormtroopers are finally available in a number of sets. So after all these years it took them to get the stormtrooper right, they've gone and messed it up again. I even prefer the Rebels version to this. It sort of reminds me of the awful home-made helmets that spoil the look of this fan film:

Thanks so much! I wanted to have 8 troopers inside and it’s technically possible but just too tight for my liking. The front seats where the sandtroopers are have a technic bracket right behind their head which forces them to have to sit one stud further forward than the rear troopers. This leaves the remaining space too small in front of the trooper to use seats (2 x 4 usable studs - the door piece half covers 2 floor studs in front and 2 behind and they can’t be used) and the other trooper would have to be literally squashed right in front of the other just sat on studs. So I just gave them computer terminals and space seats (so they can wear their packs) instead to keep it looking intentional and functional rather than cramped.

New interior. Took out the gangplank and increased figure capacity. 6 troopers now on board, plus two command stations on swivel chairs.

Ah no worries, I'll take your word for it. That's a shame, but at least I know what I'll be dealing with over the Christmas season. Will just have to fill it up with computers and greebling and thanks to your insight now I know not to buy another Bodhi Rook... after all, gotta have an Imperial Cargo Pilot in control of an AT Hauler (bought a custom one-sided head for him off Firestartoys so I could have him more regimented with a cap too... can't have insubordination)

All accessories are Clone Army Customs (I personally prefer them immensely to Arealight's designs) and were bought from Firestartoys.co.uk: Rifle: "DC-17M Commando Blaster" https://www.firestartoys.com/Shop/Minifigure-Weapons/Clone-Army-Customs-Guns/13425-Clone-Army-Customs-~-DC~17m-Commando-Blaster-~-Black.html Backpack: "Commando Pack" (available in different colours, search the site) - their stock photo is poor, real thing is much better printed: https://www.firestartoys.com/Shop/Minifigure-Bodywear/Clone-Army-Customs-Bodywear/40250-Clone-Army-Customs-~-Commando-Pack-~-Sarge.html Helmet: "Commando Helmet" (available in different colours, search the site) https://www.firestartoys.com/Shop/Minifigure-Headgear/Clone-Army-Customs-Headgear/39907-Clone-Army-Customs-~-Commando-Sarge-Helmet.html Sarge: Darman (my one) - their stock photo is poor, the real thing is much better printed: Hope that helps!

Absolutely incredible. Wow... I'll just stick to updating minifigures

Not bad, although unless you're a purist, I think this one from Firestar is absolutely perfect for Bail: Incidentally, although it's only one hose instead of two, the leaked pilot's oxygen flight mask that's being released may still be a fantastic addition to mudtroopers... Anyway, here's my latest update - helmeted enforcer for Dryden Vos (courtesy of a Tron figure). Beneath the helmet is a Chima head with most of the print erased. Would prefer him side by side with the two that come with the AT Hauler, but got to wait for Christmas for my son to open that before I can get all three of them together haha.

Would you be able to post a photo of the stock cockpit? And does it appear to be possible to get two figures in there? As previously mentioned, got this for my boy for Christmas, but want to know what I'm up against when I undoubtedly start modding it during the Christmas holiday season when it'll take forever for any brick link orders to arrive. Much like the landing craft (I've since posted up photos of my modded one), it seems to be an unpopular model that no one's readily tackling.

I found Jace Malcolm from The Old Republic to be a good Boss in that he has the black ring around the bass of the neckline, plus because his armour is unique it didn't feel like I was just redressing a regular trooper. Here's the body of Jace with Clone Army Custom helmet (Firestar at the time weren't stocking the 'sarge' helmet that represents Boss), gun and backpack:

Well the wings can easily be lengthened, the only issue arises with the fact that to remain accurate to the source material, they still need to fold up to a lower height than the dorsal tail wing. Therefore the dorsal would also need to be heightened, which to be honest, I don't trust fully my skills at keeping structurally robust, but I'll give it a bash. But the other thing is, the source material in question. I've modelled mine closer to how it looks in Rebels (where the wedge on the cockpit slopes down at the top rather than up at the bottom), but Rebels designs are arguably questionable, given how stumpy their TIE Fighters are (done deliberately in tribute to the 80s Kenner toys). So are the wings on their Sentinel actually meant to be as close in proportion to a Lambda's as they appear, or was this an artistic choice? And then the other thing is, to me it looks like Lego hasn't modelled it off Rebels or even A New Hope Special Edition, they appear to have modelled it, quite bizarrely, from this old video game representation (even down to the guns or pipes or whatever, poking through the gaps) and their wings are indeed quite accurate to its proportions: Anyway, I'll see what it looks like with extended wings and dorsal, parts permitting, but may not be anything immediate if I need to order.

Thank you for your advice on this part, I've since ordered the more robust 'skeleton arms' to replace them. I've also now updated the rear wings to match the double-jointed landing positioning as seen in Rebels:

Why thank you! It's just I see a thread like the one below and the results are *incredible* that I feel my own silly attempts that take two weeks (though admittedly partly just due to having to order parts and wait for them... then found they don't work right, then try again... and again) and a lot of trial and error to fix something that actually came with instructions are just utterly ridiculously rubbish by comparison haha. I've just sat it alongside the Lambda for the first time and to me it finally looks like a sleek-yet-robust, mechanical, militaristic Imperial spacecraft of the same design family, rather than a shoddy, simplistic, stud-ridden work of laziness that paled hideously in comparison to its bigger brother.

Let me start by saying I'm not very good at modding and useless at MOCing, so forgive me if this is rather rubbish, but I couldn't avoid tinkering with Imperial Landing Craft 75221 until I got to a point that for my skill-level at least, I was reasonably happy with. I've not totally re-engineered anything, which arguably, is what this retail model drastically needs, it needs its entire hull redesigned, but I've tackled what came in the box to what I'd say is the best of my (poor) ability. So with that disclaimer out of the way, here are changes I've made to the ship. Firstly I hated the cockpit, looked unfinished and stumpy, and especially poor with so many studs on top (I especially loathed the wedge at the bottom of the windscreen). I've redesigned it to look more like it did in Rebels and more closely styled in line with the Lambda shuttle to give it a longer, sleeker design. Obviously as you can see, the other major issue I tried to tackle was the open cracks on the container pieces, again without totally redesigning anything, I found (for me at least) a satisfactory solution to be to apply a sloping bulkhead plate to each side. It's not perfect, but does the job without totally reconstructing the thing. I was hoping to find the parts that cover the rear of the pods, and replace the front shell parts with those, but they appear to be currently exclusive parts to this model and which sadly aren't on brick link yet. Various aesthetic changes, such as the cockpit interior, changing the exterior lights all to yellow to match the Lambda, giving a more detailed interior to the crew containers, actual chair pieces for the pilot and stormtroopers although I don't think you can really see them from my photos (why do lego have such an aversion to using actual seats these days anyway?), found a nice white plate for the back with printed greebling on it that's kind of visible two photos above: As you can see from the above, my first attempt at a solution was to close the gap from inside the container instead until I felt that it was far more effective to be done externally. But decided to leave the internal bulkheads in there anyway as the white curves help mask additional interior visible through the remaining gaps on the outside. Plus more importantly, I couldn't be bothered ripping the whole model apart to remove the one massive long plate they designed it with that had all the pipe pieces (that poked through the gaps) on before... so felt this at least covers that up. I also connected the three openable container parts on each side to one another so now they move all in unison as one moveable part, felt it gave it much more structural integrity that way. My favourite addition being a really simple but effective retractable landing gear using droid arms (quite why this wasn't on the original model I have no idea) and for me makes such an enormous improvement so easily: Anyway, there you go. I know it's far from amazing, but I at least like it a hell of a lot more now than when it was freshly made from the box. Feedback is welcome... just don't be too harsh haha.

Unmasked Enfys Nest courtesy of Firestar Toys' heads, and custom-made Dryden Vos.

Wow that is utterly incredible work!!! And there's me just trying to work out how to seal the hideous gaps on the front of the retail Imperial Landing Craft to poor effect... I shan't embarrass myself with sharing my rubbish solutions

Absolutely astounding stuff! Amazing work, well done The only things I would do, if it was me, would be to change one of the Bossk heads to the older Bossk mini figure since they're different colours and just gives it a bit of variety between the two creatures and I'd put in Ackmena, the night-shift barmaid from the Holiday Special... just for fun! But hey that's just me

I'll let you know in ten weeks haha. Bought it for my son for Christmas during Amazon's near-half price flash sale and expect there'll be plenty to tinker with. At the moment I'm working on modding the Imperial Landing Craft and it's taking some serious work (at least on the parts I currently have) to try and sort this thing out. Those gaps at the front of the crew containers are so hideous yet due to its internal construction I'm having a hell of a time fixing it. At the moment just working on building up the interior decor and improved the cockpit inside-and-out until more parts come down. Sadly like you, not found anyone else who's modded that one either so just winging it a the moment and I'm far from an expert modder.

I can’t speak for him but for me personally I find a pencil eraser to be excellent. I use a standard block eraser for bigger jobs and one on the end of a pencil for precise jobs. May take a few minutes, it seems like the top layer of the printing is the toughest but once it starts disappearing it tends to quicken up immensely.

Found the perfect head for you for Tubes: https://store.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3626bpb0859#T=C&C=1

Yup noticed that myself, wonderful little flash sale there, they went straight back up in price by Tuesday. Got 75218 X-Wing for £44.99, 75221 Imperial Landing Craft for £43.32 and 75219 AT Hauler for £48.74 that day and hidden them at home for my son at Christmas!

No worries, thank you for trying and for your information. Explains why I can't find any then, but was hoping it was just me being daft or there was perhaps a discontinued Duplo propellor or something that would suffice. Funnily enough it's actually to replace plates and tiles, namely on the 31064 Creator clipper plane. I know I'm 'missing the point', however I actively dislike how on the Creator range everything except for the minifigs is brick built, even the animals, much prefer the application of specialised pieces on the main System range - there's just some things that never look as good when made in the 80s way. So after having filled the cockpit with printed components and smoothed out and lengthened the pontoons, I wanted to have more realistic props on it like 60116 Ambulance Plane, but sadly there's nothing smaller than those props without going too small and those ones themselves hit the side of the plane.

Just wondering if someone has the definitive answer for what the next size down in propellors is from this one: https://brickset.com/parts/design-15790 It's literally just around one stud too big for what I want (and hits the side of the plane in question), but everything else I find is way too small (bought around 5 different types so far and everything's tiny). I don't mind what kind of Lego theme it's from, just want the next size down from this or just definitive information on whether there is nothing else close? Many thanks!

Has anyone bought the new Imperial landing craft yet and determined how easy it is to modify to get those side compartments to close seamlessly? That gap is utterly hideous and should not be on a finished retail model if you ask me.