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From the George Gilliatt designer Bricklist on Brickset: https://brickset.com/sets/designer-George-Gilliatt This set had a budget for a new print or two and a couple of recolored parts, but it's a "spare parts" kind of set without the budget to make a new unicorn mold. I guess they had a lot of thestrals, hippogriffs, and pixies left over from the last sets to use them.

They do - in the USA.

I'd seen most of those builds before on Flickr, but it's always nice to see them again. Those crossovers really shine. Do you have any plans to do another ST/CS crossover anytime soon?

I've been reading online Lego forums since 2002, and MOC has been used that entire time. I think MOC and SNOT date back to the earliest Lego web forums like Lugnet, which was already old and mostly abandoned by 2002.

That's a fun idea! It's too bad the Adventurers vehicle base never appeared in white, though. Will you build the fighter plane in that style next?

They look like prints to me. The cockpit cone is definitely a print.

A very nice, simple mod to a set that's still on my wanted list. Surely that was expensive?

I'm pretty satisfied with the rule of thumb that fleshies are in licensed sets and yellows are in unlicensed sets.

I like it. A nice, simple, effective mod to a nice, simple, effective set. I wish the retail set had the doors.

I'm relieved to see that none of these really tempt me. I'll hold out for a midsize ISD and keep buying all the Bluebrixx Star Trek midsize models I can afford, but I'm content to pass on the midi Millennium Falcon, Tantive IV, and Invisible Hand.

Some kids get allowances. Some kids get paid for chores. Some kids mow their neighbor's lawns. Those kids spend their own money when they buy Lego sets.

A very nice model of a ship that met a tragic end in 1948 in a Godzilla attack.

@JesseNight, I've thought about writing some sort of article to contribute to a Lego blog, but I've never taken the time to do that. In April of 2022 I built a lot of the MOC X-wings that I had admired over the years and posted them to my Flickr account, so that sort of counts. Each X-wing in my Flickr album has a link to the original build it's based on. My photography is nowhere as good as the photography of any original builder, so you'd be better off clicking the links in my Flickr album than poring over the limited photos I took of each model I built. Clicking the photo below should take you to my Flickr album.

I apologize for not quite understanding what you meant. I wrote that last post without going back and forth between tabs to be sure I was getting your meaning and your words right. Your thought experiment actually isn't just an experiment, it's happened before. I've followed the state of the art of minifig-scale X-wings online for over twenty years, even though it's only in the past couple of years that I've actually ordered parts to build any non-set X-wings. I've also made a point of trying to find all the online pictures of Lego X-wings built before 1999. I think I have a pretty comprehensive understanding of how Lego X-wings have developed over the years. What happens is that when the parts library reaches some state of maturity with respect to the subject, different builders will converge towards the same solutions and they will eventually reach a plateau where each new build will look virtually identical to the last one, at least to an observer who doesn't know a lot about the subject or the state of the art. During that plateau period, there may be a few builders who try different approaches, but their builds generally aren't as successful. Then a new part or parts will come out that enable something that was previously unachievable, and there will be a burst of innovation until a new plateau is reached. During the plateau periods, most builds will closely resemble, externally at least, a pioneering creation by a prominent MOC builder, but internally the structure may be very different, and if you look closely you'll see many differences on the outside that point to those structural differences on the inside. For example, shortly after the first Lego set of an X-wing was released (set 7140 in the year 1999), MOC builders tried to build custom models to correct the following shortcomings in the set: a lack of nose taper, a lack of rear greeble, an overly narrow rear fuselage, an overly wide maximum wing opening angle, a lack of retractable landing gear, a lack of really long narrow wingtip laser guns, and a lack of studs-down (inverted attachment) lower wings. By about 2002, the techniques for this were well known, and the best custom X-wings between about 2001 and 2007 all looked more or less like variations on the Bruce Lowell model from 2003. That design was fully mature with the parts library at the time. It had 3w engines (the same part every time), a rectangular rear fuselage, wings mounted on individual click hinges with no central mechanism, lower wings that were mounted upside-down, and a blunt-tipped nose with a boxy rectangular cross section that tapered back to front when looking from the top. However, the parts library at that time could not make a satisfying X-wing where the wings opened all at once with a center pivot, nor could it make one with 4w engines, nor with a properly hexagonal rear fuselage, nor with a sharp-tipped nose that had a properly hexagonal cross section that tapered back to front when looking from the top and when looking from the side. Also, the subtle rear rake of the lower edge of the cockpit couldn't be done with existing techniques. Because of those shortcomings, there was a period of experimentation from about 2007 to 2010 as different builders tried out different techniques and parts that didn't really produce satisfying, sturdy results. In November 2011, Mike Psiaki posted his X-wing, which took the internet by storm after it was featured on the Brothers Brick. Psiaki had true center-pivot wings, a hexagonal aft tailcone formed with hinges and filled with lots of greebling, a cockpit canopy with a rear rake, and a sharp-tipped nose cone at the end of a nose that tapered back to front when looking from the side and made clever use of Exo-Force helicopter rotors to mimic a hexagonal cross section. Some experimentation continued with other builders, but it was soon clear that this was the best that could be done with the parts at the time. Between 2011 and 2016, most X-wings were variations of the Psiaki design. However, the Psiaki design had notable shortcomings. The canopy was an old Classic Space-era mold that wasn't the ideal shape, the top surface of the nose couldn't have clean markings on it because of its construction, the faux-hexagon nose wasn't a true hexagon and it used rare and expensive parts, the fuselage transitioned to an ugly square slab-sided construction behind the cockpit, and the engine cylinders were becoming scarce. Meanwhile, new parts were becoming available: 4w cylinders became common, enabling larger engines; a new X-wing windscreen was released in 2015; the library of SNOT bricks and brackets proliferated; the library of wedge plates increased; and panels and tiles got larger, enabling larger smooth surfaces. In response to the shortcomings of the Psiaki design, the waning availability of its key parts, the new parts becoming available, and the return of the X-wing to the big screen in The Force Awakens and Rogue One, there was a burst of experimentation in about 2016-2018. These new X-wings featured 4w engines, true scissor wings, true hexagonal paneled rear fuselages, pointy nose cones, noses with true two-axis taper and improved approximations of a hexagonal cross section using panels or wedge plates, fully tiled upper nose panels that allowed different markings, and the new windscreen set at a slight rearward rake. The detailed implementation of virtually everything differed from model to model, but they all looked pretty much the same on the outside. Between 2016 and 2018, most X-wing builds on the web were variations on the Tom Loftus (Inthert) design, which used bars to suggest the windscreen instead of a windscreen piece, and used studded wedge plates to form the nose. Between 2018 and 2022, most were variations on the Jerac v1, which improved on the Inthert design by using panels for a smooth nose and used the X-wing windscreen element. Since 2022, most have been variations on the Jerac v2, which improves on the Jerac v1 with a sturdier construction, refined proportions and details, an improved wing mechanism, and adaptations for the changing availability of parts between 2018 and 2022. In parallel with the fully non-set builds, each retail set of the X-wing has prompted a burst of building as people modify the set to their desire. Usually it's not hard to identify a custom that started as a 1st-gen set (7140), a 2nd-gen set (4502), a 3rd-gen set (9493), a 4th-gen set (75218), or a 5th-gen set (75301), but sometimes a builder will modify and change their set until it no longer has hardly anything in common with the set and becomes fully custom. For instance, the true center-pivot wing mechanisms of most X-wings since 2016 can be troublesome. They don't open all the way, or they don't close all the way, or they're too tight, or they're too loose, or they get off-center, and they can be very difficult to repair. In response, another post-Jerac wing mechanism is emerging. The wing mechanism from 75301 is not a true center-pivot mechanism, as it actually has two pivots. In set 75301 it's clunky, ugly, and hard to conceal. Since 75301 is the most easily available X-wing at the moment, that mechanism has been in most of the recent set-modification builds, and it's now in the fully custom builds. 2bricks was the first that I know of to release instructions for an X-wing with wings that opened when pressing a button in the rear fuselage, but his was pretty clunky. Quarrie's Workshop built an X-wing around the 75301 mechanism that looked almost as good as a Jerac or other top-of-the-line build, but was still recognizably a 75301 derivative. Just last month, Edge of Bricks released an X-wing that's based on the Quarrie's Workshop model but improved in many ways. In my opinion, the Edge of Bricks model looks just as good as a Jerac from the outside, and it looks to be a lot more reliable and less troublesome with the wing mechanism and possibly with the nose. (All modern custom X-wings since 2016 have had very fragile noses.) I think I'll try to build an Edge of Bricks X-wing later this year, and I expect that wing mechanism will become the standard. To summarize, we had about 6 years of the Bruce Lowell Plateau, then a few years of experimentation, then about 5 years of the Psiaki plateau, then about 2 years of the Inthert plateau, and most recently about 5 years of the Jerac plateau. I expect we're going to see a few years of the Edge of Bricks plateau. Who knows what innovations the 6th-gen X-wing (75393) will bring later this year? It's happened before and it will happen again. It's a plateau in design maturity because of the parts available. You build the best one you can with the parts available, and you wait for new parts to come out. Then you build a better one! For MOC builders, that's the most important thing about new sets: only Lego can make new molds that enable new building techniques and push the state of the art forward in MOC building. Without new molds in new sets, most MOC genres stagnate very quickly, and everything becomes a copy. When that happens, it's ok to do the exact same one on the grounds that it can't be improved anymore - but when you do the exact same build on the grounds that you can't improve it, of course you should credit the design to the original designer. That's the whole point of making instructions and posting them online. If you build something from someone else's instructions, of course you don't claim it as your own design! If you made a lot of changes to suit yourself, I think it's perfectly ok to claim it as your own creation, as long as you still credit the original builder. And if it's your own creation from the ground up (as I believe to be the case with the Barneius Delorean), you don't need to comprehensively cite past prominent examples or the first use of every building technique and parts use in your own creation. Nobody's got time to maintain that level of attribution and awareness for everything they choose to build. A Lego creation isn't an academic paper with a hundred references in the literature review alone. (As, for example, you didn't research or credit prior builders with similar solutions in your Delorean, or I suppose in your Knight Rider car or other creations.) If you're conscious of major influences in your build, by all means cite them - but there's no need to be obsessive about it, or to chase down copycats unless it's a really cut-and-dried, open-and-shut, clear-as-day case of bad-faith copying-with-intent-to-profit. At the end of the day, we're all (within a certain MOC genre) building the same thing with the same bricks, and there's only so many ways you can do that. So, there are my two cents (way more than two cents, I can be very long-winded, sorry about that) on "what is the acceptable level of taking inspiration from another MOC".

There's something that Firefabric has said in this thread and on Rebrickable, though not in these exact words, that strikes me as the wrong attitude to have about these things. He objects to the Barneius build because, even though it may have a different structure and different details, it "achieves the same result". In two different Lego builds of the same subject at the same scale with the same parts library, "achieving the same result" is not a mark of plagiarism or competition. It's just a mark of good building. It's an example of convergent evolution with different builders recognizing the best way to do something. If two builds don't "achieve the same result", one or both are likely to have noticeable flaws in shape, proportion, or detail. There's a reason nearly all of the best X-wing MOCs out there look virtually identical. They've simply converged to the same result of what's possible with the state of the art of the Lego hobby today, as far as the nose and the engines are concerned. I think that's what's happening here. Give it some more time, and every 8w Delorean in the future is going to use that same windscreen, that same technique for the taillights, that same technique for the exhausts, and one or the other technique for the hood. That's just what the parts library suggests as it is today. [Edit - and yes, of course Firefabric and Barneius (both of them) deserve credit in future builds for their two excellent, startlingly realistic, models of the BTTF Delorean. Of course they do. Both their models absolutely blow away the competition, except neither of the two is better than the other. But they're both way better than the rest of the field, in my opinion. Nevertheless, I think it's striking that the only Delorean that Firefabric has singled out for criticism is the one that he thinks looks just as good as his own. He has said, more or less, in the page and comments for his build, that his own build is the first one that he thinks really looks good, or really looks like the real thing. So is Firefabric the only builder allowed to do a good-looking Delorean? Is he the only one allowed to "achieve the same result"? /Edit] And nobody has ownership of that - not even the Lego company themselves, given the amount of competition in the building block market today.

Well, these were normal similarities between builds.

They're different in different ways. They aren't posed exactly the same in the photographs - not that you have ownership over those poses either. They aren't as professionally produced. Also, they DO have a lot of common elements with yours, such as the tiles on the sides behind the windscreen and the studs-forward headlights. Those just aren't the similarities that jumped out at you. Meanwhile, they also have a lot in common with each other, and those other creators aren't out there slinging insinuations of plagiarism at each other.

I think some part of this is that Firefabric hasn't made a lot of MOCs of common, popular, subjects that everybody does. In the Star Wars building space, there's a lot of competition on a lot of MOC subjects. Nobody says, oh, I was the first to use 4w Technic cylinders to represent the front of the X-wing engines, therefore everybody else who uses that part in that place should credit me. Nobody says, oh, I was the first to use this part as the tips of the lasers, therefore everybody else who uses that part in that place should credit me. Many people do give credit, but you're not expected to credit every little design detail or risk accusations of plagiarism. Firefabric needs to get used to standards of credit in building subjects that have a lot more competition, and realize that some things are just common elements.

Exactly. Let's not forget that. Star Trek: Axanar forgot that, and they ruined Star Trek fan films for everybody. (Totally different kind of fan production, totally different stakes - but still a cautionary tale.)

I mean they are as different as it is reasonably possible to expect any two builds of the same subject at the same scale in the same time interval to be. They are as different as the two X-wings I keep mentioning.

Yes, I do think you're wrong. I was sympathetic to you when I first started reading this thread, but the more I read it the more things bothered me, until I felt like I had to take a real close look at the two builds myself to see what I really thought about them, independent of what anyone else in the thread had said. And in my opinion, they're entirely different. Because I consider them entirely different, I was then quite bothered that you had taken the action of reporting the Barneius model to Rebrickable with the hope that the mods would remove it from the site. That action is, in the online Lego space, as close as it gets to a formal, quasi-legal, accusation of plagiarism and theft of intellectual property. I then felt compelled to write, in great detail, exactly why I feel that the two builds are entirely different and that you do not have a reasonable claim to credit, ownership, or first use of the distinctive design elements that you seem to value most in your model. I also posted my long write-up on the comments page for the Barneius build on Rebrickable, because Rebrickable is the main platform for discussing those two builds. I think it's important that Rebrickable users can see a detailed third-party write-up of the similarities and differences between the two builds, rather than just the back-and-forth between you and Barneius. I haven't replied to everything in this thread that bothers me, and I won't. The matter is closed. I think the admins on Rebrickable made the right call. I hope that in the future you and Barneius can get along. I hope that there's nothing in the future that will make you want to report another build for plagiarism, especially if that hypothetical future accusation is as undeserved as it was here. In my opinion, this dispute is very close to the Jerac/Zwanenburg X-wing dispute, only in this case the outcome (thanks to the admins on Rebrickable) was the right outcome, and in that case it was the wrong outcome. Both Deloreans should stay up, and do stay up; both X-wings should have stayed up, but one was taken down. I think this will probably be my last post in this thread. Cheers.

All I'm doing is looking as closely as I can at the two models (and the others on the web) to see what similarities and differences I can see without actually paying for the instructions. I'm not trying to prove you wrong. I'm just trying to take a close look to see if you are right! And the evidence does not support you. So which parts bother you, again? If you're not asking credit for any specific parts, what are the similarities that bother you? If you aren't going to point to anything specific and say "he copied that", you haven't got a leg to stand on. In that case, we may as well shut down MOC building entirely. Your two builds are not closely related. They do not have too many almost identical details. They do not look too similar. If asserting a vague sense of "looking too similar" is enough to get you to file a complaint with Rebrickable and make a long blog post about it, then the first builder to make a recognizable model of any particular object has rights to that object in perpetuity and nobody else can ever build it ever again. Relax. There is no plagiarism here. There is no copying here.

Taking time to look at the photos in detail, I'll grant that the Barneius Delorean does look more like the Firefabric Delorean than it looks like any other Delorean on Rebrickable. The photos Barneius took accentuate the similarities because they're taken from exactly the same poses. If all you see is the thumbnails of two very good Lego Deloreans, shown from the same angle, they will look the same, and you might wonder if one copied the other. I'll grant that the following are very similar: The front bumper on each is made with studs-forward baby bows and 1x2 grille tiles in drum-lacquered silver. Is that such a big, innovative detail that it's impossible to come up with independently? Mechael, on Flickr, came up with that bumper (with smooth tiles instead of grille tiles) on March 27, 2022. The taillights on each are four 1x1 plates on each side, mounted studs-left and studs-right, with a 1x2 modified 45-degree slope on top. With current parts, this is simply the best way of matching the source material. Firefabric was not the first to use four 1x1 plates mounted studs-left and studs-right as the taillights. His build was posted on April 17, 2022. A build by Alex_Qwerty, posted on March 24, 2022, used the same approach for the taillights - though there it was a stack of 5 with a cheese slope on the end, not a 1x2 modified 45-degree slope on top. The same builder posted a non-BTTF Delorean with the same taillights on November 28, 2021, which was after MOCturnal had already done it on November 6, 2021. Meanwhile on Flickr, on November 21, 2021 JerryBuildsBricks posted a Delorean that used the sideways-stack taillights topped with a modified 1x2 45-degree slope. The difference with the JerryBuildsBricks taillight slope, in 2021, was that it was studs-to-the-side, whereas the Firefabric taillight slope, in 2022, was studs-up. The same idea, though even simpler, was tackled by legoautohaus on October 28, 2021. Florian Wayne used the sideways 1x1 plate stack, though without slopes at the ends, on March 27, 2019. Hachiroku24 used four stacked 1x1 plates studs-to-the-side, capped with slopes, as far back as October 13, 2015! So is the stacked-taillights slope topped with a studs-up modified 1x2 45-degree slope, as seen in Firefabric and Barneius, really such a huge innovation that it couldn't be done independently? Is that really something to demand credit for? The big black vents on each model are, on each side, two 1x2 cheese grater slopes in black, mounted at the same angle to match the source material. With current parts, this is simply the best way of matching the source material. Firefabric was not the first to use cheese graters for this. His build was posted on April 17, 2022. A build by 2bricksofficial used those on April 29, 2022. A build by KMPMOCs used a 2x2 block of cheese graters for the rear vents of the Delorean time machine on January 7, 2022. They were also used by Astro2022 on December 1, 2021. JerryBuildsBricks, on Flickr, had them on November 21, 2021 - and those were mounted at an angle, too! Also, Greg Muldoon on September 19, 2021 used double cheese graters. TheBoostedBrick did them on December 6, 2020 after an earlier version also had them on October 9, 2019. Florian Wayne used single cheese graters on March 27, 2019. Simply put, the time was ripe to use cheese graters as BTTF Delorean exhaust vents. It was "in the air" and done independently by multiple builders. Hachiroku24 used single cheese graters as far back as October 13, 2015! All Firefabric innovated was attaching them at a slant on a hinge, and that's not a huge innovation to be protective about - but he wasn't the first one to do that, as JerryBuildsBricks had already done it. Is it really necessary to credit Firefabric for this, when JerryBuildsBricks had already done it, and Barneius did it differently? Also, the idea of mounting the exhaust vents on hinges was far from new: it was used in the 2014 Ideas set, and by Henk van der Linde on December 23, 2020, though they didn't use cheese grater slopes as the vents. In each model, the grille-tile greebling on the sides behind the windscreen uses rounded 1x1 pizza tiles and 1x2 grille tiles in drum lacquered silver. This does seem to have appeared first on Firefabric's model before any other builder used those, but honestly is using grille tiles rather than smooth tiles something to get worked up about in a sense of personal innovation? Though the pattern was slightly different due to the lack of 1x1 quarter-round pizza tiles, and drum-lacquered silver wasn't available, Hachiroku24 used grille tiles for the greebling behind the windscreen as far back as October 13, 2015! JerryBuildsBricks had used the 1x1 quarter-round pizza tiles on November 21, 2021. The fusion generator is built the same. That detail is so small that it shouldn't be expected of every builder to do it differently. They use the same windscreen, but that is the obvious windscreen to use since 2022. Both models use studs-up plate construction where the gullwing doors would be. Both models use Speed Champions wheels, which are the obvious choice. Both models use the same wheel arch elements. Both models use the same approach for the wing mirrors, which is really very simple and nothing exceptional at all. Both models use flat studs-up tiles on either side of the windscreen. But the rest looks very different to me, including: The hood. Barneius uses three 2x6 tiles mounted at a slight downward angle, but mostly studs-up. Firefabric uses panels mounted at a slight downward angle, but mostly studs-forward. The area beneath the front bumper. Barneius uses inverted baby bows for a curved, smooth look. Firefabric uses modified 1x2 plates with door rails to give a look of a metal frame. The rear bumper on Firefabric is a studs-backward 1x6 tile with 1x2 arch bricks rounding it out. The rear bumper on Barneius is a studs-backward 1x4 tile with 1x2 baby bows rounding it out. That rear bumper isn't the same in any way that matters. The black structure ahead of the black cheese grater vents is different between Barneius and Firefabric, and the way of mounting it is completely different. Firefabric uses hinge bricks that are easily visible on the outside of the model. Barneius conceals the mounting point deep within the greebled area behind the windscreen. The headlights. Barneius uses transparent 1x1 plates mounted studs-up, for a headlight area on each side that is 2 studs wide and 1 plate (0.4 stud) high. Firefabric uses transparent 1x1 plates mounted studs-forward, for a headlight area on each side that is 2 studs wide and 2.5 plates (one stud) high. The corners by the hood. Barneius uses a flat 1x4 tile area on each side, with studs up. Firefabric uses a 2x2 modified wedge tile to accomodate the larger headlights on each side, with studs out (left and right). The side wiring. Barneius uses a whip, a bar, and a sausage. Firefabric uses a hose, a bar, and a droid arm. Firefabric uses a java bar to extend the side wiring ahead of the front wheel. Barneius secures the whip ahead of the front wheel with a clip and tiles off the greebled area on Firefabric's model. The greeble above the windscreen is a minifig binocular element in Firefabric, and a Friends robot head in Barneius. The grille-tile greebling on Barneius is two segments: an L-shape behind the windscreen and then a straight-up-and-down tile behind the rear wheel. The grille-tile greebling on Firefabric is three segments: the L-shape is broken in two so each part can be at a different angle, and the tile behind the rear wheel is not straight-up-and-down. This indicates a very different way of building the support structure for the grille-tile greebling. The area beneath the rear bumper. Here it is Barneius that uses a bar to give the look of a metal frame, while Firefabric uses 1x2 black cheese slopes to give a finished-off look. The area beneath the license plate. There is a half-plate-thick area between the license plate and the rear bumper on the Firefabric version, while the Barneius version has the half-plate-thick area underneath the rear bumper. This points to a fundamentally different way of building the rear bumper. The rear greebling. Barneius uses robot hands, handlebars, and telephones. Firefabric uses wedge plates and pneumatic tees. The slopes immediately behind the windscreen are studs-up 1x2 modified 45-degree slopes on Barneius, and they're 1x2 tiles mounted at a flimsy angle on Firefabric. That indicates that the area behind the windscreen is built completely differently in the two models. At the bottom of the car body, on either side Barneius uses cheese slopes with studs left and studs right to create a 6-stud-long area that slopes inward. Firefabric's model has studs-up plate stacking in that area with no attempt to model that nuance of the source material. These differing details point to major structural differences in the way the bottom of the car chassis is built. In fact, Barneius uses the latest Speed Champions wheelbase (introduced in 2022) as the base of the chassis. Firefabric builds up the chassis with plates. That is a major fundamental structural difference that means the rest of the car has to be built differently. It would be very difficult to "reverse-engineer the shell" of Firefabric's model and then build a structure in the not-visible parts that uses a 2022 Speed Champions wheelbase, if the Firefabric model wasn't already based on a 2020 or 2022 Speed Champions wheelbase (which it isn't). In fact, Firefabric makes visible (not locked behind the paywall of the instructions) photos of the underside of his car on his Rebrickable page when he shows the modifications to put it on the train tracks. If Barneius was "reverse-engineering the shell and installing a different support structure underneath", why on earth would he use a Speed Champions wheelbase? Why not start with the clearly visible plate-built chassis in those photos? I can't quite tell how the black front grille area between the headlights is done on either car, but it doesn't look the same to me. In my opinion, without having downloaded and read the instructions for either model, those differences are more than enough to fully justify Barneius claiming his build as his own, without crediting it to Firefabric except maybe in a few details that are practically dictated by the available parts library. The common details that seem to bother Firefabric (the taillights and rear exhaust vents) are not, in fact, all first used by Firefabric, and are therefore nothing to worry about in any potential dispute over whether Barneius copied Firefabric, intentionally or not - and that is just from a search of Rebrickable and Flickr, never mind all the other Deloreans that are out there on Instagram and YouTube. The other details that can be different, are different. Beneath the surface details, it looks to me like the structural approach to the model is quite different. There is no outer "shell" that was reverse-engineered and then filled in with some structure that doesn't matter for the purposes of this thread. These two models are no more alike than the Jerac X-wing v1 and the Swan Dutchman X-wing. They look the same in the comparison in the first post of this thread because the angles of the photos are the same and the sizes of the photos are fairly small when seen all at once. They're both fine 8w Deloreans, and that's all. If it feels like I'm taking way too much time to write this post, and putting way too much detail into it, that's because I am. You see, it really bothers me when someone gets suspected of copying, stealing, or plagiarizing someone else's work, without grounds. This is just a playful Lego hobby, but in other settings that sort of thing can ruin careers. It can ruin lives. I think of suspicions of plagiarism as very serious things, because they are so easy to make and yet they can have such serious consequences if they're not thoroughly and fairly investigated. These two builds are - not - the - same. So - it's been established several times in this thread that the Barneius model does not come near "crossing a line" in regard to the "acceptable level of taking inspiration from another MOC." The question of "what is the acceptable level of taking inspiration from another MOC" is a good question, and one worth asking, but the Barneius and Firefabric Deloreans make a bad test case for that question. Because Barneius does - not - come - near - the - line.

The parts count of the Dark Falcon makes me think that they must have made some real improvements to the design, compared to the 2019 version. I don't expect they'll sell the novelty Dark Falcon for more than a year or two, so I bet we get a standard Falcon with some pretty big improvements by 2026.

I think you two were both working on the Delorean from the moment you saw the printed gray windscreen in the Mercedes Speed Champions set and you were just the first to publish. Meanwhile his version was left on the back burner for a while. That's all. This thread helps me understand why the designer of the UCS 1989 Batmobile was so intentional about doing absolutely everything differently than the Dave Slater MOC, and even leaving off some interesting features because Dave Slater had already done them, for fear of accusations of plagiarism or theft of ideas. Cripes-a-mighty. Every X-wing looks the same. Barneius has now given you some credit where credit wasn't necessarily due. You can both move on. Note - for myself, I do make sure to credit other builds I've seen even when I do my version completely differently. But I only post a couple pictures of my builds to Flickr, and I've never made instructions or posted to Rebrickable, so what do I know?