Roses

Thank you all for the comments! I'm glad you all like the cockpit and the yellow stripes - they were the very first thing I built. I was underwhelmed by the UCS' curved slopes solution, so I really wanted the head of the ship to be as smooth as possible and to give the yellow stripes the slight curve that they have at the 90-degree bend. Thank you! I did think about switching the reddish brown bars for light-bluish-grey and the astromech droid for an R5-F7 that I have, to make an alternate version, but ended up going with the Gold Leader's R2-BHD. I'd like to Photoshop edit the MOC into the Death Star trench in the future, though, so having different astromechs could be a good idea to represent different Y-Wings in the squadron

I built this one a few weeks (months?) ago but never got around to sharing it here. I disassembled the last UCS Y-Wing to get some parts to build this one (mainly for the engines), which is a tad bit closer to minifigure scale, but still too big. Nevertheles, matching the greebles to the studio model of the Y-Wing was a lot of fun and I think the final result turned out pretty neat. I'm sometimes late posting here , but you can always check out my other minifigure-scale-ish Star Wars builds on my profile or on my Instagram account @rosesmustbuild

Hey, as a fan of unconventional building techniques, I really like that head - gives it a much cleaner look. What's the size difference between v2 and v3? I'd love to see this version's head on the second version's body.

This is the first time I'm learning about this type of art, and I haven't seen any MOCs depicting it either, but it seems like your best bet might be a SNOT outline for shaping, with a mix of tiles & studs for the inner fill. The hardest part would be minimizing the gaps between the chalk art shape and the grass surrounding it, particularly if you were to use curved slopes to create the chalk art outline. Depending on what technique you use for the grass you might be able to achieve a cleaner look with part 24855 (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=24855#T=P), which wouldn't necessarily be tied to the grid-style construction of studded surfaces, or with 32607 (https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=32607#T=P), whose overhanging leaves would allow you to cover some gaps. If you'd like your chalk art to be recessed from its surrounding environment, then a filled drawing would be easier to deal with, I think, than just an outline. Would a tiled look with patches of studded areas for texture look too smooth? There are plenty of textured bricks that you can lay on their sides with SNOT techniques, but those would also create very subtle textures across a mostly flat area. If you have any pictures of the surface area / type of terrain you have to work with or any WIPs you worked on, it sounds like a fun puzzle to solve.

Thank you! I'll keep in mind to check out Stud.io and how it handles illegal techniques when I get around to making instructions I'm glad you like the P-Tower, it was the trickiest of the two to figure out. I can't make instructions right now due to schoolwork but I'll be updating this topic as soon as I make digital instructions or shoot a photo breakdown in mid-spring. .

------- DF.9 Instructions + Studio file on Rebrickable: https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-111749/RosesMustBuild/hoth-df9-turret/ ------- These two are the last builds in my minifigure-scale-ish Battle of Hoth series to accompany the UCS AT-AT, and now join the Hoth AT-ST and Snowspeeder. I've been a fan of the 1.4 FD P-Tower (AKA Hoth Dish Turret) for a long time, so building a detailed, minifigure-scale-ish one was a lot of fun. It was a surprisingly difficult build - particularly the back! I don't think I ever built a DF.9 Turret before, mainly because of its smooth, slightly conical shape which proved difficult to build without specialized pieces. The 5x5 arch pieces from 10295 Porsche 911 gave me the boost to try and figure out how to build one of these turrets. A bunch of 1x2 & 2x2 curved slopes and some tricky SNOT & hinges work later, and I think it's got a pretty decent shape. You can check out my minifigure-scale-ish Hoth AT-ST & Snowspeeder by navigating to my profile, or on my Instagram account, where all my builds go: https://www.instagram.com/rosesmustbuild I'd love to make instructions for these two in the future, since they are rather small and easier to disassemble & reassemble. However, due to some illegal/dubious techniques used, it'll have to be detailed photo instructions, unless there's a LEGO instructions-making software that can handle illegal techniques? It's been years since I used LDD's automatic instructions feature, so I'm a little lost on how most MOC creators go about making instructions

More displayable statuettes with vignettes, please! The Tallneck looks marvelous and I'm glad it's not more than 100CAD! Hopefully it sells like hotcakes and gives LEGO a reason to make a whole series out of the HZD creatures. The minifigure-scale MOCs online of the Tallneck and Thunderjaw are jaw-dropping, but these smaller-scale renditions will make for neat little desk pieces. It's a long wait between announcement and release, though. We'll be playing the waiting game for the next 2 1/2 months.

Lovely colour blocking on the platform with the dark blue edges and the yellow railings & supports! I don't often get a cozy feeling out of industrial settings but that tiny station makes for a nice little nook. Great use of the Millennium Falcon Cockpit for the bay window, too. I've often wanted to dabble in some offshore platform-type MOCing but haven't known how to go on about it. Well done packing so many details into a small vignette and dealing with a seamless octagonal structure!

Well, that was quick! Looks quite good in terms of shape and proportions between overall size and superlaser dish. I'm wondering, could the surface plates throughout the entire model be made a brick thick like the section around the superlaser dish instead of one plate thick? That would allow for the replacement of 6x6 studded plates by 6x6 SNOT sections that, by combining 1xX plates, 1xX tiles and 1x2 jumper plates, I'm sure would create a very subtle but nice texture resembling the film model.

Oh, I'm also a strong adherent of hopes and dreams for holding things together . It's very difficult to sacrifice details and accuracy for the sake of sturdiness. Thank you! I have a makeshift setup using dollar store carton sheets and standard Ikea desklamps, but the real savior is Adobe Lightroom to adjust the exposure and white balance of the subjects and the background separately, that is if you're shooting with RAW. Here's the original shot I took for the edited picture, for which I used a greenscreen: That is before Lightroom editing for the color temperature, exposure, highlights and shadows, and Photoshop for removing the stand and the green reflections from the green screen that are all over the AT-ST, and for the background editing. The Snowspeeder and AT-ST are the first two MOCs I've ever used Photoshop on, and I can't sing the praises for that program enough.

Here's a quick picture I took of the AT-ST with my recent Snowspeeder MOC: Ooh, thanks for sharing that picture! I couldn't find any actual side by side model comparisons online but it's nice to see how different both versions are. Thank you! I did try using a 6x6 dish, but it was much too big. Brickvault's Endor AT-ST uses the rare 5x5 dish, which I believe would be the best fit for the Hoth variant: ] Unfortunately, I don't have any in my parts collection, and they would set me back about 25CAD if I were to buy two at the same Bricklink store. I think the 4x4 dish is the closest, most convenient replacement, though. Nope! There used to be plenty of room inside the cabin to build an interior, but I ended up using that space to increase the structural stability of the AT-ST's head. Building interiors is something I'm trying to improve at, since I tend to set all focus on the exterior, then on the back and underside and finally on the inside. It's a low-priority zone for me but the MOCs that manage to include interiors do add a nice additional layer of detail to the build.

Thank you all! These are the main reference pictures I used: And here's what the Endor variant looks like: The main differences are the proportions between the head and the legs, and the overall shape of the head, which looks stubbier and more elongated towards the back on the Hoth version. Not very ... Originally, it was fully articulated with all five movable joints on each leg. Going from the top of the leg to the feet, there were: (1) The joint connecting the body to the legs, to which I added a worm gear mechanism to try and make as stable as possible, (2) the forward top joint, (3) the first backward knee, which I think is the only movable joint on the new official AT-ST, (4) the lower backward knee and (5) the ankle. Since the vehicle is so top-heavy and tends to lean forward, I had to fix most joints so the model wouldn't topple over while on display. I managed to get it in a walking position thanks to some quick adjustments, a stand to hold up one of the legs and some Photoshop magic. Thank you! Greebling is my favorite part of building , it's a fun challenge trying to figure out what piece will be the perfect fit to recreate those tiny little details. I'm currently building a minifigure-scale Y-Wing, and that is 90% greebling!

So after building a minifigure-scale Snowspeeder, I thought I would give the Empire a bit more firepower (not that they really needed it, come to think of it) and build an All Terrain Scout Transport - the famous AT-ST. Though its fame is attributable to its appearance in Return of the Jedi, the vehicle made its first very brief appearance in The Empire Strikes Back. Featuring different proportions from its Endor variant, the Hoth AT-ST seems to have longer legs and a stockier head, which made figuring out the approximate size of the vehicle a bit of a challenge. The model is about 31 centimeters tall, half the size of the minifigure-scale AT-AT, so about 11 meters if it were in full scale. Most sources place the AT-ST between eight and nine meters tall, which I assume is for the more famous Endor variant, whereas the Hoth AT-ST seems to be taller to brace its snowy environment.

Always physical. I tried getting into Stud.io one time but I just love the physical interaction you get with in-hand pieces too much, despite its limitations when it comes to parts-availability. I used to have a bunch of sets from different themes like Creator 3in1, Star Wars, Space Police, Bionicle, Power Miners, etc., but my focus has shifted over the years towards big D2C sets, so all the smaller playscale ones have been disassembled for a long time. That's the main source of parts for my MOCs. Otherwise, the Pick-a-Brick wall is amazing to get filler pieces like plates, bricks (normal or with studs on the sides) and brackets. I've only been buying from Bricklink very recently, but mostly random interesting / useful parts, without a certain MOC in mind.

Oh boy, that's a pretty wacky solution. Do you have any pictures of this? It's interesting to see what extremely unconventional techniques people come up with. Unrelated to terrain building, but a unique technique nonetheless, which was mentioned by Stuartn and Generaltons bricks in the topic on bow strings, are the vines in Sean and Steph Mayo's Forestmen Guild MOC, which may have been made by melting and stretching throwaway parts: I think they might have just bent the frame of this piece: Purist? Not purist? Probably doesn't matter , but it does produce a unique effect. Yes, I'm leaning towards creating slopes with plates instead of bricks to save pieces, but then it does become a bigger challenge of engineering a strong inner structure. I'm sure there are large MOCs out there that use this technique, but I don't have any in mind to use as a reference... Come to think of it, it might be easier than one thinks to build a frame for such a type of terrain. An inner rectangular, cubic or any combination of straight-angle shapes made with Technic beams would be easy to make, and then one could use ball joints to sculpt an outer frame that would be both flexible and able to sustain a fair amount of weight.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree with focusing on texture and would love to build something in Davis' style. I did try going for something diverse with the rockwork on my motorized lighthouse, mixing studs-on-top and basic SNOT techniques, which I believe may have lightened the slope load while maintaining some structural stability. I think the problem arises with large MOCs, though, that would need particularly strong frames not to collapse under their own weight, and that may use terrain as a secondary element for something more important, like a shack, a castle or a hidden base. In that case, it would be more practical to resort to slopes and bricks to create something stable that won't turn into a technical nightmare and wouldn't divert too much attention from the main focus of the build (in terms of time spent figuring it out and building it). I do wonder if there's a cheaper way of building something large that would get the job done and look moderately interesting. I know it sounds like asking for everything - big, pretty and cheap - when it often seems like you can only ever have two of those qualities and never the third , but it's a puzzle whose solution might lie with the right techniques.

Building mountains, hills or any type of terrain that isn't just a flat array of plates and tiles can be very parts-expensive. Personally, it seems nearly impossible to make something larger than a small mound using pieces from one's own parts collection, without buying more pieces online specifically with this purpose in mind. Here are some examples of LEGO mountain MOCs from the web: Jangbricks' mountain with train tunnel - heavy in slopes and bricks (looks like there are some BURPs used, though, which do help to ease the piece load?) YSDWDY's Hoth Echo Base entrance, from this topic: Asimon481's cliff with waterfall. And another cliff and waterfall MOC, this time by Grant Davis, who used large curved slopes to create a very unique and beautiful texture: Of the examples above, Grant Davis' cliff seems to use the least amount of parts, at the expense of needing to find a way to angle them all together to minimize the amount of unsightly gaps. The techniques used and the texture created are so intricate that the rockwork itself becomes the focus of the MOC. However, for MOCs where the terrain is used as a prop upon which to set more important elements, this technique could be more of a headache than it's worth, despite how impressive the end result looks. I'm currently trying to build the entrance to the Hoth Echo Base, but am having trouble getting it off the ground, since I'd like to use the parts in my collection. I'm considering using a lot of plates angled with hinges and with some texture added to them, like Povoq's Castle in the Forest, which uses this technique on its right side: How do you go about building terrain? Do you have any particular tips, tricks or techniques to build good-looking terrain without resorting to emptying your bricks and slopes bins?

Flying through the Hoth landscape: Thank you! Sorry, I don't have any plans for making instructions for this model...

Oh, I'm planning a whole little scene for when the AT-AT is finished. I'm also working on a couple of rebel turrets and am anxiously waiting for the release of the new minifigure packs Thank you! Thank you, those stripes are a tiny detail I'm pretty proud of . I didn't pay much attention to the underside of the speeder, so it's pretty messy in terms of structure . If I end up revisiting it, that's one section I'd like to improve.

I'm currently on a Hoth grind after getting the minifigure-scale AT-AT. Since TLG has (strangely) no system Snowspeeders available right now, I decided to build my own! It was heavily influenced by Flying Waffle's version, who has multiple minifigure-scale Star Wars MOCs on Brickvault, I highly recommend looking at their other creations, they are quite impressive for their scale. I'm frankly pretty happy with how my version turned out, particularly the back grill and the canopy with the slight outward angle on the sides. That part was a pain to build - the sides of the cockpit are attached to the wings while the upper part just rests on top of it. Nevertheless, it's one of those little ships that, even when built at an accurate scale with minifigures, is pretty small and manageable - way less of a headache than a Hoth AT-ST, which I'm currently working on and keeps toppling over ... Thanks for checking it out!

Those are some lovely pictures, I really like the different colored backgrounds. They add a cartoon-y pop that complements the micro scale of the ships very well. NPU on the Rogue Shadow cockpit and the Y-wing nacelles!

Outstanding sculpting on the cockpit area, well done!

Swung by my local Store this morning to pick up the Titanic and the box is huge! I'm surprised the box is an inch or two wider than the UCS Millenium Falcon's and the Star Destroyer's. The store had a couple dozen sets and there were enough people queuing up to buy them all. This is going to be a tough largest-of-all-time set to surpass (World Map? Shhhhh ).

Woah, that is massive. Well done with the smoothness and the straightness of the lines. The geometry of the face is also fantastic. I look forward to seeing how the rest of the body will turn out (and how big it will be!) Do my eyes deceive me or are there hinges on the bottom of the torso? Do you plan on building his spies?

My guess is in a couple of weeks, as the 2020 and 2019 announcements have been done in the last week of September.