radmiralthrawn

Thanks! That alt build was kind of my gateway drug for getting into Rebrickable/instruction making, alt builds/MODs, and even finding my way back to this site after 10 years away. Thankfully my go-to username wasn't taken yet when I made a new account here. I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds it fun, even if most of my friends don't get it.

I love the U-Wing. It's one of my favorite Star Wars ships and while Lego's most recent model was sleek and modern, I kept feeling like it could be improved with relatively little needing to actually change. My first crack at updating the ship used only the pieces from the original set and it fixed a majority of the issues I had with it. The pilot didn't have to lay down anymore, it had a pass-through from cockpit to troop bay and it could hold 3 passengers instead of 1. But I still wasn't completely satisfied. The biggest thing I was still missing was the pilot's view out the lower front window. I also had some minor aesthetic changes I wanted to make to bring the engines closer together and to eliminate some gaps in the doors. The end result uses just 9 pieces to get the essential upgrades, or 21 for a little extra polish. With the full 21 piece MOD coming out to just ~$1.75. Link to Free Instructions on Rebrickable This new and improved U-Wing has all the features of my original alt build plus: Pilot now has a view out the lower front window Engines are closer together with less vertical gap The gap between the doors and the fuselage (when the wings are deployed) has been eliminated More headroom at the rear of the troop bay All original Lego play features still functional and it's still sturdy and swooshable I'm very happy with the result! The only missing feature left is the sliding doors, but that would be a much bigger (and more expensive) MOD and I wanted to keep the costs low and maintain the sleek profile of the original set. Room for 3 in the troop bay! More accurate views from the cockpit! Pilot or K-2SO can sit upright in the cockpit, can see out the lower window and into the troop bay, and the troops can see out the lower front window as well! I also wanted to shoutout RonMcphatty and his U-Wing Alt Built which served as a fantastic jumping off point for my take on it. His designs are always phenomenal and have inspired me to get more creative with my own builds. Also a big thank you to Clone OPatra for shouting out my original Alt Build in their U-Wing review.

Thanks! I'd not heard of MLCad before, I'll have to check it out as well as the OMR. I really appreciate the tips!

I'm not sure the official term, but I've gotten requests for "rework" instructions meaning the instructions would start with a completed official build, show what sections and parts to disassemble fully or partially, then rebuild. I'd assume a majority of those looking for MOD instructions to tweak an existing Lego set would've already built it the official way, so it makes sense that they'd want to minimize unnecessary disassembly. I've just been struggling with how to show the disassembly portion of the steps in Studio.

I've worked on a couple of No Extra Parts MODs to sets as my first crack at breaking into the MOD/MOC side of the hobby. I really enjoy it so far and making the instructions, while tedious, is also fun. However, I've gotten a lot of requests to make "rework" style instructions as these are MODs to existing sets and many users have already built them to the original Lego instructions. Instead of disassembling every part and rebuilding from scratch, it's theoretically easier for those builders to keep some sections intact if they are partially or completely unchanged from the original build. But I've struggled to find a way in Studio to accurately do this outside of "build to Lego Step X" and then swap to MOD instructions, back to Lego for Steps Y-Z, back to MOD, etc. This works fine in some cases, but feels like a hack job in others with a lot of PDF editing and clarifications needed (e.g. disassemble section A, but modules B and C intact, then build Lego steps G - J, etc.). Does anyone have any tips for a newbie to make this style of instructions in an easy, clear way? Thanks for the help and advice!

I know it's bad form to reply to such an old thread, but I just wanted to say thank you for the kind words about my MOD! I was totally caught off guard when I found this post. As a newbie in the MOD/MOC world, this was incredibly confidence boosting and made my day. I was checking my Rebrickable stats and saw some random views coming from Eurobricks, a site I hadn't thought about in over a decade. My old account was long since forgotten in my dark ages, but I had a lot of positive memories that came flooding back. So thanks for helping me find my way back here and for the shout-out, it really means a lot.

Hello all! It's good to be back! I had a profile on here from back in 2010, feels like an eternity ago. I went into a bit of a Lego Dark Age during college, but slowly got back into things once I started making my own money. Years later and I've become less interested in just building sets, but starting to fiddle around with MODs and MOCs and Alt Builds and it's so much fun. I mostly lurked on reddit and forgot about this lovely site until one day I noticed my rebrickable alt build was getting like 2 views randomly from Eurobricks. Well, the memories came flooding back and I suddenly felt the nostalgic urge to rejoin the crew. My old account's password is long since forgotten, and the email I used to start it is defunct so I couldn't recover it even if I wanted to. But I'm happy to be back. Big thanks to Clone OPatra for shouting out my U-Wing alt build in their review of the 75399 set. It was totally unexpected and completely made my day. For a newbie in the MOC/alt build space, it was really a big confidence boost and makes me want to keep creating and improving! And was also the only reason I found my way back here in the first place.