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Blakbird

Technic Regulator
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Everything posted by Blakbird

  1. Blakbird
    Wow Sariel, this is really well done. Looks very accurate in motion. Thanks so much for designing this and offering it to the community. I can imagine it having a much broader appeal than a typical Technic MOC.
  2. Blakbird
    If you liked those then you are really going to like these.
  3. Blakbird
    Time for some comparisons. Here is the 5571 Black Cat rig which is positively dwarfed by comparison. Lucio's crane truck and the bucket wheel excavator stack up a bit better, but both of these are massive models in their own right.
  4. Blakbird
    I knew it was 180 pages, but I didn't really understand how huge the roof is. Almost 900 part and it took me the entire Saturday to model it. But this means that I'm finally done! I think the model looks pretty good and hopefully doesn't have too many mistakes. Now I can concentrate on making some awesome renders.
  5. Blakbird
    I was looking for pictures of the real Lonestar to compare and they all had chrome wheels so I thought it would be more realistic that way. Just a personal choice.
  6. Blakbird
    Nothing to do now but the roof, but that's still 180 pages!
  7. Blakbird
    Yes! I was already planning on those two. Have to finish the model file first though .....
  8. Blakbird
    Yes, the doors were relatively easy. Synthesizing the flex axle in the right shape and making the u-joint on the mirror attach to it was the only trick. The black flat portions of the sleeper should go pretty quickly, but the roof and the sun visor look fairly complicated. I'm not done yet! I hope MLCAD can handle it. I have not even attempted to add any of the pneumatic hoses or wires. If someone who is good with LDCAD wants to take the file when I am done and add these things, it would make the renders that much cooler. I also plan to do some renders of the truck next to other well known large models for scale since it is hard to understand just how big this thing is from photos alone. I'm open to suggestions of what models would be good choices for comparison.
  9. Blakbird
    They are expensive, but I don't find the price out of proportion with other RC upgrades. The price is usually a function of how much metal there is in the parts, and there are really big. True they increase the steering axis offset, but RC wheels also tend to have a lot more depth so it may cancel out. No. There is cross drilled hole you can see in the axle. You put a pin through here and then connect a 12mm hex which drives the wheel. This is how virtually all RC hubs work. I agree these are too expensive for me to use any time soon, but there have been times in the past when I was looking for exactly such a thing. If you want a really scale appearance model, RC wheels are way more accurate.
  10. Blakbird
    The price is high, but if you are into the RC hobby it is pretty typical for metal parts like this. Of course, there is no need for RC quality parts on LEGO models, but they sure do look good.
  11. Blakbird
    4700 parts now. I've added the doors and exhaust stacks.
  12. Blakbird
    I can't believe I've never seen these before and I couldn't find any thread discussing them either. It appears that RC4WD now sells wheel adapters which connect to Technic hubs and allow the use of RC wheel and tires. Lots of people have been using 3rd party RC tires for MOCs for a while, but I've never seen a good way to also use the wheels. http://store.rc4wd.com/RC4WD-Wheel-Adapter-for-Toy-Blocks_p_4349.html I have RC tires on my copy of Sheepo's Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, and I am strongly inclined to use some RC wheels as well.
  13. Blakbird
    Good point, this will actually be tricky to classify. It actually fits best with my Racers category, but it is not technically part of that theme. It compares quite reasonably with 8649.
  14. Blakbird
    Up to 4400 parts now. Parts at weird angles are hard in LDraw and the hood was therefore a big nightmare to build digitally. I built the grille and sides of the hood perfectly on grid and it looks really nice, but the black sloped part on top of the hood does not technically fit unless it is bent a bit and LDraw doesn't do that well so I spent a couple of hours just rotating assemblies around to make it look good without being able to tell I cheated. It came out OK. I also added the flex axles at the side of the hood which worked quite well. The front looks like a Lonestar!
  15. Blakbird
    The F-14 came out in 1972 and has been retired since 2006 so he should be good.
  16. Blakbird
    He's just using the Force.
  17. Blakbird
    Just finished the second of three instruction books, 753 out of 1080 pages, 4100 out of 5789 parts. The sleeper goes a lot faster than the chassis because it is mostly built on grid, but there were some funny angles in the firewall and the chain around the external battery box was a real challenge.
  18. Blakbird
    I'd be willing to bet that the parts alone are about $1500 at average Bricklink prices based on my building of many such sized models over the years. For even one of them, you are looking at probably 30 hours in labor to order and track all those parts. Even if you value your time very little, that is several hundred dollars in labor. Then to make a kit you also have to sort and pack all those parts which for 4000 parts is probably another 10 hours. 21% of the price (~$700) is VAT which has nothing to do with the model and goes straight to the government. So the actual "profit" here is probably only a few hundred dollars per model, and that's not accounting for any of the time spent designing it and making the instructions. As someone who has made a lot of instructions, I can say that there really isn't any money in it. You never break even for the time spent. Based on how many people will even buy instructions for a large model like this much less a kit, I'd guess it will take 5-10 years to sell them all. I don't think any of my instructions have *ever* sold 200 copies, and that's for only a few dollars. But getting back to the model, it is just incredible. Really looking forward to the video to see how all those functions work. I have built a couple of Jeroen's car models and they are top notch. The F-14 is one of my favorite planes and this is a great rendition. I'd like to see a photo of it next to another model for scale because it is hard to understand how big it is.
  19. Blakbird
    Not really. The key is to build in submodels as much as possible so the whole model doesn't need to be regenerated every time you move a part. This model is not really modular so I've had to be selective with how I choose what to put in a submodel. It helps to have a lot of practice.
  20. Blakbird
    3550 parts. This stage was particularly difficult to model. The angle connectors over the front bumper don't actually fit geometrically which means they are slightly stressed on the model. No big deal in bricks, but in LDraw I need to fudge all the locations to get it to look right. Then there were the flex fenders. A lot of manual manipulation here to get them to look reasonably smooth. I think it came out all right.
  21. Blakbird
    That's quite a collection!
  22. Blakbird
    3050 parts.
  23. Blakbird
    As soon as I get the LDraw file I will add it to the LOX car render.
  24. Blakbird
    Very impressive! I hope you are able to transport them to Germany safely.
  25. Blakbird
    2750 parts. I feel like I am making good progress but I am only half done.
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