jFox

Oh my goodness! Plenty of MOCs have made me lean forward to stare hard, but this made me jump back a bit and cry out "What the <expletive>!" Jaw droppingly cool! The elementals are really cool, but the architecture caught me off guard. I love the elevated design, and the consistency of the columns.

I kept track of prices and parts with excel in addition to the BrickLink wanted list, and the cost of parts was just over $700 (about $.14 a part). Thousands of pieces for less than $0.10 each (hooray!), but then hundreds of large plates, big technic bricks, or just plain hard-to-come-by parts for $.50 or more each (yikes). And one rare, ridiculously priced radar dish for $30. More on that below. Ways to cut down on the cost: Buy used if you don't have a problem with that. I didn't want to run into a situation where I had gross or dirty parts, so I only bought new pieces. A few extra pennies here or there adds up for a set this size. I may get over this in the future, but for this project I wanted clean pieces. (Sure, the MF is a dirty ship, but I want MY dirt on it, not someone else's .) Fewer orders overall. I don't know what the total shipping cost was, but I had a LOT of smaller orders. Also, color matching. For some pieces that are not visible, the color doesn't really matter. I was a stickler and got every piece in the right color (with a couple of exceptions below), but doing so can add up. Some greebling parts are hard to find as well in the right color. You can buy parts directly from the Pick-a-Brick online shop that was linked up above. The inventory here is a bit limited, and also pretty expensive--for common parts BrickLink is a much better option. You can also buy parts direct through LEGO's Replacement Parts system. I read about this on a forum somewhere, and it works out pretty nice, though it is a bit of a clunky system. Just follow this link: http://us.service.le...ts/default.aspx. From there you can specify a set and the parts you need for it. A few caveats on this system: You set up the parts and the quantities, then send LEGO the order. A few days later they send you an e-mail with single price for the whole order. You'll have to call them up to get a price-per-part breakdown, or respond to that e-mail for a breakdown. This will take another couple of days (unless you call). Then once you're satisfied you have to place the order by phone. The parts will take a week or two to ship, as they come direct from the main facility in Denmark (though when they messed up my last order the correct parts came faster, from Connecticut I think). Some parts or colors of a specific part are not produced any more. If an item is out of stock, they will tell you in an e-mail. If an item is no longer produced in a certain color, you may get the parts in an alternate color. That happened for me with one or two parts. Some examples: The radar dish - LEGO does not produce the printed dish for this set anymore. I bought a plain bley 10x10 dish, but once I looked at it I decided to bite the bullet and buy one. Cost me $30, and I think there's only a few more for sale from U.S. vendors right now. Pirate ship rigging - the back of the ship has two light bley 28x4 rigging pieces covering the engines. LEGO does not make these in bley anymore, and the few people selling them on BrickLink are asking for $60 each. I bought mine in black for $.50 each. Decided that particular detail was not worth the extra $110. Rigid hoses - There are 3 different lengths of hose piece, and one of them they didn't make in bley, so they sent me black. The only alternative in bley were overseas sellers at $3 or $4 each. I'm fine with black for now. Do it! It's the most fun I've ever had with LEGO, and that doesn't include building! You can get replacement manuals from their replacement parts system. I didn't see an option for it on the site, but when I was on the phone placing another order I asked the representative and she added one to my order. It's expensive though; the manual cost over $50. It's humongous, spiral-bound, heavy, and over 300 pages. You can also download .PDF files from the LEGO website. I look at computer screens all day long; I didn't want to do that while building. Plus, I didn't like the quality of the images in the PDF. For anyone else thinking of doing something like this, I highly recommend it. If there's anything else you'd like to know, or anything I missed, ask away! After staring at this inventory for a couple of months I feel like I know it pretty well.

Hi all, I'm still sort of new here, but I thought I'd share my excitement for any who may be interested. I had a tiny emergence from the dark ages a few years ago (when the MF was nearing the end of its life), and told myself that someday, I'd buy that thing, $500 be damned. Well time passed, I went back into the dark ages, and when I started looking at LEGO again recently I saw the crazy prices for this set had to admit defeat. Five hundred bucks was one thing, but triple that was just not going to happen. Now, I had used BrickLink before to buy a few sets, and one day I was thinking about getting back into LEGO, poking around on the site. By random chance, I found the Wanted List feature. Then, I discovered you could use that Wanted List to search the stores. And add an entire set to said list in one go. This blew my mind. So I decided then and there that I would embark on a quest to assemble the pieces for this behemoth, and what a quest it has been! Okay, maybe "quest" is a bit over the top... but still, it's been quite the adventure for me. So the first night that I seriously sat down to buy some parts, I probably placed 12 or 15 orders. Well a few days later those parts started showing up en masse. I got home from work one day to see this pile of packages laid out on my desk. I guess I didn't actually think of the logistics of getting thousands of plastic pieces sent to me from all over the globe. The next day, there were so many packages that the mail carrier just left them in a post office box by the front door. My roommates could only shake their heads at this and sigh at the absurdity of it. I could only chuckle and think "what have I gotten myself into?" I think the mail carrier hates me after all this. Another couple of days, and a few more packages. Here's a whole bunch of them laid out. Last one of boxes, promise. :) Now, some orders I placed directly with LEGO because BrickLink didn't have the quantities or reasonable prices. These took a bit longer to show up, but they got here eventually. The very last order I was waiting for was from LEGO. This also had an instruction manual, because I didn't want to build this huge set while looking at a computer screen the whole time. Anyway, it had a few different pieces in the order, but when I get to the last one on the list I found a problem. I had ordered 23 of a light bluish grey wedge plate, 4x2, left. The color was the dark grey, which seemed odd at first but I was okay with. I had a couple other parts that were different colors, like the rigging pieces on the back. $60 each for two of those on BL? No thank you. Uh oh... one of these things is not like the other! No, as you can see in the picture above one of the plates was facing right. I triple-counted to make sure, but I was one piece short. One piece. Out of 5,000+ pieces I was missing one single wedge plate. My journey was almost complete! My quest nearly finished! So close... and yet, so far. I couldn't help but laugh a little at the situation. I called LEGO customer service and they were very nice about fixing the problem for me. Sent me the right color too! :) So now I have all of the pieces together, and am ready to start building! Unfortunately it took a little longer than I thought to get all the pieces and I have to move in a couple of days. So after I unpack and get settled I can begin. I've been living vicariously through BobBongo1895's thread about a similar journey, and the anticipation is killing me! She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts? Cost-wise, I know now that I made a few mistakes along the way. As I'm sure many of you know BrickLink takes some getting used to. As amazing as the site is there still is room for improvement on the interface side of things. I wasn't aware of all the sorting options, so surely I ended up paying too much for some parts. I definitely had too many orders, and the shipping added up over time. But I found out about so many other cool sets and parts while searching the BrickLink stores that this journey has been worth it a hundred times over. My wallet may hate me, and my friends, family and girlfriend may think I'm obsessed. But I don't care, I love these plastic bricks! (Also, to get my fix while waiting I've picked up a ton of other sets... does anyone else find themselves buying boxes faster than they can open and build them?) Sigh... I need a LEGO room.

Hehe, this is very cute! I particularly like the mother/grandmother alien. That head works very well with the short body you made (and the legs/dress are a great touch too). Reminds me of any number of hunched, little old ladies I've seen in cartoons over the years.

Beautifully done! The interior is fantastic, and I especially love the pattern on the floor. The only thing that stood out for me was the box of assorted swords in the corner. With such care and reverence for all of the other pieces of equipment in the dojo, this seems a little out of place. But other than that, it looks wonderful. I love this style of architecture, and wish LEGO would make more sets like the Ninjago Fire Temple.

The almighty Google can do currency conversions! Just google "430 euros to USD" and you'll get $570.35.

Wow, thanks for the great review of this series of minifigs. I fell in love with the collectable series when I first encountered them, and I think I might have to pick up a case of these when they come out.

Why not just purchase a gladiator directly from Bricklink? You could get several of them for the price of ten unsuccessful attempts.

I second this point. While sure, someone can just decide to collect anything--common or otherwise--the UCS sets seem to be much more than your average set. Look at the first letter of the acronym. This is the ULTIMATE Collector's Series. I would think most (if not all) people on these forums are collectors in one way or another, but a few choose to go that extra mile with the sets they choose to buy. This is a good point as well, and not just for the specifically labeled UCS sets. How many people have spent a lot of money either on a boxed set, or Bricklinking a Taj Mahal, or all the sand green pieces for the Statue of Liberty set? If LEGO rereleased some of those monstrous sets they would probably lose quite a few points in the eyes of some people.

This method works out just fine (and will be a lot of fun later). Go out and get a box of gallon-size ziploc bags (or smaller, depending on what you need to store). It makes everything much more compact and you don't need to worry about anything breaking. Plus, while you are disassembling all of your sets you can take this chance to dust whatever needs dusting. Take a soft-bristle paint brush to the pieces as you go, gets dust off really nicely.

Wow, the new design is amazing! I was pretty impressed with the original, though like others have said the colors were a little bit off. It's hard to capture the color subtleties of weathering effects with LEGO. With this new version, though, I think you've captured the building beautifully. Most of the official Architecture sets are unremarkable to me, but I'd buy this one in a heartbeat. Two thumbs up!

Good job on the pictures! Makes for a very entertaining record of the (massive) build. As someone who also went the BrickLink route for this set, I salute you!

Hello everyone! I've been lurking around since I discovered the site a few months ago; I figure now is as good a time as any to jump in and join the party. I recently came out of my dark ages and found there's a whole set of vocabulary for AFOLs--including AFOL and dark ages! And I figured what's the best way to start slow, gradually getting back into the LEGO hobby? By parting out a UCS Millennium Falcon, of course! It's been a long, fun trip accumulating those pieces from Bricklink and LEGO directly, and it's almost completed--then the building begins! Along the way I've discovered all kinds of sets and themes I never knew existed, and my poor wallet is crying out in agony. He'll get over that eventually though. My LEGO interests: Star Wars - My love of Star Wars goes far beyond LEGO, so that's a no-brainer (although many Clone Wars sets are kind of "meh" for me). Castle / Kingdoms - Loved the castle theme as a kid, and man-oh-man are there so many castle sets to choose from now. I especially like the troll sets, will have to get some of those some day. Ninjago -This theme was not very interesting to me at first. Ninja and monster trucks? Um... okay? Then I saw the Destiny's Bounty ship and the Fire Temple. I love old, Japanese art and architecture and these sets really impressed me. Saw a few episodes of the cartoon online, was fairly entertained by it. Oh, and the dragons. Love the dragons. Minifigures! Interesting minifigs from any set, theme, or collectible series. MOCs - I haven't made any of these yet, but seeing all the interesting things out there now I have a strong desire to get into this. A huge thread here on building a medieval landscape (http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=53197) inspires me to no end. Dark red pieces! For some reason any time I see dark red in a set it makes me drool a little. The Robie House, for example, from the Architecture series... Other interests: Art - I especially love concept art from movies/games etc. Storytelling with still images. Video games - I teach a course in computer graphics for video games at a local university. Playing games just means research for work! Kendo - Had to take a break for a while, but getting back into it. So that's me in a nutshell. Thanks for letting me introduce myself; I'm excited to be jumping back into this! Love these little plastic pieces...