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Nice truck!! Those colors work well together. The new mud guards are great! They really open up the number of wheels that can be used with them. Curtis

Hehe - probably not. But, they seem to prefer the models with the skirts (and we're starting to accumulate a fair number of Friends now), so I might be able to get one. Of course, that might also open the door to the kids wanting to paint their own...

This is a beautiful looking ship; I'm eagerly watching your progress!

Unfortunately, the doors left no room for the exhaust. Tradeoffs, right? I haven't tried any minifig customization yet, but it may be time. How does acrylic paint bond to the LEGO plastic? My experience (although not recent) has been that acrylic paints have a tendency to flake off after a while, and these are likely to have at least moderate use by small kids. Agreed! Although some cats and dogs get along fine together! With Michelle Knight?

Thank you, everyone! Yes, there's a decided shortage of Friends torsos at the moment. Maybe 2013 will have a biker set or two ;-) Knight Rider would be cool - I'm looking forward to it! Curtis

V-LV-23F Inspired by 5973 Hyperspeed Pursuit. I always thought that hovercar would look good with wheels. One thing led to another, and here we are with yet another black interceptor :) Credit to ER0L for the cat instead of a dog :)

Wonderful job! You nailed the shape, and I love the tires!

Thanks, everyone! Light bley doors would probably match the rest of the truck better, but I'm otherwise happy with it. Curtis

Clever design and a nice inspiration - thank you for sharing! Like others have said, that's a neat idea for the pistons. Curtis

V-LV-22E Here's a modification of the pickup from 4437; converting it to allow Friends to drive it. I re-did the cockpit to allow two minifigs to sit side-by-side, and covered the back in a manner similar to 4433. In addition to the opening doors, there's another play feature - the spare tire on the roof. My youngest daughter had the worst luck - she would drive 1-2 car lengths, then get a flat tire. She would swap it out, drive into town to get a new tire, and the process would repeat. She must have gone through 12 different tires in the course of 15 minutes :)

Nice little engine! I was going to ask where the water tank was in the tender, then realized it was a tank engine :) Making the pilot truck fixed instead of swiveling is a nice idea, and fixes the issue of interference with the piston rods.

Sailing the seas of cheese, eh? I'm assuming Tommy the cat is in the cabin? Nice boat! I like the size and shape, and your water is very clever! That's an awful lot of cheese slopes :)

Thank you, ER0L! Your cars have been quite the inspiration. It's been fun trying to re-create one with the pieces I have on hand. No Flickr account, though I doubt it would be hard to set one up. Curtis

Thanks! I've managed to drop the roof by one plate by removing the tiles the figures sat on - it helps quite a bit. I've updated the pictures above. It's still taller than the minifig, though. Perhaps a SUV should be next... Thank you LEGO Train and Lightningtiger! Curtis

V-LV-22B I recently purchased Stephanie's Cool Convertible to expand our Friends collection, and to see a LEGO car that sat two figures side-by-side. Overall, it's a nice car, with a nice color scheme. However, there were a couple of things that bothered me about it: The figure looks over the windshield, the steering wheel is at her feet, and the doors don't open. So, I attempted to rectify those omissions with this model. However, my kids wouldn't let me take the convertible apart, so I had to substitute with other pieces.... (Edit) - I've managed to reduce the height of the roof by one plate by removing the tiles the figures sat on. Updated pictures are below: This is what I came up with: Back view: The trunk doesn't open; that's one thing I need to work on for the next version: Opening doors: Unfortunately, the overall height of the car is a little tall compared to the figure: An interior view - the passengers now have a little more arm room: And finally a comparison shot with the original convertible and my attempt at one of ER0L's 7-wide Corvettes: Comments / criticisms? Curtis

Beautiful locomotive - I love the color and the proportions! Curtis

I'll look through my pictures and see if I got anything; although my focus was mainly on the (SEALUG?) Old West layout in the middle. Edit: No, unfortunately no shots of the container train or the blue building. Apparently, my daughter and I had eyes only for the western stuff.... Curtis

I'd have to say that while some do not, there are also those that do. My daughters (5 and 2) have absolutely loved the Friends series. They head straight for the Friends display in the LEGO store to play with the new colors of parts - and that display / building station is one of the busier parts of the store, so it's not just them. If they ever made fairy and mermaid Friends, my kids would go out of their mind with excitement :) The minidolls have grown on me to the extent that I think I'd like to see them replace the traditional minifig. The minifigs just look short and stumpy in comparison. Unfortunately, even if they did, it would be quite some time before there was anywhere close to the amount of variety that there is with the minifig. Maybe LEGO could do a series of collectable minidolls.... I do see signs that LEGO isn't abandoning girls that prefer traditional LEGO series. Look at the increasing role of Nya in NinjaGo, for example - going from a stereotypical 'sister to be rescued' to building and piloting her own mech that can beat all 4 ninjas at once. Curtis

Hi, all! I've been lurking for a couple weeks now. I'm coming out of a roughly 20-year dark period, as my kids are starting to become interested in LEGO. My interest is mainly 1860-1870's US trains. I've been working on and (mostly) off to convert the Toy Story locomotive to a Mogul with less toy-like proportions; I'll post pics when I actually have something to share.