WetWired

Mine arrived yesterday (with a free lego shirt!) I didn't get a chance to build it yet, another parcel of bricklinked pieces arrived the same day and I had to make sure all the pieces were there and clean them as well, they were filthy!, don't think I'll use that bricklink store again. I did open the box (not the bags though) to make sure it all was there, it's the first time I've seen sand green in person, it's a really nice colour!

That's the main reason I built a second black one, to sell, probably on ebay. Yeah a fleet of different coloured ones would look cool, but after I've done the camo one I need to move on and think of a new MOC to do, I'm completely stumped for ideas though? I'm far more interested in trying to recreate something that exists in lego form that original creations, don't know why I just find the challenge fun.

The pieces for my camo tumbler arrived today (as well as my green grocer dammit, not enough time to even start it) and I thought I'd share a few photos before I dye it tan, It's a ghost batmobile :-D I also bought parts for a 2nd black one X-D

I comparatively new to all this, so I was wondering what the best/most popular site for displaying your pics is? Personally I signed up to flickr and after numerous failed attempts at uploading photos I gave up and quit the site. I had a look at brickshelf but it's not the best laid out site and there's no ratings or review features MOCpages I actually did sign up and posted my one and only MOC (for now) so far it seems pretty good, I can create a page with text and html formatting with numerous pictures, ratings and reviews, my only complaint so far is that there's no browser type feature for the pictures (ie you can't click next and previous to see the next photo, you have to go back, then select the next picture to view) The other option of course is self hosting on your own site but it takes some time to set up and you can't set up ratings or comments (well you probably could but it'd be a pain) Is there any other options? what do you all use/recommend?

apart from the batman character minifigs themselves, even the enemies are too cartoony for me, too over the top, I'd love to see a joker minifig from the dark knight. I made up a a bruce wayne from batman begins, basically just the lego one but with brown hair, and I'm working on a Lucius Fox, just need some brown hands. What I'd really like to see from the batman series is what the star wars line is, no frills construction of the movies characters and scenes, no liberties taken (ie joker ice cream van). A really good representation of the tumbler and tim burton's 89 batmobile/batwing.

Batman I love batman as a character, probably my favourite superhero, but I hate the lego batman line. They're just too cartoony for my tastes (no surprise seeing Lego is a kids toy *wacko* ) I would never bring myself to buy any of them, I just bought a couple of batman minifigs to use with my MOC Tumblers. Indiana Jones The first 4 indiana jones sets were actually my first purchase coming out of the dark ages a mere 2 months ago. I think I prefer the vehicles over the playsets though. Not sure about the new sets coming up for kingdom of the crystal skull. I think I'm uncertain because I haven't seen the movie and can't relate the lego sets to the scenes in the film yet. I'd really like to see a flying wing set, zepplin and tank sets from the original 3 movies. Factory (Cafe Corner, Green Grocer etc) I do love the look of these, I'm waiting for my first, the green grocer to arrive in the next week or 2, can't wait. Overall, being an AFOL, I not really into playablity in sets and more into displayablity buildabilty with the pieces.

nice work!, may I ask do you order parts specifically for your MOCs? or do you have a large collection of pieces to build from? at the moment my collection is pretty small so I order parts specifcally. I do have a lot of old pieces from about 100 sets I had as a child, but I don't like mixing them with new parts :)

I have 2 I was gonna put on ebay shortly, though one doesn't have a figure and they're not perfect, no box or instructions Buzzy Bulldog with Mailbox, Telephone, and Motorcycle http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/3793-1 This one is complete and the telephone handset shows signs of stress but is otherwise fine Bernard Bear and Pickup Truck http://www.peeron.com/inv/sets/329-2 No figure with this one, and the tow ring at the front of the car is broken, the lego block show wear but the fabuland specific pieces (apart from the tow ring) are fine if you're interested in any let me know by sending me a message, I can take some photos

yeah go nuts make your own version, it didn't stop me from making yet another batmobile

cool, the big eyes kinda creep me out a bit though :'-(

that's the cafe corner though, I'm after the green grocer

I just recieved a bricklink order of one of the basketball player torsos with brown arms and hands, I was going to use the brown hands on a custom minifig, but I was shocked to find that the arms and hands are one piece and I can't remove the hands from the arms as you can with other minifigs. Does anyone know of any torso's that have removable brown hands? or does anyone here even have some they are willing to sell\trade?

I bought it from autobarn which is a chain of car accessories stores in australia, the kind of place that has seat covers, car stereos, car cleaning products etc, most places like that you should find it, as it's designed to be used on car dashboards etc I was thinking the same about restoring white pieces, I can't see why it wouldn't work, I was going to try it myself but at AU$18 a can it is bit expensive to buy just for the small amount of discoloured whites I have. My only worry with white is that it would be a different shade of white than the lego colour

yes, it's labeled vinyl and plastic dye, it contains acetone which is a key ingredient to the dye, I think I may have put the dye on too thickly on some parts, and it couldn't soak in because there was too much, also I tried fitting them together before the 24 hours are up which I'm sure didn't help :( it doesn't seem to scrap off on all the studs though, hence why I think I put it on too thick in places, when I do my final dying I'll be sure to be more careful to spray it more finely but with more coats

yeah that's what I plan on doing, otherwise I will have mismatched colours throughout the MOC, the original tan lego piece in the photos is only for reference. I'm making a version of my batmobile... ...in this colour scheme the reason I'm dying instead of using tan is that I can't find all of the pieces I need in lego tan, namely the rollcages at the front which don't exist at all in tan, and the little 2x3 left and right wedges do exist, but I can only find one of each on bricklink in the entire world. So I plan on buying all white pieces and dying them custom tan then hand painting the brown camo pattern

I had a piece in my motorcycle chase indiana jones set that was supposed to be tan but was a weird greenish colour compared to the other tan pieces, I just sent a complaint mail to the customer service section on lego.com and they asked what piece was faulty, I sent back the peeron name and colour and they send 2 replacement pieces within 10 days from germany to australia! just send them a mail and you should get a replacement (or 2) sent to you

I don't eat while I build, don't want to get my pieces greasy, but I park myself in front of the tv usually with the bonus behind the scenes stuff from a dvd playing, as it's usually people talking and I don't need to look up to follow it.

I'm working on some custom dyed and painted pieces to make a version of this... In this colour scheme

So I found some vinyl dye and set up an experiment to see if it'll work on a MOC I plan to make. I was after something close to tan, I knew I'd never match the colour completely, but I was never going to mix tan pieces with the dyed pieces for that reason. I prepared my pieces, some broken or just old pieces I didn't need anymore, of varying size and types to get a good idea how it will work in all situations I put tape around one of the pieces to see if masking would work and allow me to have nice crisp lines, or whether the dye would seep under the edges I also put in a black piece to see how the dye would respond to a dark underlying colour, to see if I would need an undercoat of white on black pieces I planned to dye. I set them all up, I raised some on toothpicks thinking it would be easier to spray all around them, but after the first coat I ended up taking them down and spraying them on the cardboard instead and turning them over when I had sprayed one side (it is touch dry in 5 minutes) 3-4 coats later about 10 minutes apart,(an extra coat for the black piece to be sure) and they were done, I left them to set for 24 hours as you're supposed to do and here are the results. I added an official lego tan piece for reference. As you can see the black piece is exactly the same colour as the white pieces, no undercoat will be needed, and the masking worked well, though I couldn't make the tape stick around the studs and the line isn't clear over the top. I will probably still mask, but hand paint with a paint rather than dye for areas like that, as I want to have the masked areas brown on top of the tan, and there isn't a large amount of brown to do, it's not worth forking out AU$18 for another can of dye for such a small amount. The pieces are a bit tighter clicking together, and the dye does scrap off around the studs after you've connected them if your coat is too thick, the MOC I'm using it for will be permanent and won't be coming apart once it's done so it won't be noticable, and even if I do pull it apart I don't plan to make anything else from it. So be warned if you plan on bulk dying piece to be mixed in with your collection, I would only use the dye on specific one use-pieces.

I think lord of the rings is the only other theme they could bring out that would generate sales close to what star wars has. Haven't said that it was only the recent indiana jones theme that brought me back from the dark ages

This isn't perfect but I'll run through what I did to get my parts list from LDD to bricklink for my batmobile In LDD Go to FILE> EXPORT MODEL then in the pull down menu switch the format to LDRAW FILES (*.ldr) type in a filename of your choice and click OK open brickstore (download link) Go to FILE > IMPORT > LDRAW MODEL Select the file you exported from LDD and click OK Now here's the hard part, 99% of the time for me it comes up with an error saying "incomplete item" so you either have to click fix and see if you can find out what the ldraw ID number is and then try and figure out what pieces are missing judging from the description and quantity it gives you or or click delete and then try and figure out which pieces are missing by looking at the list and comparing it to your file in LDD and then once that's all sorted, select all your pieces in brickstore (CTRL-A) and go to FILE > EXPORT > BRICKLINK WANTED LIST TO CLIPBOARD which you can then paste into bricklink On a large LDD file like the green grocer I'm guessing there will a be a lot missing :/

does anyone here know where to find the green grocer in australia? apart from lego.com Either online with reasonable shipping or in the Brisbane area?

ah well that explains the price now. Can't say the skulls set is doing it for me though :/

Thanks a ton! that's a huge help, I'll buy a can tonight and experiment before I go ordering the parts have you had much experience with painting parts? type of paints etc? I may attempt painting the camo pattern on each brick if the tan works out well

I've decided I'm going to create a a camo version of my batmobile tumbler Problem is, I can find most of the pieces I need in tan, except the 4 x 4 roll cages (which only come in black, white or mdstone) and while tan 2 x 3 wedges (left and right versions) do exist, they've only ever been in one set (one of each in the star wars snow speeders) there is literally only 2 of each available in the entire world on bricklink (and one of the sellers doesn't ship to my country) and I need 5 of each for the tumbler. I know many people probably frown apon vinyl dying lego, but for the following reasons I don't think I have much of an option The Roll cages aren't available in tan (which I could deal with, and I'd be happy to have black) tan 2 x 3 wedges are very rare and I can't get as many as I need These pieces would be used for this creation only, and I may even hand paint the brown camo pattern on it Now I could just buy white 2 x 3 wedges and dye them only, however I highly doubt I can find a vinyl dye the would exactly match legos tan colour (pantone 467 C) so rather than having a tumbler with 2 different colours of tan on it, making it look quite dodgy. I figure it would a better end result to buy all white parts and dye them all a similar tan colour so they all match. So my question is, has anyone got any experiences with dying lego with vinyl dye they'd care to share? I have found a tutorial online for using vinyl dye but is related to computer case modelling which uses the same type of plastic (ABS). I will do a lot of tests first with some old spare white pieces I have lying around and also try using a white vinyl die on yellowed old pieces as well while I'm at it as an experiment to see if it can restore their colour to match it's original state.