Ralph_S

Thanks, also for the suggestion. I've looked at all kinds of options to see whether I could do this in a purist fashion. If I were to build a fictional jet I'm sure I could use them for the canopy because I could design the aircraft such that they would fit. For this thing, however, they are too angular and too short. I also wouldn't be able to make the canopy open properly. The only purist solution that would give me approximately the right shape would be to sculpt it out of transparent bricks, plates and (cheese) slopes. It would probably mean that I'd have very little space for an interior, heavy and expensive. Cheers, Ralph

Really nice. When I saw the pictures of the work-in-progress I already suspected that it was going to be nice. I am definitely not disappointed. I saw it on flickr too. Have you heard of LUGNuts? It is the group for LEGO car builders on flickr and this is just the sort of thing that would be suitable for it. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks. The last ones were retired in 2006, sadly. They were simply too costly to maintain. However, the navy is facing a 'fighter gap' with older Hornets running out of fatigue life and the JSF being delayed. The only Tomcats left in service fly with the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force Because of spare parts from the Navy's Tomcats finding their way to Iran in the past, most retired Tomcats are already being scrapped. There are only a few dozen left Thank you. The weapons fit is one of the things that distinguishes Tomcats in their last years in service from those from earlier times, so I felt it was important to get them right. It also makes the machine look menacing. I just popped my Top Gun soundtrack CD in my player :-) Cheers, Ralph

When I first saw it I have to tell you I didn't really like that window either. However, looking at it again today I changed my mind somewhat. It really doesn't look like a regular tractor unit you'd see on the road somewhere. They don't have windscreens like this and IMO it looks far too big for that (I think that most of LEGO's own trucks are just about the right size). However, I could imagine something like this working in the logging or oil industry or in construction. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've got a picture of something not all that dissimilar in a book somewhere. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks. I used to have a Tomcat model kit (a VF-84 Jolly Rogers aircraft). I suck at painting though, which is part of the reason why I make my model aircraft out of LEGO . Top Gun came out when I was barely a teenager (yes, I am that old) and I probably didn't even know what a Tomcat was. I know that by the time I first saw the movie a few years later I was already getting more interested in military aviation and owned a book on Tomcats (Tomcats Forever) and loved the jet's looks. Seeing them in action wasn't really possible in the days before video-on-demand and youtube and Top Gun was probably the first time I did, even if it was all simulated and scripted. I still love that movie just for that. Thank you. The cockpit solution is something that I used to be criticised for on a fairly regular basis. It isn't LEGO after all. I have been experimenting with brick-built windows for a lot of different MOCs lately, including aircraft, but for a large canopy like this using plastic still seemed like the best option. Star Wars canopies simply don't have the right shape. It simply wouldn't look right if it weren't armed to the teeth I'm glad you like it. They are big beasts indeed. They're massive; bigger than many twin engined bombers from the 2nd World War. It's one thing to know the measurements, it's another to stand next to one. Sadly it was pretty rare to see them in Europe and now that they've been retired probably rarer (I have no idea whether any museums in Europe have one). I saw a Tomcat at a Dutch Air Force open house day years ago. The day took take place at a time when a US carrier happened to be near and they sent over a few Hornets, a Prowler and a Tomcat. Not completely by coincidence, the Tomcat was a VF-14 'Tophatters' machine The second time I saw a Tomcat was on a trip to the US at the Wings over the Rockies museum in Colorado. There I had the opportunity to really get a close look at it. I was there on a week day outside of a holiday period and it was very quiet. This gave me the opportunity to get really close, just short of crawling underneath and poking my head into the wheel wells. Great fun. Thanks for your comments on my build technique. I built planes long before there were various types of wedge plates, so sculpting their shape out of plates and using half-stud offsets seems the natural way to do things for me. Wedge bricks can be nice, but it's rare to find one that has just the right curvature for my needs. Cheers, Ralph

I don’t quite remember when I first saw the movie Top Gun, but it was a few years after it came out in the cinema. I’ve seen it again not too long ago and came to the realisation that it is actually quite cheesy. However, the air-to-air combat scenes are top-notch and I just love seeing Tomcats. I’ve had LEGO models of Tomcats longer than some members of Eurobricks have been alive. One of my Tomcat models was in brickjournal a few years ago and the first MOCs I posted on Eurobricks almost five years ago were models of US Navy jets. Since then I have built several more. For instance, I have built a whole range of aircraft models representing aircraft that served with Carrier Air Wing 8 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in 2001. Despite having two Tomcats in my collection (an F-14A in the colourful 1978 markings of VF-84 Jolly Rogers and a black F-14D that was flown by VX-9), but felt I could do with one more, because none of the two I had were in the right markings for Carrier Wing 8 in 2001. I chose to build an all-grey F-14A that was assigned to Fighter Squadron 14, also known as the Tophatters. Toned-down Tomcats often had a very weathered appearance. Exposure to the moist and salty conditions at sea meant that maintenance crews fought a constant battle against corrosion, often patching up the paint scheme. It isn't immediately apparent from these pictures, but in order to recreate that look on my model I used both old grey and newer medium stone / light blueish grey parts for this jet. The mix isn't completely random. Most of the upper surfaces are old grey; most of the lower are new grey. Another reason for using two different colours was that the the parts I used to build my other Tomcats simply aren't all available in either old or new grey, which meant that unless I was willing to completely change the design I had to use both. When the Tomcat first entered service with the US Navy it was exclusively used as a fighter aircraft with air-to-air missiles only. When the US Navy's A-6 Intruder long-range bombers were retired in the early nineties it left a gap that couldn't completely be filled by the F/A-18 Hornet, the only attack aircraft left in service. To make up for this gap. Tomcats squadrons started performing the air-to-ground mission as well. In the aircraft's last years in service, they mainly served as long-range attack aircraft. The weapons on my model are typical for attack missions. The jet carries two laser-guided bombs under its belly, two external fuel tanks under the jet intakes and a total of four air-to-air missiles (a single AIM-54 Phoenix, a single AIM-7 Sparrow and two AIM-9 Sidewinders). To guide the laser-guided bombs to their target, the jet also carries a LANTIRN targeting pod. For flight at lower speeds and for maximum agility, the Tomcat's variable geometry wings are spread. Here you can see the new model together with the older model in the colours of The Jolly Rogers. More photos of all my Tomcats (including some really old ones) are on flickr. The design is basically a copy of my existing Tomcat models, but I wanted to share it regardless. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks. The cars from LEGOLand are a massive inspiration, but it doesn't make sense for them to have functionality. I, however, love making opening doors and such on my cars and if the doors open, they should have a decent interior. It makes the build more complicated, but also more fun. I'm glad you like it. Thanks. Building them was a nice little puzzle. Cheers, Ralph

There indeed is just one. Brickish has about 200 members from throughout the UK (as well as a few foreign members, including yours truly). Obviously because the population density is the highest in the South, that's where most of the action is (we have a big annual event in Swindon, for instance). That said, I've been to events in Sheffield, Stoke-on Trent, Leicester and Manchester, to name a few places. Members from Scotland tend to have events up there. Beyond that it's a great way to find out about where you can get discounts, a way to participate in LUGBulk, you get a quarterly newsletter and you get to know other LEGO builders. There might not be events close to where you live, but there may be other builders with whom you can get together. I've made a lot of friends through Brickish. They're a great bunch of people. Membership costs £12 a year and is worth every penny IMO Cheers, Ralph

No problem. I'm not easily offended, but obviously 'racist' is a rather charged term and I think you have to be a bit careful how you use it. Cheers, Ralph

Sorry, something went wrong with the link to Rodrigues' pictures. The gun barrel on my friend's Edinburgh was made with a technic axle and technic pin connectors. I wasn't making an offer, he has asked me to collaborate with him on his latest project and my comment was supposed to be a link to a thread on flickr about it, but I messed up there as well. I'm having little luck with my BBcode tonight I fixed both links in my original post. Anyway, we are building a minifig scale model of USS Intrepid, a WW-II Essex class aircraft carrier. It ought to be more than 6m long when finished. He'll build the ship. I'll build the planes it'll carry. I think you are seriously underestimating the amount of parts and time that building something like a type 45 destroyer to minifig scale will take. Cheers, Ralph

Enlighten me please, what is the 'non-racist position' in this? Do you think that using one colour exclusively is racist? If so I disagree. I don't mix yellow and flesh-coloured figures in part because it steers clear of any race issues, which is exactly why LEGO chose to make their figures in that colour in the first place. It's all a matter of perspective. Cheers, Ralph

Actually, I may use 1/45 most of the time (and so does Merlin for their LEGO discovery centres), but since minifigs are such weirdly shaped little things, there is quite a bit of freedom. Obviously, for a large ship I'd opt for the smaller end of the scale. The aircraft carrier that prateek linked to is compressed quite a bit and probably closer to 1/60 in terms of its length. A good friend of mine has built two excellent minifig scale ships (probably close to 1/43): HMS Edinburgh (a Royal Navy type 42 destroyer) and HMS Hood (a WW-II battlecruiser). A type 45 destroyer would be somewhere between those two in size. I've got a collection of parts going into the hundreds of thousands and I couldn't do it. My friend has been collecting and buying LEGO for most of his life and Hood wiped out most of his collection. The only way he can go bigger is by enlisting me to help him out Mikey is right. Forget it. A much smaller scale is definitely the way forward. Check out the wonderful ships by Mark Rodrigues for inspiration. He does both waterline and full hull models. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. I did consider using tape to make the diagonal stripes on this car and the ambulance and fire engine that preceded it and still use the odd sticker now and then (including a few on this model), but I indeed felt that if I could make it look decent with bricks, I should give that a try. I am glad you like the result. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you for your very flattering comments. I appreciate them. Your vehicles are lovely. They might not be the exact same scale as mine, but they are nicely proportioned and detailed as a collection they look great together. Trucks are wider than SUVs. SUVs are wider than cars. Fantastic. I agree on the truck wheels. The size that LEGO uses for their trucks only come in one variety, so there is no difference between the front and back. However, for the slightly larger diameter wheels I use for some of my trucks and you use for yours there indeed is. I have used different rims, but the same idea on my wrecker truck and the green bus/coach. Thank you. Of course, this is all a ploy that allows me to be lazy in the future by referring to this thread rather than explaining things from scratch whenever I see a new minifig vehicle that looks a bit weird I forgot to reply to MetroiD: a four-wide vehicle challenge might be fun. In order for a four-wide to fit in my scheme, it's going to have to be a model of a really small car: a Mini or a Smart, for instance. Cheers, Ralph

Building realistic jets in LEGO can be quite a challenge and this is a pretty good effort. I saw this on flickr a while ago and made a few comments then. Having taken a look at it again, I have a few more. As you know, I tend to build my jets a bit larger and don't use minifigs with them. For minifigs this somewhat smaller model is probably better. The proportions aren't perfect, though. A quick count tells me the model is about 50 studs long. My own Eagle models, are about 70 studs long. Even though your model is a lot shorter, the width of the forward fuselage and the width of the intakes are the same on yours as on mine. IMO that makes the forward fuselage look too big relative to the rest of the aircraft. Those folding intakes are nice, but I had sufficient space for them on my models. I'm not sure you do too. You don't show pictures of the bottom of the aircraft. I'm not sure why, but I suspect the relatively large width of the jet near the intakes compared to the width near the exhausts gave you some issues. I'm very curious to see how you've fixed those. The dark grey/bley suggests you were building a Strike Eagle. One of the other things that makes this version stand out compared to regular fighter Eagles is that they typically carry a lot of bombs. Your model would look more convincing if it too carried a full weapons load, as a few other posters have already mentioned. The canopy is almost always an issue when building jet fighters, since the available pieces rarely match the shape of the real fighter canopy. I agree that it isn't ideal for them to be overlapping, but this is probably the best purist solution you can come up with for an F-15. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks. I'm flattered by you wondering whether I work for LEGOLand. I don't work for them, but I really like the way they build their car models. I bought a copy of a book about ten years ago called 'The Ultimate LEGO Book' (I've got a version in Dutch) that has a lot of pictures of models built for the various LEGOLand parks in it and those were a huge inspiration for my own car building. I'm glad it shows Cheers, Ralph

Thanks. I would have loved to have have a row of tiles, but there's no way of fitting it without a comprehensive redesign of the whole front of the car The engine isn't the issue, but the half stud offsets at the sides and the SNOT work that holds on the front bumper, headlights, radiator and the cheese slopes used on the mudguards are. One thing I did modify since I took the pictures was swap a few white plates for orange ones on the first row of plates. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks for the great comments. I am glad to know my insights are appreciated. Some people prefer a larger scale because they want to fit more figures inside. Some people prefer a smaller scale because they build big cities, because they fit in with older city sets they have in their layouts or because they scale things to fit with their 6-wide trains. It all depends on what you want to do with your vehicles. However, for a realistic collection of vehicles the guidelines still apply no matter what the scale as Ricecracker confirms. As some of you know, I also build larger vehicles (approx 1/22, with trucks usually 14 wide and regular cars 10-11) and the same guidelines work there as well. The 1/45 scale is simply the one I prefer as offering the right balance between level of detail, not dwarfing the minifigs standing next to them and also because it fits with sets. I myself tend to not use sets in my own city displays, but in collaborative layouts some people do. I also normally don't build trains. I built one a few months ago and made that 8 studs wide. Obviously it doesn't do corners well, but I have no intention of running it on a layout, so that's not an issue. Building cars with a body that is an odd number of studs obviously comes at a price. They are more complicated and take up more parts than the cars in City sets. I go through 1x1, 1x2,1x3 and 2x3 plates, jumper plates and 1x1 tiles, for instance, like they are going out of fashion. Even a small hatchback can use as many as 17 jumper plates. Windows are another issue. Lego don't make suitable car windows that are five or 7 studs wide. Sometimes you can work around it, as I have done on the green bus/coach, by fitting a six-wide window to a 7-wide body. On real cars the roof is typically narrower than the body, which means that you can use a four-wide roof construction and windscreen on a five-wide vehicle. Some vehicles do end up being an even number of studs wide; my SWAT van, for instance. I see classic town 4-wide vehicles as a special category. When I had city sets as a child cars were 4-wide, so there's a certain nostalgia at work when I see them. However, in my opinion they aren't really realistic representations of real vehicles. I think they are somewhat cartoonish impressions of vehicles, just like minifigs are cartoonish impressions of people. Still, even on four-wides trucks typically had larger tyres than regular cars. @Ricecracker: I cannot overestimate how large the influence of 'The Ultimate Lego book' has been on my car-building. I used to build cars before I bought my copy almost 10 years ago (mine is in Dutch by the way 'Het ultieme Lego boek'), but the level of detail displayed by the professional builders from the LEGOLand parks was far beyond what I used to do at the time. My cars nowadays tend to be full of half-stud offsets and that too is largely due to seeing cars in the book. Cheers, Ralph

Sorry. I didn't realise that your gears didn't actually touch each other. I'm glad you've sorted it out. Cheers, Ralph

In the last week or so I've been participating in quite a few discussions about minifig vehicles. Since I find myself frequently writing the same comments, I figured I ought to put my ideas in a post of its own. This is not the "be all end all" of minifig scale car building, but I've built about 50 or so in the last two years, so I know a thing or two about them. Minifgures are awkward little creatures. They are much too wide for their height. Consequently, if you want your minifig scale car to seat two figures side-by-side it is going to look too big with the figure standing beside it. If you want your models to look good with figures and buildings going for a smaller scale can work. What can also work is building larger things to a slightly smaller scale than small things. That's what they tend to do in LEGOLand parks. In any case, there is no such thing as 'perfect minifig scale'. Since they are so oddly-proportioned, I pretty much gave up on using minifigs 20 years ago. However, about two years ago, The Brickish association organised a competition for our Christmas get-together that involved building a cafe-corner compatible building. I dug out the old minifigs and had a blast building mine. While I was at it, I also decided to build two cars to go with it and I immediately ran into the question what size they were going to be. Not too long before, LEGO had started introducing new vehicles in their city range, including a fire truck, set 7239. It has a six-stud wide body, but including the mudguards is 7 studs wide. It has been one of their best-sellers for years and with good reason: the proportions are just about spot on and they'd reached a level of detail that was almost unprecedented in older minifig scale vehicles. Many truck models they have released since have a similar design: the same size wheels and mudguards and an overall width of 7 studs wide. I worked out that when I take the width of most real trucks into account, the scale of these is about 1/45. They have also released a number of smaller cars, with bodies that are four wide, mudguards that are five studs wide and tyres that stick out to a total width of 6 studs. They generally use the same tyre size as the trucks. They are nice toys, but IMO don't look too realistic. Regular cars ought to have smaller wheels than trucks and the tyres on real cars (generally) don't stick out of the fenders. So, rather than sticking to LEGO's design, for my own two cars I chose to stick close to the scale of the trucks which means that your average regular car ends up being approximately five studs wide. I also wanted smaller wheels, for which the wheels from 'Racers' sets came in very handy. The results were a Ferrari model (inspired by a 348TB) and a London black cab: As you can see, the wheels don't stick out of the sides and the overall width is 5 studs. This started a renewed interest in minifig scale cars, and I have built many since, as I wrote before of many different types. A few general rules I try to stick to: Width A truck is wider than an SUV, a pickup truck or van. SUVs and vans tend to be wider than regular cars. Tyre sizes Trucks tend to have larger wheels than SUVs, pickup trucks or vans. SUVs and vans tend to have larger wheels than regular cars. On SUVs and pickup trucks, large tyres mean larger ground clearance and smaller tyres smaller. I'll give a few examples illustrating the basic idea on my own approx. 1/45 scale vehicles. Trucks: For the 'Eurotrans' truck I stuck close to what LEGO do, The cab is six wide and I use the same wheels. However, because on a real truck the rear wheels and mudguards don't stick out from under the trailer, it is 7 studs wide. The American wrecker truck is 7 studs wide as well and I decided to use larger wheels. Buses: Because the wheels and mudguards on a modern bus don't stick out of the sides, these two are also 7 studs wide overall. This has the added advantage of giving enough room inside to have two rows of passengers sit side-by-side. The larger bus has large wheels, quite simply because the regular size looked too small on such a large vehicle. Pickup trucks/ SUVs: Both of these have bodies that are five studs wide and mudguards (and running boards on the SUV) that stick out to 6. These two illustrate the relation between ground clearance and tyre size. Generally, SUVs don't always have particularly large ground clearance, so I stuck to using the same size wheels that LEGO use. I wanted the pickup truck to look like it was intended for some pretty heavy off-road work, so I raised it and fitted chunkier tyres. All of the pictures are links to larger versions on flickr. All of my minifig scale vehicles can be found in my minifig scale vehicles set on flickr. Obviously the 'rules' aren't rigid, but having seen pictures of the cars in the Legoland discovery center in Berlin (on Brickshelf) I have found that they too use the same tyres and same widths for their minifig scale vehicles! Since I am talking about relative measures here, they are obviously independent of scale. If you like your cars bigger than five studs wide, you'll probably have to make your trucks larger than 7 studs wide for them to be approximately in proportion. Sometimes going for something radically different can lead to fun results (such as 'pimped' cars), but I am convinced that if you keeping these things in mind building convincing minifig scale vehicles really isn't all that hard. I hope that they can be useful for all of you city MOC builders out there as well. Cheers, Ralph

As I am concerned Hummers are ugly things and very boxy. In that respect the boxiness of this one is fine. However, there are a few other things that are a bit strange about it. The ride height still looks far too high for the size of the wheels. Side windows are nice, but they should really sit at the same height as the front window. I realise that you mounted them lower because that gives more room for the arms, but it looks awkward. I didn't see the vehicle from the side earlier, but now that I have I realise that there seems to be a tower-like construct connecting the body to the wheels with a gap between it and the 'tub' for the driver and a gap between it and the front. I'd really recommend filling those. Perhaps you shouldn't be too hasty in making changes without actually taking a good look at it, taking another good look at Laureano's original and perhaps a few Hummers other people have built. Most people build their Hummers a bit bigger, but my own minifig scale Hummers are six studs wide and use the same wheels, for instance. Cheers, Ralph

That's weird. One or the other should work, because they do opposite things. If you have two axles connected through a belt, the axles will both rotate in the same direction. If the axles are connected through a gear on each instead they will rotate in the opposite direction. Looking at the geometry of your car, I'd say the gears would give you the right direction. Using gears and seen from the drivers seat looking forward, of the wheel turns left, the axle through the engine turns right. This pushes the steering bar to the left and the wheels to the left. Cheers, Ralph

There are a fair few half-stud offsets here, indeed . The real car is much wider near the bottom than near the top and the side panels are gently curved. Getting all of that to hold together with the stripes running through it was a nice puzzle. I do think I'm really running into the limitations of making the stripes this way, though. They are a bit ragged and they are bigger than the stripes on the real vehicles so I can fit less of them on the side. For the fire engine and the ambulance this wasn't really an issue, because they have lots of stripes anyway, but for this smaller car the number of stripes I can fit might be a bit too low. Thanks for finding a reference pic and for your very nice comments. I did try to model a Golf V like this one, although I did opt for a slightly different light bar. I tied to make a light bar like the one in your picture, but transparent tiles stuck onto a white plate looked a bit rubbish. Fortunately I found a picture of a car with a black lightbar. Cheers, Ralph

Wheels are almost always an issue on minifig scale vehicles. They often either look too small or too big. I've been having a lot of discussions about that in the last week, with various people building SUVs and pickup trucks and in my opinion people rarely get it right. On a truck you have a lot of freedom, as they come in all kinds of varieties. The trick is to find the right balance between ground clearance and the wheel size. This one sits very high, which makes the tyres look very small. There are two ways around it: you can lower it a bit (one or two plates) or you can give its some larger wheels. Laureano's Hummer has very big and chunky tyres, but I'd go for lowering it. I also think it would look better if there were windows for the rear passengers. That said, this sort of combo makes a really nice addition to any city police department Cheers, Ralph

Interesting thread. I too like buses and have built a few minifig scale ones. I don't build sets, but I have a lot of city models that are right-hand drive. I'm also pretty sure that most of the other builders in Brickish that I know who build their city sets will put the steering wheel on the right. Ociously it's easier on a truck than on bus, because for the latter you'll have to mirror the entire thing. The bus from the original set is a nice vehicle and it's great to see how you've been modifying it to suit your own tastes. Bus companies in the UK also sometimes have some pretty unusual colour combinations, which might make for a lot of fun. I have my doubts about the double decker, though. The wheels that LEGO used for the set are a bit on the small side, although it's not really all that noticeable. I too have used these wheels for a city bus. However, I think that if you add a whole new floor on top they'll start looking too small and slightly larger wheels will look better. Cheers, Ralph