Ralph_S

Thanks. There is some pretty weird stuff going on under the bonnet, indeed. I'd normally use 45 degree inverted slopes for front fenders like these, but they wouldn't fit in the colour pattern. The only solution I could figure out was mounting cheese slopes upside down. They are held on with 1x2 plates that are attached to 1x8 technic plates, a very useful element for building inverted. Most of the trickery went into building the front -headlights, bumper, grille. The most difficult part about the whole car, however, was getting the proportions more-or-less right. I;ve been building a lot of large American sedans lately and they're rather different than a European hatchback. The tile simply has a sticker on it. If only LEGO would make tiles with the emergency telephone number for The Netherlands Seeing one of these in your rearview mirror probably isn't good news indeed. Thank you. I'm glad you like it. Cheers, Ralph

When I built my Dutch fire engine a few weeks ago to accompany my Ambulance, I felt a Police car would make a nice addition. One bricklink order and about 10 hours of building later and it's done. I was also very lucky that my share of a LUGBulk order (with The Brickish Association) landed in the mail, because it had fairly rare parts such as orange 1x1 plates and tiles. Dutch police use many different kinds of vehicles. The VW Touran, a small MPV, is popular as ar larger Volvos (for traffic patrol) and hatchbacks such as the Opel Astra, Ford Focus and VW Golf. Because I rarely build hatchbacks and like VWs anyway, I chose to build the latter. The pattern of blue, white and orange stripes is typical of marker police cars in The Netherlands. The markings are pretty much the same all through the country. Even though this is a considerably smaller model than most of the other 1/22 scale cars I've built lately, I wanted everything to open. The doors are a bit thick because of the half-stud offset I used at the top, but they do work. The hatch was fairly straightforward. I couldn't resist taking a picture of my Dutch police VW Golf with a typical American counterpart. As usual, more pictures are on flickr. During much of last week I was writing and having discussions about building MOCs more than actually building some. It was good to put some bricks together again Cheers, Ralph

I don't know what shipito's rates are, but shipping costs from the US to most of Europe aren't great. One thing you should also be aware of is customs. I know of several cases where friends of mine in the UK who ordered stuff from the US (via bricklink) had packages held up at customs and were charged with a hefty surcharge. I live in The Netherlands and with the exception of exclusives, amazon.co.uk can be a good deal. They deliver in The Netherlands without any problems, postage isn't ridiculous (a few Pounds) and you pay the usually considerably lower UK prices. I don't know what other mainland European countries they deliver to, but it might be worth checking out. Cheers, Ralph

There is a thing that bothers me about this and about most of the cars that LEGO make as sets. The body might be four wide, but overall, including the wheels and fenders it's actually six and LEGO's trucks are 7 wide. The wheels on a real car don't stick out of the fenders and the fenders only stick out a little bit, if at all. Also, the wheels are the same size as those used on trucks. This is a nice combination of features of different sets, which probably means it fits quite nicely with official sets, but if you want to build a somewhat more realistic looking minifig scale car I'd suggest trying something a bit different. I indeed do go for five studs wide (body and wheels), even though it makes the construction quite a bit more complicated and uses more parts. Cheers, Ralph

One of the few things I don't like about EB are the images in signatures. Even though there are restrictions, in some threads there seem to be more signatures than actual information and I find them terribly distracting. Perhaps it's because when I started participating internet discussions I was using usenet on a Unix machine I understand that people want to individualise the appearance of their messages, but there's already the option of selecting a picture that goes to the left of it. I think those are much more useful than any signature, because it really helps me to remember who I'm dealing with and. I'm much better at recognising pictures than names. A small bit of text in an unobtrusive colour and a link to where I can find whatever a poster is up to with their LEGO is sufficient as a signature as far as I am concerned -which is of course exactly why that is what I have in my own. I can live with thumbnails of your latest MOCs. Fortunately I found that I can select an option to not see signatures at all . Cheers, Ralph

For me it meant doing without lights. I haven't used them myself and it doesn't look cheap, but there's a small company called lifelites that makes custom kits with LED lighting for use with LEGO. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks for all the great replies. The MOC builders seem to think much along the same lines as I do, but you've given me some great explanations for why some of you build sets. -You might not enjoy the building process all that much, but really like the end result. -Building sets is something you can do together with your children and/or partner (probably more easily than building MOCs) -It's a way to have something nice on your shelf without it taking too much time or parts -Sets are a nice starting point for even more awesome MODs. -You love to build, but you're not all that confident in your abilities to produce MOCs. In Brickish there are quite a few members who mainly collect and build sets alongside a very enthusiastic group of crazy MOC builders. With me being firmly in the latter group, I've obviously had discussions about this very subject with people face-to-face. When I first joined the group I was pretty amazed that some people are fans of a building toy, but don't actually build with it. When we had a competition that involved building cafe-corner compatible buildings a few years ago, for some members this was the first time they'd ever built a MOC since they were children and they were very apprehensive about putting their MOCs among those of more experienced builders. However, as far as I know quite a few people got really into it and while their first buildings may not have been all that great, as they built more they got more and more confident and also with them being surrounded by other MOC builders started building nicer MOCs. Of course, doing this sort of thing on-line is different from meeting people face-to-face, but I hope that those of you who don't feel confident about building MOCs are encouraged rather than intimidated by MOCs posted here by people who've been building for years. Cheers, Ralph

Wow, people agreeing with everything I write doesn't happen every day I build reasonably quickly, but even a minifig scale fire engine that is fairly closely based on real engines usually takes me a few days. My Rescue pumper alone probably took close to 15 hours to complete. You build quickly. Cheers, Ralph

That's cool man.

So you were planning to mount it across the top of the cab with the lights at the ends, am I right? In that case overlapping plates indeed would be clumsy. However, I see a completely different issue. I too have considered using light and sound to add lights to my minifig scale fire engines, but didn't because I couldn't work out how to make the arrangement that I wanted low enough anyway, irrespective of whether or not 2x6 plates with contacts were available. If you're happy with globes on top of the truck, simply having the brick sitting on top of the roof would be too tall. The only way to lower it would be to sink the light bricks into the roof somehow. I could think of two ways of doing that. You could use a 1x4 brick with two lights on top mounted inside the roof with only the top of the brick and the two lights sticking out above it. Obviously that would mean that the lights are sitting pretty close together. The second way would solve that issue. By building the top of the cab in white, you could sink 1x2 bricks and the plates with contacts below them into the cab's side walls with only the lights sticking out on top. In that case it wouldn't matter whether you have a 2x6 plate or not, because you couldn't have the arrangement sitting above a window anyway and could stack as many 1x2 and 2x4 plates underneath it as you'd like. However, most modern-day fire engines have light bars rather than individual globes and have them sitting close to the front of the cab above the driver. The only way to get the lights into a light bar that I could think of was sticking 1x2 transparent bricks on top of them, and that would make the bar too tall to go on top of a minifig scale vehicle no matter where I'd put it. In fact, I think it would be too tall for a vehicle twice that scale. If only they made hollow bricks two plates thick Cheers, Ralph

I wasn't involved in it myself, but a group of other members of The Brickish Association built a model of Saturn V for an event at the National Space Centre in Leicester. There is no one single minifig scale, but it was built to a scale of approx 1/45, which works for minifigs. Here's a picture: http://projectapollo.co.uk/2009/07/when-lego-attacks/ I have 10029 and it is a very nice set indeed. I quite liked the Discovery range of sets in the first place, and this was probably the best of the lot. Cheers, Ralph

I applaud you for still building MOCs, even with limited parts. I know it is pretty annoying to know that you do have some parts you need, but that can't get at them. When I moved to the UK a few years ago, all the LEGO I took with me was a single Creator set. All my other parts stayed behind in The Netherlands. It was an excellent excuse to buy lots new stuff though Cheers, Ralph

Thanks for the replies so far. Keep em coming! Two of you mention that building sets is something you can do together with your children. I didn't think of that, probably because I don't have children. I can imagine that that's fun though. Cheers, Ralph

I'm not aware of anybody making their own. Have you considered alternatives? If you can't incorporate a 2x8 for some reason, perhaps you can use two 2x4s overlapping? I have a hard time imagining circumstances where there isn't a fairly easy way around this. Cheers, Ralph

A couple of days ago I upset some people in another thread by comparing building sets according to instructions to something a ten-year old can do; this as a very brief explanation about why I don't particularly like it. This was interpreted by some people as me being snobbish, probably because they felt it implied that I think that set builders are on the same level as ten-year olds. I didn't mean to imply anything. For me personally this hobby is largely about building. Whenever I got a set as a child I'd first build the model according to the instructions. Even though my own little constructions weren't anywhere near as nice as what you could potentially get in a set, I loved designing my only little things so much that sets would never stay together long. My room wasn't filled with sets, it was filled with things I built myself. Very little has changed. I love to look at an object and to figure out how to represent its shape using LEGO parts and how to make certain features work. That is what challenges me and I derive satisfaction from looking at something I built. I simply don't get that satisfaction from building somebody else's design. Sets can be very nice, but for me at the end of the day they are parts packs and I care little about building them or about what they look like. What has changed is that by now I've reached a point where I feel most of my MOCs are actually nicer than what you can get from a set. Most sets are designed so that a ten year old can build them and consequently there are a lot of limitations to what their designers can do in terms of details and construction. There are also limitations on the parts count, because the cost has to be kept low enough. As a hobbyist I'm not similarly limited. I can put a lot of effort and parts into making things more detailed and more accurate. None of this has anything to do with me being snobbish, wanting to be admired or wanting to somehow feel special; it is simply what I like doing. With this background, I hope you can understand that I think that if you are sticking to sets, you are depriving yourself of a lot of fun. I know a lot of people do prefer to build sets rather than MOCs, but I have a hard time understanding why. You might think your MOCs aren't as nice as a real set, but is that a reason to stick to sets? Is it the end result that matters most or the fun you have whilst getting there? So, a question: do you prefer to build MOCs or sets or both and why? Cheers, Ralph

A couple of people building pickup trucks isn't quite everyone, of course, but they do seem to be popular all of a sudden. I like the slightly retro look of this one. the all black is definitely better. Since you're going for a classic look, it might be an idea to replace the tail lights with headlight brick and a red 1x1 round plate. I don't know whether it'll be any good, but it might be worth checking it out. Cheers, Ralph

I somehow missed these earlier. It's an impressive collection of trucks with some really nice details. I love, for instance, how you've added working support struts for the ladder truck and the aerial boom. It's obvious you've spent considerable effort on making them look good. I suspect you've been looking at some of Steven Asbury's work, because some of your vehicles are superficially similar and that's a good thing. I do think there are a few issues with the scale and there are a few bits on some of the vehicles that I don't really like. I'll go over the vehicles one by one. On it's own, SUV #1 looks good. I like the LandRover-like windows in the roof and how you mounted the rear side windows on their side. It's clever stuff. However, including the mud guards, it's as wide as some of the trucks. Of course, SUVs can be big lumbering things, but not quite that wide. SUV #2 seems obviously inspired by a HumVee and that's a good thing in my book. It's close to what I would consider the right size for a minifig Humvee and the chunky tyres are a bit oversized, but work well. After all Hummers have big wheels and adding extra emphasis to that by going for something extra large is a good idea. What I don't like, however, is how the tiles that for the A-pillars stick out of the sides. With a little SNOT work you could get them to fit inside the width and also replace the red sticker/tape you've used to split the windscreen. I don't like how the tyres stick out of the sides of truck 3. they might stick out a little bit on a real vehicle, but one stud on a vehicle with a body that is six studs wide seems more fitting for a monster truck. It's the only thing that lets down an otherwise excellent design. Truck 4 is obviously quite closely based on LEGO's own truck designs. It looks nice, but would look better with slightly smaller wheels and a slightly larger ground clearance. With these large wheels and this close to the ground it looks like West Coast Customs got their hands on it Truck 5 is a mixed bag. The aft body and the mechanism for tilting the ladder looks like an American 'quint'-type engine. It's really nice. The cab, however, looks like a greenhouse. Some (European) fire trucks have that sort of look (Dennis fire engines, for instance) the two don't really seem to match. Then again. perhaps you based it on a real engine that I just don't know. On this one the wheels stick out too, but they look less jarring because you used mudguard pieces as well that blend them a bit more into the body. When you build of different vehicles, at least from my point of view, it becomes really important to make sure that they are built to approximately the same scale. Otherwise they'll look awkward together. Admittedly LEGO themselves aren't too strict about this either. I tend to make SUVs six wide including the mudguards (so with a body of five). My trucks, including the mudguards are typically 7 wide. Something similar applies to tyre sizes. With the exception of the SUV, all of these vehicles have the same size tyres. They look good on some, but on some others slightly smaller tyres would look better IMO. SUVs often have big wheels, but I generally use bigger wheels on trucks than on SUVs. Finding a right wheel size for minifig trucks can be a bit of a chore. The wheels LEGO themselves use on most of their trucks can look too small. One size larger sometimes looks too big. Obviously building detailed vehicles to minifig scale requires a lot of compromises. It's not always possible to find objective reasons for going one way or another, which means you only have you personal preferences to go on and I hope that you understand that even though I would do some things differently, I still think you;ve done a very nice job on these. Cheers, Ralph

legomaniac83, kudos to you my man. The new version looks a so much nicer and much more like a real pickup truck. I like it much more with the flat bottom and I am really happy you took my advice about the tail lights to heart. The running boards are a nice addition too. I think you've taken it to the next level with these modifications. Really neat Cheers, Ralph

If it works it's all good. Cheers, Ralph

I know the stuff you mean. In the UK they sell something similar called 'Blu Tack'. That explains your comment about 'cheating a little'. I wondering what you meant by that Airplane models being tail heavy is a pretty common problem. I've struggled with it too. On some of my models I had to resort to building boat or train weights into the forward fuselage to keep them level. It is probably not an option on something as small as this, though. Fortunately it wasn't a problem for my Predator, probably because its aft fuselage is a lot slimmer than that of the Reaper. Cheers, Ralph

There aren't too many interesting details on the real plane, so the markings are important for the look and your model looks much more attractive with the stickers. One of the things I wondered about when you told me that you were going to try to build a Reaper based on my was whether or not the landing gear could carry the weight. You see, on my model the minifig hands that hold the wheels sometimes slide upwards making the whole thing a bit wonky. Your model is larger and heavier than mine (as it should be) and yet you've used the same basic design for the landing gear. I do splay the legs a bit further than you seem to do, which puts extra stress on the thing I suppose, but how sturdy is yours? Cheers, Ralph

Interesting topic. I hope that I can answer it without inadvertently insulting anybody. The reason why you can't add a poll is because that option isn't available to 'Citizens' I contribute to public displays regularly. In the last few years I've done it as often as three or four times per year. It's all done through the LUG that I'm a member of (The Brickish Association). We have an agreement with the staff at the official Lego stores in the UK to have models on display in their 'Window into the Community' display cases in store and some of my models have been in there on a few occasions. The model stays in there for a few months typically and might move to another store after that. They tend to be on the road for quite a while. I also display models at public shows. I tend to build MOCs and am sometimes involved in the design of a particular display, but I am generally not involved in organising the event itself. I'll display a collection of my own MOCs and/or contribute models to collaborative displays. The latter models are usually built specifically with displaying them in mind. The parts are all my own. Now, rather than trying to place everything in a category, I'll give examples of some of the shows I've been to. -In 2008 the National Space Centre in Leicester in the UK had a science fiction movie weekend. They had people dressed up as characters from various movies and an exhibit of props, for instance and Brickish had a LEGO display. I helped to design and build two tripods for a small 'war of the worlds' city display. We also had a display of models of space ships from different movies, to which I contributed a model of a Viper from BattleStar Galactica and a model of Thunderbird 1, from the Thunderbirds TV series. I built both of them specifically for this event. -Last year I attended Brighton Model world. This is a general convention type thing for model builders. It's not just LEGO. I displayed a collection of airplane MOCs and provided a series of cafe corner compatible buildings and a large number of minifig cars for a collaborative town/city layout. It was a lot of fun to get reactions from people who are into regular model railways and such. The next one is in February and I've already booked my trip. -Brickish organises a massive annual LEGO show in the Museum of the Great Western Railway in Swindon in the UK. I've been there three times as well and hope to go again this year. In 2008 I contributed minifig scale vehicles and buildings to a collaborative cafe-corner city display. I also had a large display of my own, with all the aircraft and helicopter models I had at the time (and a few by a friend of mine). Here is a small part of it: In 2009 I built several minifig scale buildings and boats, about 30 cars, a sea plane, a helicopter and various other bits and bobs for a massive city display called 'Bricksboro Beach'. It was a collaborative project. A good friend of mine coordinated it, although I was closely involved in coming up with the ideas for it. We'll be taking parts of it to Brighton this year. I also had a few large-scale cars on display as well as several aircraft MOCs as part of a '100 year of British flight' time-line. This hobby for me is mainly about building, but knowing that the stuff I build will go on display and will be appreciated by hundreds or even thousands of people really adds a lot to the fun. If you've never done it, but there is a local LUG that organises shows, I can highly recommend getting in touch with them and putting something on display yourself. It is a blast. Cheers, Ralph

That latest version definitely is the best. I agree. It looks a bit more compact and tidy. Attaching a tow hitch to something that is an odd number of studs wide can be an issue, because the standard ones are either attached to a 2x2 plate or a 1x4 plate. If you have one of the 1x4 ones, you could remove the odd-width lower part of the rear bumper and replace it with the four wide plate (attached with two jumper plates). However, on your vehicle this would mean you'd have to come up with some different taillights as the plate and jumper plates to connect it would be too close to the ground if you were to mount them below the lights. The alternative, and probably your best bet, is inserting the 2x2 plate between the taillights and attaching it with jumper plates at the top and bottom. You will end up with a gap of half of suds between the lights and the plate, but I wouldn't view that as a major issue. The only odd-wide vehicle that I've built with a trailer was a pickup truck with a boat trailer. I built the truck. My friend Ed Diment built the trailer and the boat. We gave up on LEGO's standard system. Instead the hitch was built with a technic plate and a technic pin with towball. The trailer attaches from the top using another technic part. Since the technic plate has an odd width, there are no issues with attaching it. Cheers, Ralph

Believe it or not, I never wanted this whole discussion to turn into 'yours is bigger than mine'. I just explained my preferences, but these were somehow seen as snobbish. I never once wrote that anybody who does anything else is in any wrong, childish or whatever or that what I do is better. I'm sure there are plenty of people in the UK who haven't seen Cafe Corner, but part of the fun of building public displays is building something new. I might display the same thing once or twice, but then it's time for something new. Bricksboro Beach had its first outing at STEAM, parts of it will be on display in Brighton in February, but after that a lot of it will be disassembled for something new. The train builders tend to build a new layout every single time, although they may re-use elements. You did ask for people's own approach though. In any case, it's unlikely I would even be building city if it hadn't been for being a member of a LUG and for public displays. For years I have been mainly building large aircraft models and cars. I got back into building town when we had a small competition for a Christmas get-together that involved building a Cafe-Corner compatible building of our own. I didn't even have the Cafe Corner set at the time and few minifigs, but I really enjoyed building my own building and building a couple of 5-wide cars to go with it. At the event we lined up all the different buildings to make a collaborative street. It was fun and it looked good and it made perfect sense to display it at some future public event, so that's what we did. Various versions of this street, depending on who would be there and what new MOCs people had built got outings at a few events after that. In the meantime I kept expanding my own collection of city MOCs. Building all this stuff is what made me realise that city is actually fun. That's where I am coming from here. I buy city sets with the intention of using their parts to make my own stuff. If a set is really good I might keep it in one piece for a bit (Cafe Corner was probably built up for about six months, Green Grocer and the Fire Brigade lasted about two months), but then they go. The thought to take a built-up set and display that as part of my own layout wouldn't even occur to me. I have since moved to another country, so I will not be able to participate in these large joint projects as easily any more, but I expect to take my own stuff (largely packed up in boxes at the moment) to events myself and have my own little city layout on display. In fact, I'm building new bits with that in mind. Cheers, Ralph

That makes very little sense. Your reasoning is tantamount to saying that anybody who paints portraits is a copycat because he or she paints portraits of real people. Of course I don't design the actual car (at least not usually), but it's me who turns its shape into something built out of LEGO and that is a challenge. The model represents a real object, but it is my representation and as such it is an original. Whether somebody else could copy that interpretation -if I were to provide the means for them to do so- has no relevance for whether I enjoy the process of designing it in the first place. BTW, my buildings might be inspired by the style of real buildings I know or pictures that I've seen, but they are my designs. I am the architect. In any case, I was merely explaining why I enjoy doing what I do rather than building sets. If somebody else rather builds their own fantasy MOCs because real-life objects really aren't all that interesting to them, then best of luck to them. However, I somehow suspect that city isn't really their theme. It is a lovely set. Wonderfully designed with nice colours and great parts. Back when I only had only two cafe corner MOCs myself, I too used to have them sitting on a shelf with the actual set. My main reason for not liking it included in layouts -certainly not public ones- are threefold: -the first reason is something I am no longer going to elaborate on, because I already feel as though I'm repeating myself and it is getting boring. -the second reason is that it's been done to death. -the third is that its style doesn't always agree with the style that I and the other builders I collaborate with are going for. It would have looked very much out of place in Bricksboro Beach for instance. Cheers, Ralph