Ralph_S

This was in the original post "City: medium or large MOCs (buildings and vehicles), but layouts with official sets" There are no official sets in my layouts and the ones that we build with the Brickish Association tend to have very few if any as well. When I mentioned ten year olds and painting by numbers I was specifically referring to building sets according to their instructions. I personally don't find that challenging or particularly interesting. Of course you can use sets in your layouts if you want to or do creative things with your sets, but I get much more satisfaction designing and building something myself. That was the only point I wanted to make and is very much on topic. I was talking about my preferences, without trying to put anybody or anything down. Unfortunately Rog interpreted it differently. edit: Rog, You are blowing an off-hand remark about ten year olds completely out of proportion. A ten-year old can build a set. That's a fact. For me LEGO is mainly about building things and building something that a ten year old can build simply doesn't interest me. For me the fun lies in the challenge of building my own stuff. That doesn't mean that I somehow feel that you are childish if you do enjoy building from instructions, because you like what the set looks like, because it's relaxing, because it brings back childhood memories or for whatever other reason. When I compared building sets following instructions to painting by numbers I was trying to find a metaphor about how the two things are different. It wasn't about one thing being better than the other, although you interpreted it that way. If you enjoy collecting and building sets and enjoy adding them to your layout, by all means have fun. This is supposed to be a hobby, after all. We're not all the same, but I'm a fellow AFOL. I too play with a kids toy. I'm not attacking what you do. I'm just explaining why I myself prefer to do something else. You are reading something in my words that just isn't there. I'll try another metaphor that hopefully doesn't offend you: you enjoy making a meal using sauce from a package, I enjoy making my own sauce. The comparison of amateur painters and art collectors wasn't mine, by the way. Cheers, Ralph

I wrote 'no offence' because it is not my intention to offend you. However, following the instructions is like painting by numbers. If you consider that a derogatory remark, perhaps you yourself are being snobbish towards people who paint by numbers. Don't people who've made something that way have a reason to be proud of their work too? The end result can look really nice, it takes a lot of time and effort and it takes skill to stay between the lines. I'm sure that arranging the various models and creating little scenes with sets is a creative process and I don't think any less of you for doing that using sets. If that's what you like to do, then so be it and I don't want to take away of the fun you have in doing it. It's just not what I like to do. I did build the cafe corner sets and kept them around for a bit because they are nice, but ultimately I buy them for the parts. I too have the fun of arranging everything and of creating scenes and getting everything looking nice together, but in addition I have the fun of fiddling around getting a car to looks just so or of constructing a particular building. I'll give you an example. In October last year I was one of the contributors to Bricksboro Beach. It was a collaborative project, building an American city in the style of Miami Beach, full of art-deco buildings. It was displayed at a LEGO show in Swindon. Eleven people worked on it for months. I built most of the cars, several boats, the seaplane, a hotel, a classic American diner and a few smaller buildings. Everything on there was an original creation. The display was the centrepiece of the exhibition and the audience loved it -children and parents alike. The level of detail, the colours, the architecture and the size of it all just blew them away. No matter how creative you are in arranging them, you just can't do that with sets. That's what I enjoy. To each their own. Cheers, Ralph

It's always nice to know some of the things I do inspire other builders to try something they haven't done before. I think it would look better if it were a bit shorter. As other people mention it looks a wee bit long, certainly compared to the width. I also think it would look better with a bit more ground clearance. It's the third or fourth time in less than a week that I make this comment You could do that quite simply by adding one more plate between the plates that the wheels are connected to and the rest of the body. Lego tend to use the 'Slope Brick 45 6 x 1 Double Inverted with Open Center' for the sides of some of their vehicles and those work well if the wheelbase is short. You've used it as well for the side of your truck and while it lines up nicely with the front mudguard, it looks awkward at the back. I love the equipment you've piled on the back and the piece you've used for the hood. In fact, the whole front of the car looks butch and that is always a good thing Another convertee! I started doing it more than two years ago and I was by no means the first. This size fits very well together with most of the trucks in the City range. Cheers, Ralph

I don't see how you can build a standard model to a higher standard. If it's built to a higher standard, it's not a standard model any more! The fact that somebody else might be able to do it better doesn't mean you can't enjoy it too, of course, but there's little pride in building stuff from instructions for me personally. For me this hobby is almost completely about building MOCs. I love to design and build things myself and to reach a standard that few people reach -let alone ten year olds. That gives me the most pleasure and satisfaction. A layout that consists of sets, in my opinion, is also not particularly interesting to look at, no matter how much money and enthusiasm has been spent on getting them all together. No offence, but it's like comparing an original painting to painting by numbers. Cheers, Ralph

There are as many different ways for AFOLs to deal with their hobby as there are AFOLs, so generalisations are always tricky. Take City for instance. Many of the cities I see on eurobricks indeed involve a mix of MOCs and sets, but I know plenty of city builders -myself included- whose layouts consist exclusively of MOCs, although somebody might try to slip a copy of Cafe Corner in there somewhere Cafe corner sets are great, but it's far more fun to build your own and there's little pride in showing something that in principle could have been built by a ten-year old. Similarly, LEGO has done a great job with their vehicle designs in the last few years -their trucks in particular- but I like to give my vehicles something a bit extra. Official sets tend to be a bit too toy-like for my tastes. You mention army building and that this is mainly confined to the castle, Star Wars and Pirates themes and not to city. Of course, LEGO don't have a contemporary military line and city and military somehwo don't really mix, but there are thousands of people who build modern military stuff. Check out the flickr military lego group for instance. Full of tanks, jeeps, helicopters and planes, but also more spacy stuff such as mechs. Cheers, Ralph

As I wrote, I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'm no stranger to building pickup trucks and there is something a bit weird about it. This doesn't look like any pickup truck I've ever seen. The 4wd is awkward. I do have the set and I did build the model, but it looks like a toy. That is not a problem as such, it is a toy after all, but I prefer to see a little more realism and I would never use its construction as the starting point for a MOC. I've taken another look at this pickup truck, because it bugs me that I couldn't pin down what I think is a bit weird about it apart from the slopes on the bottom. and I think there are two things that bother me about it. I already mentioned the slopes on the bottom. Dr spock did the rest. Those mudguards sit far too high on the body for a vehicle with relatively low ground clearance. It's like a guy wearing trousers that are too short so that you can see his socks poking out between the bottom of his trousers and the top of his shoes. I'm not trying to be very harsh here, because I like the idea and there's nothing terribly wrong here, but there's something a little off and I think all it needs are few more tweaks to make it really good . Apart from that, what would help IMO is if the taillights weren't mounted in the aft bumper, but simply on either side of the tailgate. I can't think of any pickup truck that doesn't have them there. If you were to move the mudguards down a bit, it would also create the opportunity to use a half-stud offset to have the rear bumper stick out a bit. It's something I've done a few times and I think it looks nice. Unfortunately I can find few pictures that show it clearly. You can see the tail of my minifig scale F150 poking out behind the SUV in this picture, showing how the bumper sticks out Cheers, Ralph

I'm not completely convinced by the pickup truck. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it looks a bit oddly proportioned. Perhaps it is the wheelbase, as whoootles mentions. The slopes on the bottom look weird. I know LEGO themselves do it on their 4WD, but I don't like it there either. It would look better if it were simply on the bottom, perhaps with two one-stud wide plates running underneath it to represent the chassis. I do like the level of detail, such as the tool box in the truck bed and I love the car trailer. Cheers, Ralph

That explains it. I don't actually have any Atlantis or pirates sets, so the weapons in my collection are probably made of sterner stuff. Cheers, Ralph

I find that hard to believe. I can't see any damage whatsoever to any of the weapons (or other utensils) I've got, including those with a shiny finish. Even sliding things with a straight edge into a minifig hand or a clip for that matter doesn't produce any visible damage if you align them properly. I can imagine some wear occurring if you do it dozens of times, but do you do it that frequently? Cheers, Ralph

Your post had me a little confused for a bit, but I think that what you're trying to say is that if the end of the grip isn't rounded off, you damage it when sliding it into the minifigs' hands. Pulling the minifig hands out of the arms is undoubtedly doing damage there, so that's probably not a good idea. My suggestion would be not to try to slip the hands over the non-rounded ends of the weapons, but to simply click them onto the hands. The hands are flexible enough to do that. That way the hands and the end of the weapon don't even come near each other. Cheers, Ralph

They can be a bit tricky, but once you've built a few they get progressively easier. I've built a lot of cars for a public display last year, including a lot of cars with five-wide bodies (I'm trying to avoid the 'is this a five-wide car discussion '). Probably about 20. The first few that I built were all pretty similar, but as I gained experience I started experimenting with different types of vehicles a bit more, building all kinds of things: a Jeep, sportcars, vans, SUVs, taxis you name it. Some examples: I've reached a point where I can crank out a new one in about an hour. Cheers, Ralph

The colour combo really doesn't work IMO. I'd suggest sticking to a single accent colour. The whole building looks a bit incoherent because of the wide variety of colours. If you do want two accent colours, make sure they look good together. Lime green and yellow isn't too bad. Yellow and medium blue is OK. Lime green and medium blue is an acquired taste. Lime green, medium blue and yellow is an atrocity Sorry. Could you replace the medium blue with a more neutral colour? Perhaps tan? Ralph

That reference picture makes the likeness to the real truck even more clear. I've been looking at building a modern European truck since I completed my DAF fire engine and have been eyeballing the Magnum. I'd probably build the angled bits to the side of the radiator with plates on their sides, but the two studs extra width (I do build 14 wide) make that sort of thing a bit easier to do. Your solution with the tiles work well enough though. Cheese slopes are a great invention and I use lots of them too. Just for fun, I counted them on my Buick. 58 dark red 8 light bley 4 reddish brown 21 trans clear a grand total of 91 or (with a length of 31 studs) a 'cheesiness factor' of 2.9 :-) It's not the largest number of cheese slopes I've ever used on a single MOC, but probably the highest number per length/ I remember getting my first two cheese slopes back in 2004 (in a creator set with red cars), but I could have never imagined ever being able to use so many. Cheers, Ralph

Rick might be giving me a bit too much credit, but I have built a fair few five-wides in the last two years. Whether they are the ideal minifig scale is debatable. I know plenty of people who want two figures to sit side-by side in their vehicles. However, I tend to build cars to go into city scenes, with pedestrians and buildings and such, and for that sizingthe cars to how tall the figures are works well. They don't dwarf the pedestrians. Rick is right about the wheel holders. I use those in combination with jumper plates, as you can see in this picture: The cars don't really have a chassis as such. They tend to be an almost solid collection of plates with just enough space inside for a minifig. Getting them structurally sound isn't really easy. As Rick already mentions, they require fairly large numbers of small plates I never made instructions for any of my five-wide cars, but I've got a fair few pictures of some on flickr (the link is specifically to the construction details of the 5-wide cars). I hope those might be useful. Good luck. Cheers, Ralph

Very pretty. Good looks and functionality, that's what Model Team is all about. Cheers, Ralph

It is much more obvious if you were to see the cars in real life. I haven't seen their Prius model yet, but I know it's a technique they use a lot and their cars are a major source of inspiration for what I do. As for the work and prototypes, the Ford cam together in about 6 hours in total. It came together without too much trial-and-error. The Buick was a different matter. Some parts did come together fairly easily. Before I started building it, I was mostly worried about the tapered rear window and the actual boat-tail, but they were built in one go, without any revisions. The front was a complete and utter nightmare. It was the first part I built, but after countless hourse spread out over two days, I still didn't have a design I liked. I must have rebuilt it 20 times, before finally finishing it. Thank you. I love how the Ford turned out, but the Buick was by far the most difficult of the two to build. Thanks. I am glad you like them. Cheers, Ralph

Funny that. I built it for a build challenge on flickr that was specifically about a '66 Galaxie. I didn't like it much at first. I felt it was a bit dull and that I'd rather build something with a more interesting shape. After pondering this for a bit i realised that even though the car would look like a boix on wheels, the real challenge would be to make that look good. I don't think I'd call it the most beautiful car in my collection, but when I finished it, I was very happy with how it ended up and it does look good in my collection. I'm not sure which I think is my most beautiful car, by the way, but I'm partial to the Chevy Impala and my Jaguar Mk. 2. No need to apologize. I don't read everything on eurobricks either. It's also my experience that when people are particularly detailed in the title of a thread describing their MOCs, the actual MOCs are more likely to be disappointing. If somebody builds a model of a car and calls it a Ferrari Enzo, but it doesn't really look like an Enzo I cannot help to be disappointed. If they were to build that same car and call it 'supercar inspired by the Ferrari Enzo', I'd probably be far less critical. A big part of building cars like this is doing research and I'm convinced that somebody who knows their cars could actually tell that the Ford is a '66 rather than a '65 (the indicator lights flanking the radiator are a giveaway) and that the Riviera is a '71 (because only that year had little vents in the bootlid). Milan has already explained part of the reason for the studs. The surface indeed isn't smooth, but by using both tiles and plates with studs, you can make a shape appear to be more gradual -part of the reason for the 1x8 tile in the roof. It's also personal preference. I like m,y models to clearly be made out of LEGO and studs are a part of that. Cheers, Ralph

It can't be lowered using those wheels, tyres and mudguards, but with narrower wheels (these for instance) the wheels could be moved outward without changing the width too much. Car trailers tend to have their wheels far outboard with the bed that the actual car sits on between them. I think that would be a worthwhile change, because it would really improve the realism. I'm not trying to be a hard-megablocks here, but because I build a lot of cars myself I tend to be far pickier about them than about most other subjects. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. The colours were pretty much what I had available. Yellow seemed nice for a 'seventies car. I originally wanted to build the Riviera in blue, but soon realised that I sufficient parts in dark red as well (mainly because it wouldn't require many large plates). Since the Riviera was supposed to be an elegant luxury type car, dark red seemed suitably classy. I can imagine that these were fun to drive, provided they'd work A cousin of mine had one (albeit much more recently) and it would break pretty much every time he took on the road. He sold it because of that. Sadly I don't see him very frequently, so I never actually saw the car before he got rid of it. I don't think I'll LDRAW it, and you probably don't expect me to. I don;t like 'virtual LEGO' and with the model being pretty complicated, this job would be a total bastard. Thank you Christopher. The taillights on the Ford gave me a few difficulties, but I felt it was really important for the little (reverse?) light in the middle to be there. Of course it would have been easier to ignore it and just make the tailllights as 2x2 stud transparent red squares, but it would be dull. When I looked at pictures of the Riviera's tail lights, I immediately felt that red grille tiles were the ideal part for them. I mean, the real light units actually look like red grille tiles to me Thanks Simon. I know you're into big American cars too. They produced some horrendously ugly vehicles in the 'seventies and I have largely avoided cars from that decade. I tend to either build fairly recent models or cars from the 'sixties and older. The Riviera always struck me as a comparatively nice vehicle. I'd seen this type of car before (I used to watch 'Northern Exposure' on TV quite frequently and one of the characters in that series drove a boattail), but most of the classic cars I build are based on photographs in two books that I've had for a few years. I'm pretty sure that when I first saw decent pictures of the Riviera I felt that it would be neat to build one sometime in the future. Unfortunately I hadn't a clue at the time how to actually do it. It's only because I've now got parts that I simply didn't have back then (cheese slopes and a lot of trans clear plate) that I felt I could do the model justice. The 11-wide construction does pose a few difficulties with the structure, although I tend to work with half stud offsets so frequently that all in all it doesn't matter all that much any more. Many of my models have bits that are an odd number of studs wide, even if the overall width of the model might be even. It just takes some getting used to, as well as fairly large quantities of jumper plates and 2x3 and 1x3 stud plates. I'm looking forward to 1x3 tiles Cheers, Ralph

I'm not completely sold on the vehicle. With huge wheels like that I feel it should have more ground clearance. I also agree that the trailer would look better if it were lower. This is a very nice idea, but it could be done better with a bit more effort. Cheers, Ralph

Those of you who know the sort of things I build may have noticed that I like to build big American cars. In the last two weeks I have built two new ones that I'd like to share with you. They may both be classic American cars of roughly the same size, but were very different builds I completed the latest model today. It is a 1971 Buick Riviera, a car whose styling was pretty controversial back in the day and that because of the shape is also known as a boat-tail. I normally relish a challenge when it comes to building. I like to sculpt difficult shapes and when I decided that I was going to build a Riviera I knew it was going to be pretty difficult. It turned out to be so difficult in fact, that out of sheer frustration I came pretty close to slamming my hand down on the bits I'd built a few times or throwing the thing through the room. It's been a long time since something gave me such a hard time and I grew that frustrated. The part that gave me seemingly endless difficulty wasn't the tail end, but the front bumper and radiator. The final result might not look overly complicated, but it took ages to come together. More pictures, as always, are on flickr About a week ago I completed another classic American car, a 1966 Ford Galaxie. This was difficult for a very difficult reason. While the Riviera has a lot of pretty strange curved and angled lines, the Galaxie looks like a box on wheels at a first glance. The challenge here was in making this box look interesting. I paid a lot of attention to getting the subtle tapering right, in fiddling with details such as the taillights and had a lot of fun building the interior. Here too, more pictures are on flickr Cheers, Ralph

^ I agree that building things you see around you is a big part of the fun in building town. For me it's not my favourite theme, BTW. The things I like to build most are military airplanes. For a long time I didn't build town at all and gave up on minifigs completely, feeling they cramped my style. Then, in 2007, The Brickish Association had a competition for their Christmas get-together. It involved building a cafe-corner compatible building with a Christmas theme. Since my experience in celebrating Christmas in the UK at that time was limited to having an office Chirstmas party at an Indian Curry House, that's what I built; my first building and my first minifig creation in at least a decade. I had so much fun doing it and building two minifig cars to go with it that I kept it going since. I too keep adding bits. It made walking through the town I lived in in the UK much more interesting, because I constantly found myself looking at buildings and vehicles wondering how I could build them. By now I've built half a dozen buildings, a park, and several dozens of minifig scale cars and I have even built a train (the first in at least two decades). A factor is also that town models always go down very well at public displays. Cheers, Ralph

Looks nice so far, but I do have a few suggestions. I understand you want to add more equipment, but you have to be careful not to make it too messy. Fire engines may carry a lot of stuff, but they do tend to look reasonably organised from the outside. Simply slapping on more stuff in an attempt to make it more detailed can actually reduce the realism. The ladder looks a bit strange slid out the way it is. It would look better if the two parts were simply lying directly on top of each other. I think the truck would also look better if you were to move the rear axle forward by a few studs. I think it's common for fire engines to have a fairly large rear overhang. I realise you've probably used a standard vehicle base, which means you can't reduce the wheelbase without building a completely new chassis. Perhaps you can extend the length of the truck a bit instead. Would a double cab be an option? Cheers, Ralph

As I wrote, now is probably not the best time to be looking for these sets. They've probably sold quite a few for Christmas. You might want to keep an eye on it nonetheless. It's not uncommon for stock to be replenished. Cheers, Ralph

I know how you feel. I am Dutch but lived in the UK for more than three years. Thanks Mark. The shutter doors were a pain to get working. I'm not really sure how long it took, because I didn't work on it over Christmas, but a quick guess would be 30-40 hours all in all. Thanks, except they're supposed to be diagonal stripes rather than British Battenburg markings. The stripes are typical for Dutch fire engines. Cheers, Ralph