Ralph_S

I agree with rriggs. It's a nice ambulance, the stripe is excellent, and I love that you've managed to fit lights into it, but the wheels let it down pretty badly. IT would look better with the wheels that LEGO use for most of their city vehicles, or perhaps, given the fact that it gets to be 8 wide (including mudguards) even a slightly bigger size. Cheers, Ralph

I realised that it was based on Dr. Strangelove, but your reference to studs made me think that you might have been confusing SNOT-techniques and studless building. This is a pretty common thing. Some people in this thread seem to not be aware of the distinction. Studs Not on Top suggests, IMO wrongly, that a model that doesn't have studs on top therefore uses SNOT techniques and that a model that does have studs doesn't. My understanding of the term is that it is a name for a build technique in which you use elements with their top (where the studs usually are) pointing in a different direction, irrespective of whether the finished product ends up having the studs visible or not. Placing tiles on top of your studs is not SNOT building: it's building a studless model. People sometimes see studs on my models which prompts them to ask whether I do any SNOT building. My standard reply is that I do lots of SNOT building, but I don't build studless models. Of course, if you want to build studless, SNOT techniques can be a way of achieving it I actually haven't really read any arguments against SNOT building in this thread, but most of us seem to agree that it is possible to build good and interesting MOCs without it. Cheers, Ralph

I'm one of the lucky people with a dedicated LEGO room. When I'm building I tend to be focused on actually building, so no TV for me, although I might have my computer sitting next to me to look at reference pictures. I also almost always have music playing: usually something that I already know well enough for it to not distract me. I listen to a lot of Bon Iver and Elbow at the moment, and typically I listen to alternative/ rock. I might have a beer or two if it's a Friday or Saturday evening. Cheers, Ralph

It certainly opens a lot of possibilities and I couldn't imagine building one of my aircraft without SNOT work, quite simply because it allows me to make shapes that I couldn't otherwise, but here are two of my own MOCs with little or no SNOT work, one of which is a five-wide car Hot Rod (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr (there's a tiny bot of SNOT work at the back, but the rest is done with half-stud offsets.) Georgian houses (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr (there's a window in the roof of the conservatory in the back that's built sideways and the green skip is a bit of SNOT building though.) The houses in particular are nothing fancy when it comes to build techniques, but they're neither bad in quality or particularly easy to pull off IMO. Cheers, Ralph

I myself prefer my cars to be smaller and I'm pretty sure that small and detailed can go together, but ultimately there is a wide range of possibilities when it comes to what constitutes minifig scale. However, I think that one rule you should try to observe, no matter what the scale is, is that the relative sizes of the different vehicles are more-or-less correct. I wrote a post about this a while ago. The pickup truck is wider than the tow truck and about twice as wide as some of the other cars, and that's really not the way things are in real life, it's something that immediately drew my attention and that at first drew my eye away from the rest. I didn't even notice there was a train on there! It's not my intention to hijack this thread, but I made a picture of how I do things a while ago, that may be useful to you too, tongue60. It is of American vehicles. Cheers, Ralph

I don't think that using SNOT techniques is snobbish, but I think that the point Mr. Benn was trying to make is that the attitude that a model can only be good if it involves SNOT building (or is studless) is a bit snobbish. Cheers, Ralph

The subtitle of your post confused me a bit, because it doesn't seem to agree with the description of SNOT that you use in the actual post. Some people confuse SNOT building and building studless. They are not the same. Almost all of my models have studs on top but most use SNOT techniques. That said, I'm generally of the opinion that the build techniques often don't really matter all that much for the overall look and feel of a model. I've seen stuff that used amazing techniques and that looked a bit rubbish and I've seem models that were built with fairly basic stacked bricks and plates and that looked amazing and I don't use SNOT techniques for the sake of it. However, I do think that there are plenty of things that I do that I don't think I could if I didn't build stuff sideways or upside-down. Cheers, Ralph

I like the idea of this a lot, but have some doubts about the execution. I'll start with the latter. The two-storey police headquarters, IMO, would look better if it were a single-storey building too, just like the others. There are issues with the scale. Some of the cars are huge, others are tiny. There obviously are differences in size between real cars, but your pickup truck is larger than some of the trucks and the sedans range in width from four to six studs wide. I think it would be a lot better if you tried to coordinate the size of them a bit better. I also think that the buildings look very small compared to the larger of the vehicles. I know pickup trucks can be large, but yours is literally the size of a house. Now for the good. I took a road-trip through Utah, Nevada and Arizona several years ago, also driving along parts of the old route 66 out there and found the somewhat ramshackle towns I passed through fascinating and you've captured their look in your model, with the sort of buildings that I'd expect to see. I like the white one in particular, as well as the pump-jack. Cheers, Ralph

Frogstudio may be right that the quality of the parts has improved a lot, but the design of this ship is definitely clunky. I think that limiting the part count and the variety of parts shows in the helicopter. The ship isn't too bad, but that helicopter is awful. I take back what I said about engines though. This is what LEGO presented back in 1979! That puts Oxford behind about 30 years I reckon that if LEGO would make a military ship- which they won't- it would look a lot better, but unfortunately would also be at least twice as expensive! For military stuff, I'll stick to MOCs. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. You're not the first person so suggest I build a C-17, but as interesting as the aircraft is, it's not something that I'm particularly keen on trying. It's such a larger aircraft. This makes perfect sense for an airlifter, but at the scale I normally build, the size would create problems. It's obviously a serious investment in parts, but that's not so much the problem. I've been thinking about a B-52 for a few years now and have also considered a KC-135R (because it would go well together with my other aircraft from the 366th Wg) and I have been parts with those in mind, but I haven't started either yet because I fear I'll have structural problems with the wings. This was tricky enough with my B-1B and it's wings are relatively short. The wing span may be similar, but that is with the wings not swept back. The actual length of the wings on a B-52 and KC-135 is much longer. The wings on the C-17 aren't swept back very dramatically, but the C-17 adds the potential for structural problems with the fuselage as well. Building a more-or-less cylindrical section with the right diameter for the C-17s cavernous fuselage will be difficult. On a smaller scale, however -something like 1/100- I reckon it wouldn't be particularly difficult. It's something I may consider. Cheers, Ralph

Interesting review frogstudio. Some elements of the model strike me as very basic and there are a few issues with scale and what are those orange lights all over the place? It has some nice features, such as the opening ammunition hatches and the overall shape is decent. The hull pieces are nice too and the fit seems to be pretty good, which is impressive given the size of the elements. The helicopter is little short of atrocious, however. I agree that it looks somewhat like LEGO's helicopters from the early 'eighties, but they at least had something that looked like engines. From that helicopter it seems obvious to me that these guys are also having to limit the parts count to keep the cost down. Cheers, Ralph

Nice Tram, Alois. You've done an impressive job capturing the look, in particular with the tapering driver's cabins and the SNOT work on the passenger doors. They make an excellent addition to a French or Belgian themed city layout. Cheers, Ralph

Very nice buses and excellent work on the stickers, Gaultier. The one thing I don't like here is your use of minifigs with them. You seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to get the vehicles proportioned just right and the oddly proportioned minifig looks out of place and in many respects too small. tbroyd, if you look closely you'll see that the hinge bricks are 1x2 rather than 1/1 but that half of each has been made black, using stickers or paint. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you Christopher. Most of the brick-built canopies that I'd done before I did these were fairly straightforward in a sense because they weren't bubble canopies. Brick-built solutions work fine for fairly flat glazing and I wasn't sure they would work for something like the canopy on the F-15, so this was a new discovery for me. There still are 17 helicopters and aircraft in my current collection with custom windows and canopies. On some replacing them with a brick-built solution will be easy, because it only concerns one or two small windows or because I can copy a solution that I've already built. I've got two more Tomcats, for instance, and can copy what I did to the first. On some other models, however, it'll require pretty extensive rebuilds of the cockpit section and like my F-16, I may combine the change in canopy with a rebuild of other parts of the aircraft or helicopter as well. For instance, I'm not happy with certain bits of my EA-6B Prowler. Right now I'm planning a brand-new model, but after that I'll probably continue replacing canopies on existing models. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. Some people collect sets. I collect my own models. Being able to hang on to them is a precious luxury and I've had many of models for years. That does mean that some of them start to look a bit old. In part it's because you do gain new building techniques, your preferences change over time and also because LEGO keeps releasing new parts that weren't available when the original model was built or that you didn't have at the time. When I decide to rebuild older models, it's usually this which leads to the biggest changes. Rebuilding older models cab be a fun process. It's not unusual for me not to remember how exactly I built the inside of my models years ago, and I sometimes come across surprises when opening them up. Cheers, Ralph

I don't think your questions are trivial. I think many builders follow a certain set of self-imposed rules on what they build -some in excruciating detail- and every builder has a different way of doing things. a) Let me give you an example of excruciating details: I know people will cut flex tube and pneumatic tube only to lengths that have been used in sets and who will only use string from sets. I'm a bit more flexible. Flex tube and pneumatic tube is fair game, but otherwise I don't cut or modify parts. I also don't paint parts. In principle I should be able to take a model apart and be able to build something else with the parts. I use custom stickers and for a long time have been using non-LEGO plastic to make cockpit canopies for my aircraft models (although I've been having a purist streak lately). b) I normally don't play with my models. I look at them as scale models with some added functions. My cars have wheels that turn and doors that open, my aircraft have wheels that retract and wings that fold, for instance, and I'd like them to be reasonably sturdy and do like the bits to be connected somehow, but some bits of my models can be very flimsy nonetheless. I don't think it's a problem. I enjoy building things and looking at the things I built, but that's about it. If I'd have spent weeks painting, sanding and glueing a plastic scale model of an airplane, I'd also wouldn't want to play with it. c) I've been building for most of my life and I have a reasonable idea of what I have in my collection and of what it takes to build the things I might want to build. I plan my models, usually in my mind and sometimes using a drawing. I don't use CAD for anything other than making the odd instruction now and then. I choose what I build and what I buy based on those plans. I've got a way of doing things that works for me without using CAD and feel that adding CAD to my design process only needlessly complicates things. I gave it a try more than a year ago, and found it a mixed bag. I'm not sure what a good way is to start if you don't have experience or only a small collection, so there is little advice I can give on that. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. I was never completely happy with them myself, but for a long time they seemed the best alternative. It's only thank to parts that haven't been around for very long (trans clear cheese slopes) and that aren't easy to get hold of in large quantities or that are rare full stop (trans clear jumper plates), that I can do this at all. By the way, I did the canopy on my A-10 on Sunday. 190th FS 'Skullbangers' A-10A Warthog (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr Cheers, Ralph

The model was made by Carl Greatrix, who works for TT games on LEGO-themed computer games, and who is a fellow member of Brickish. I highly doubt it would ever be released as a set. Cheers, Ralph

Getting few or no comments is not all that unusual, I'm afraid. Anyway, I have a few. I like how you've made the path that the pilot has made through the cornfield, but find it a bit odd that the aircraft hasn't made any tracks. I also would like to suggest that you make the field a bit bigger. It seems odd that there's another green are behind it and that, somehow, miraculously, the pilot managed to end up stopping his plane in the far corner of a tiny little field. A few more ideas. Have you considered trying to build the plane with its canopy open? Perhaps you could have the pilot's helmet lying on top of the wing too. That would make it a lot clearer that the pilot has landed this thing in the field. There's also nothing that tells me that this is German plane, except perhaps the yellow nose which I guess means that the plane is supposed to be a Bf109. There are some really nice bits in the landscape, but overall the story that it's telling isn't at all clear and some of the details are a bit off. Cheers, Ralph

That is funny. I tend to think of the one on the F-16 as brick-built, in the sense that it isn't made using custom parts. The aft part is actually 'sculpted' using slopes and plates. I used to make most of my canopies with non-LEGO plastic. Perhaps an old picture is in order. Teen fighters by Mad physicist, on Flickr And here are the same models now. Teen fighters (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr I only just noticed that I swapped the F-14 and the F/A-18... The Star Wars canopy is a nice piece, but unfortunately it's the wrong shape and size for the canopies of most of my jets. Furthermore, using it on a canopy that opens like the ones on the real jets do can be a pain. Fortunately I did work for the F-16. Sculpting that shape using transparent plates and tiles would have been a chore and I've used just about all the trans black plates I own on the aft bit of the canopy. Thank you. That's pretty much the intention. I used to build plastic model kits, but I don't like painting. It's much more fun to build them out of LEGO parts. Cheers, Ralph

Thanks for the comments guys. I've had some of these models so long that I don't even remember whether I posted them here when I first built them, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that some of you haven't seen them before. I am glad you like them. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. I like fiddling around with details, obviously. It was clear to me that you weren't insinuating anything. I made the instructions for the aircraft for Intrepid because we were going to build multiple copies. Making the instructions was a bit of a pain, but ultimately it ended up saving time. Cheers, Ralph

Over the years I've had a fair bit of criticism about using non-Lego plastic for the cockpit canopies on many of my aircraft. I was never completely happy with that solution myself, but for a long time it seemed to be the least bad of the various alternatives. Many of the helicopters I've built in the last two or three years had brick-built cockpit windows or canopies as do all of the WW-II aircraft that I've built. A few months ago I decided that it was time for me to try it on a modern fighter, and I rebuilt the canopy on my Su-27 Flanker Su-27 Flanker revamped (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr The new canopy was built using trans clear bricks, plates and cheese slopes, as well as a worryingly large number of rarer parts such as trans clear tiles and jumper plates. It was a fairly extensive rebuild, because I couldn't just limit myself to replacing the existing canopy; I also had to make changes to the cockpit interior and the construction of the canopy frame. It was worth the effort though, because all in all I was very happy with the end result. Even though the new canopy is a bit clunkier than the original, the overall look is much more attractive IMO. After this it was clear to me that I was going to have to do something similar to my other aircraft too. The next two on my list were my F-14A Tomcat and my F/A-18C Hornet. I rebuilt their canopies last weekend. Fighters of CVW-8 (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr Fighters of CVW-8 (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr The fourth aircraft to get the treatment is the pride of my fleet: my B-1B Lancer. I;ve had that for almost four years and its canopy was begiining to look a bit tatty, with bits of tape peeling off. I couldn't have that. 34th BS 'Thunderbirds' B-1B Lancer by Mad physicist, on Flickr Here is a close-up of the cockpit section. B-1B cockpit details (1) by Mad physicist, on Flickr Liking the result, I've gone on to rebuild the canopies on my F-16 and F-15 as well. Replacing the canopy on the F-16 was tricky. One thing I didn't want to give up on with the rebuild was the canopy being able to open. Unfortunately, on the F-16 as it opens, the aft end of the canopy hinges over the top of the aft bit. Getting this to work meant rebuilding much of the structure of the cockpit. While I was at it, I also rebuilt the wings -giving them a more accurate sweepback angle- and because they didn't look right with the new wings, I also rebuilt the leading edge root extensions and made a few other changes. All in all I think I rebuilt about 40% of the model. 389th FS 'Thunderbolts' F-16C (3) by Mad physicist, on Flickr Compared to the surgery done on the F-16, changes made to the F-15 for its new canopy were slight. 390th FS 'Wild Boars' F-15C Eagle (2) by Mad physicist, on Flickr It's expensive, because of the rare parts involved, and can be difficult, but I am happy with the results so far. I'm pretty sure I'll give some more of my planes this treatment, posting them here when they're done. Cheers, Ralph

I don't really have an intent. I enjoy building stuff and showing it to others. I've done a few step-by-step photographs as a favour for people who wanted to build copies and I have even made some instructions, but I found both to be pretty tedious. Beyond allowing people to build copies, I'm not quite sure what the point would be of me sharing the details of everything I do. People who may see my models as examples to improve their own building are probably best served not by building copies, but having a go at figuring out stuff on heir own. I guess you're right with your remark about crutches! Thank you very much. Much appreciated. Cheers, Ralph

Thank you. So am I. I did not see your technic helicopter when you posted it, but just had a look at it. It's a different aesthetic, obviously, but neat nonetheless. Thank you very much. Much appreciated. Many of them have been posted here in the past, although in particular my US Navy models are a few years old. I'm currently giving a fair few of my aircraft a make-over, and once done, I'll probably post the updated models here as well. In particular my F-16 is having major surgery done :-) Cheers, Ralph