Walter Kovacs

I recall seeing this one years ago over on FBTB. It's still impressive. The overwelming amount of tan bricks just astounds me. I don't think ther's a single part I like better than any other. All of the buildings and scenery fit together so well. I for one would love to see some of your earlier, possibly less refined work. Just to see the progression to the great work you do nowadays.

Truth be told, I didn't notice that they were joined, either. Most of the variants that have this style of hull aren't joined all the way down. In fact, this one is the only one, as far as I can tell. Figures.

Jedi Youngling Mistotar Typha vs Jedi Youngling Hans Olo, Round 2 Health: 3..........Health: 4 High-0..............High-0 Parry-0.............Mid-0 Kick-0...............Kick-0 Mid-0................Parry-0 Kick-1...............Parry-0 Health: 3..........Health: 3 The younglings resume their duel in round 2 more wary of each other. After several futile attacks, Mistotar finally catches Hans off guard with a well timed kick. The combatants enter round 3 tied!

When I designed my TIE Shuttle model, I knew that the design could be applied to mayn different variants that share the same hull types. TIEs like the Bomber, Heavy Bomber, Interdictor and Hammer could be made with a few minor tweaks (OK, the Interdictor is going to require more than just a tweak). Among the ships with similar body types is the TIE Boarding Craft. While the ship itself was designed for use in A New Hope, it never made it onto screen. Here is the only source image I could muster up for the Boarding Craft: Looking at that image, there were only a few differences between the Shuttle and the Boarding Craft. Obviously, the front of the passenger compartment has a docking ring on it. It looks like there is a simple appendage below the pilot windscreen, perhaps for latching onto an enemy ship? And the passenger compartment floor hangs down lower than any other TIE of this body type. Taking these small differences to heart, this is what I came up with for the TIE Boarding Craft. EDIT: AFter a comment about the length of the center section, I decided to make it longer. It now extends almost all of the length of the cockpit and crew compartments. The original pictures can still be viewed in brickshelf. I didn't have much to go on for what the additional parts actually look like, aside from the docking ring. So I let my imagination run wild. For the part under the cockpit, I felt free to add a little detailing, best seen here. Aside from the additions, the model is exactly the same as my previous TIE Shuttle. I didn't even bother removing the passenger seats out of the passenger compartment, as they wouldn't be visible in the finaly model. Let's just keep that our little secret, shall we. The front view shows the docking ring and the additions under the main hulls. Simple additions, but the moel does have a different feel to it. Another view of the front, this time from below the model. The wings, while the same, are still worth looking at. After all, I did spend quite a bit of time designing them. The back view hasn't changed much, with only the passenger side showing any alterations. EDIT: You can see the longer center section here as well. The Top is worth looking at, as it has the best view of the center section greebling, at least the two sides you can see. EDIT: Obviously, this is the best view for the longer center section. The top greebling is the same as the original center section, merely rotated 180 degrees. The cockpit is exactly the same as the TIE Shuttle. For those that haven't seen my earlier work, here is a photo, for your pleasure. As I have said, it isn't much different from the TIE Shuttle. That was fully intended, as designing from scratch would have been a pain. Comments and Criticisms are most certainly welcome. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go photograph my next UCS creation. Brickshelf Gallery, when moderated.

I recently changed how I store my LEGO, so I thought I'd post it here. First, I have three categories for my LEGO, and my storage system changes for each. The first category are my Star Wars UCS sets. These are for display only, and as such are left assembled 24/7/365. When planning for building a MOC, I never count the pieces in these sets. It's as if their parts don't even exist. The second category is my system sets. They are stored in Sterilite tubs according to theme. Current themes include Technic (including Bionicle), Town, Classic Space, UFO, Exploriens, Castle, Creator, Mars Mission, Insectoids and Harry Potter. Star Wars are further subdivided into Episode I, Ep II, Ep III, Ep IV, Ep V, Ep VI, Expanded Universe, MINI and Clone Wars. The final caregory is MOCing/Spare Parts. These are separated into 18 drawers. These drawers each have a different part type. The drawers are: Small (under 4 x 4) Light Gray Plates, Large (4 x 4 and up) Light Gray Plates, Light Gray Wings (Wedge Plates), Small (under 4 x 4) Black Plates, Large (4 x 4 and up) Black Plates, Black Wings (Wedge Plates), Bricks & Panels, Technic Bricks and Liftarms, Wedges & Dishes, Slopes, Tiles, Minifig (includes 1 x 1 Taps, Bars & Antenna), Small Colored Plates, Large Colored Plates, Colored Wings, Technic Bush & Pin, Miscellaneous Technic and Hinges. This system works well for me. I design all of my MOCs in MLCad first, so I have a list of parts I'll need to build. I check my MOCing parts first, then fill any gaps otu of my system containers. A quick check on Bricklink tells me where to look in my system boxes. I've thought about separating out all of my system boxes into drawers like my MOCing parts, but two things stop me: 1) It would take many sets of drawers to do an effective job, which will cost a pretty penny. Money that could be spent on more LEGO 2) When I want to put a system set together, I don't want to have to hunt through 30 different drawers to find the parts I need. With my orginization, I need only go to one container, and I have all the parts I need for any given set. Of corse, I still need to hunt through 8 or 9 sets worth of pieces, but that usually isn't too bad.

I recycle my MOCs after making sure I don't need any extra photos of it. The dirty deed is usually done a week after showing them in a thread here. One of the advantages of designing in MLCad first.

The problem with using clip and bar as hinges is that the clips can't be mounted flush on the bottom of a plate like the old finger hinges can. The clips either have to extend past the edge of the plate (brick, whatever else you are using), creating a gap, or you have to put a 1 x 2 plate to give yourself a space for the clip. You don't always have that kind of room to spare. The old finger hinges also are good for stud inversions. In the space of one plate height, you can go from studs up to studs down, as long as you have 5 studs of length to play with. I've done that several times in my MOCs. Not nearly as feasable with the click hinges or clip and bar techniques. I'd LOVE to have the old finger hinges make a return. It probably isn't going ot happen, though.

Nope, she bought it quite a while ago (over a year, at least) and "hid" it under my daughter's bed. Right were I could gaze longingly at it for hours a day, whenever I wanted. There are no LEGO secrets in my house.

Those were done for the LEGOWorld 2010 convention this year. The Death Star MOC was done by Morten, and the Medal Scene was doen by KimT. You can find the thread for the Death Star here, and the medals here. Smokebelch, those are some very good photographs. I love that speeder bike shot.

I'm going to echo what Darth Lion said. The scene is rather nice, with a lot of good action going on. It's just very nondescript. It could be a battle just about anywhere in the galaxy. I do like the clone taking a break behind the wall. Any backstory on why he needed a rest in the middle of a pitched battle?

Very nice, echobasehoth. You've captured the shape very nicely. I love the engines, and the greebling under the engines is rather nice. Do you have any closer pics of that area? Do you know how many pieces you used? An estimation will work.

Jedi Youngling Mistotar Typha vs Jedi Youngling Hans Olo, Round 1 Health: 5..........Health: 5 Mid-1................High-0 Kick-0................Low-1 Parry-0..............Kick-1 Low-0................Parry-0 Parry-0..............Parry-0 Health: 3...........Health: 4 Two Younglings enter the duel arena, each bent on his first win. Mistotar starts out fast, drawing first blood. But Hans Olo responds, landing the next blow, then anticipating his opponent's parry. Round 2 DS, gentlemen. EDIT: Minxter's Round 2 DS received. Waiting on The Legonator (at your leisure, of course).

If I had a nickel for every time I said that, I'd actually be able to afford to MOD it.

Thank you for all of your comments. I thought about a hatch, but there were two problems with that. 1) None of the source pictures show where the hatch is located, or what it looks like. 2) With the likely locations of a hatch, I can't think of a good way to install one without de-stabilizing the entire model. Perhaps I'll add a hatch on a second revision. If you notice, the cockpit has no entrance for the pilot, either The Clawcraft is certainly on my list of alternates to do. It was some difficult architecture, and would certainly present a challenge. It's decidedly not the boarding craft. That one is coming a lot sooner than you know Thanks AC. Seeing how I can only build one UCS TIE at a time, doing a diorama with all of them at the same time will be...difficult at best. Unless you'd care to donate your brick collection to me? The best I can do is render the models and compose them into a scene. Sort of like this. Obviously I haven't updated that picture in a while. I've thought about doing the two treaded TIEs soon. Both the Crawler and the Mauler are interesting models. I should have another one up by the end of the week. The pics are up and the folder's been moderated. If there are no criticisms on that one, then I have two more that I can build. So that makes three more models within the next two or three weeks. Then you go into withdrawal

As always, I'm willing to adjudicate. Just send your DS to me. Edit: Minxter's DS received. Waiting for The Legonator.

Alas, I am not made out of money. To build any of my designs, I have to cull parts from my system sets. So the models are together long enough to take the initial photos, and then to make sure none of the responders want any extra photos, perhaps an angle I hadn't thought of. All of my photos can be seen in my Brickshelf folder, though. The link is in my signature. Well, I'm glad you like it, Darth Lion. While I would be honored if it were frontpaged, I never expect my designs to receive that honor. I've seen a lot of great MOCs here that don't get that honor. I have one more TIE that I've already taken pictures of. I'll let this thread run it's course before starting another. After that, I have two more designs that are complete, one of which I know I have the parts to build. The other I have to check on yet. One thing I forgot to ask everyone. Is there a specific TIE alternate you'd like to see me work on? I am leaning towards a standard TIE Fighter, since there are a LOT of alternates that use that one as a base. I'm having trouble getting the wing right, without breaking down and completely plagerizing someone else's work. And I can't envision a good way to connect the wing to a pylon, at least not right now. Any other suggestions? Reason for Edit: Spelling mistake

In my never ending quest to create a UCS scale version of evry TIE alternate, I've had a few disappointing models. One of the worst, at least in my opinion, was my TIE Bomber. It was one of my first models, and I think it showed. So when I decided to do the TIE Shuttle, I knew I had to use a different approach than the old TIE Bomber used. The TIE Shuttle was one of the few TIE Alternates to get screen time. It is seen in The Empire Strikes Back shuttling Captain Needa to his fateful end at the hands of Darth Vader. At least you see it's back end. Here is the link to the Wookiepedia page for more information. 3/4 View And here she is. As you can see, aside from the top and bottom of the main cylinders, nearly everything else is SNOTed. In order to achieve this, I used a combination of rings of locking 1 x 2 dual hinge bricks and locking 1 x 4 dual hinge bricks and rings of Technic angle connector #4s with 4L and 2L axles. The result is a very strong tube, which can withstand the torque from the wing pylons and the center section. Front View While good, these tubes are not perfect. There is some droop around the center section. I could probably eliminate it by extending the technic beams that form the core of the center section and pylons through the tubes, but then I lose all of the interior. I think I can live with a little droop. I was originally going to take the printing off of that 10 x 10 dish on the passenger side. I bought it with that intention. But I thought the printing would work well in this situation. I don't think it detracts, but I'm willing to hear any criticisms. Side View I spent a lot of time trying to add detail to the wings, which I typically ignore. They came out pretty well. Back View On my original TIE Bomber, I had the Ion Engines in the wrong place. This model fixes that oversight. Cockpit As always, I like to have detailed cockpits. The pilot's seat is one of the better ones I've come up with, mostly because I wasn't trying to shehorn it into a standard TIE cockpit ball. A little space makes all the difference in the world. The front console has a few printed slopes, but not too many. This TIE is mainly used to go between capital ships, so there isn't too much it needs to do. I re-used the control stick from my TIE Hunter model, as it is the best I've come up with to date. I might never change it again. Bah, who am I kidding? If you look behind the pilot's seat, you'll see some greebles. I intended these to be the engines. I was going to have three sets of these around the edges of this cylinder, but the 2 x 2 plate with pin to hold the greeb in place interfered with the sides of the cylinder. So only the ones on the floor remain. Console Front I always prefer to add a little front to the pilot's console controls. It helps fill that space with a little detail. Passenger Compartment What would a shuttle be without a passenger compartment? Nothing, that's what. These two seats are exactly the same as the pilot's seat (well, the printed tiles are slightly different) and are pretty snug in there. There wasn't quite as much space as I had thought there was. Once completed, no one will ever know that they exist. So why add them in? Because I know they are there, and I felt it important that they exist. Center Front The center section is pretty interesting, at least to me. The Technic bricks attach to the rest of the model with studs forward, so you are looking at the front right now. I originally greebled the entire hull of the ship, but scaled it back to just the center section. I'm glad I did. The fully greebled version looked far too busy. Center Top The top uses some simple SNOT to get the studs the right way. Center Bottom Same with the bottom. You can see the empty hole I created for the display stand. The center section was actually the first part of the model I finished designing, right after perfecting my ring design. Center Back Getting the studs facing the right way for the back took a bit of doing. I used several 1 x 2 bricks with studs on sides to do the job. They are the black parts you can see on the side. The sides of the center section were left open, since they don't show on the finished model. Well, maybe they do, but you have to really work to see them. Obviously, this design can be adapted to create any other TIE alternate that uses a TIE Bomber-like shape. I haven't designed the necessary accoutrements to turn this into a TIE Bomber yet, but it should be pretty easy. The TIE Hammer, TIE Interdictor or TIE Boarding Craft also share quite a bit in common with this design. Perhaps you'll see one of those TIEs from me very soon As always, Comments and Constructive Criticism is very much appreciated. Gallery, when moderated.

Jedi Youngling Mistotar Typha vs Jedi Padawan Trolius, Round 2 Health: 3..........Health: 3 High-0...............Parry-0 Parry-0..............Low-0 Mid-0.................Saber Throw-1 Kick-0................High-1 Parry-0..............Force Push-1 Health: 0..........Health: 3 Mistotar Typha starts out the round defensively, keeping Trolius at bay. But the experience of the Padawan soon shows, finishing the duel with a some fierce Force abilities. Well played, by both players. Congratulations, TheMaster. Make sure to update your profile. Better luck next time, Minxter. You fought well. Reason for Edit: fixed column spacing

I don't know how you do it, AC. This is absolutely amazing. Of all the fantastic details, the elevated control room catches my eye the most. I'm not sure why, as it isn't the flashiest part of the MOC. It's probably because of my engineering background. Someday someone is going to have to teach how to design a good vig. Even in my wildest dreams I couldn't come up with anything close to this good.

It's sitting on my dining room table as we speak. I'll take photos tomorrow. If I can get the photos edited, you'll get to see it tomorrow as well. For now, here is a sneak preview:

Great review CopMike, you lucky dog. The minifigs look great. That Boba looks awesome, and Bossk would make a nice addition to my collection. But I just can't see dropping $70 on a set that I already have twice (the original and 6209). Especially since it doesn't look any better than the '06 version. No worse, but no better. When I win the lottery, yes. But not before.

This looks fantastic cavegod. You really outdid yourself on this. I'll start working on a MLCad model soon. I have a few MOCs of my own ot photograph first. And I can't wait to see that shuttle you hinted at.

At least LoRd AmUnRa is still an active member. His last logon was within the last two months (in early March). I can't say I remember him posting in the SW forums, although I am far from an authority on this.

It was my pleasure to bring everyone this review. This was my 9th RA review, so it had to be a good one. The workshop roof fits nicelyin the front end of the sandcrawler, where the crane would normally go. The small hatch that covers the hole where the droids get dropped in has no apparent place to go. I've heard others complain about the fragility of this set before. I haven't run into any problems with it yet. Maybe I haven't played with it enough.

Jedi Youngling Mistotar Typha vs Jedi Padawan Trolius Health: 5......Health: 5 Low - 0........Saber Throw - 1 Kick - 1.......Parry - 0 Parry - 0......Force Push - 1 High - 1......Low - 0 Parry - 0.....Mid - 0 Health: 3.....Health: 3 The more experienced Trolius lashes out with a flurry of force abilities. But the Youngling is patient, and pushes the attack when the opportunity presents itself. Round 1 ends with both combatants scoring well-timed hits. DS recieved from Minxter. Please send your DS for Round 2, TheMaster.