manglegrat

Pricing merits aside, this was sold out when I popped in to the Calgary Lego Store earlier today. Gah. Probably just the result of the keeners emptying out the first shipment, though. Another shipment is due shortly. Can't see there being a longterm shortage, but it kinda ticked me off since I only went down there for that! Should've checked, I guess.

Liking the leaked images - if those are legit then I'm in for at least one set, maybe two... (wife says she wants one lightcycle for her desk at work - and I'm not splitting a set... so gotta have two, then! obvs. )

Thanks! She's awesome.

I don't have the space for it, but... I'll be keeping an eye on progress, and keen to grab some instructions (if the price isn't Mortesv-scale ).

Aaw, shucks... Thanks!

I just published this as a (free, of course) MOC on Rebrickable here.

I added it as a MOC on Rebrickable: https://www.rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-12837/manglegrat/battlestar-galactica-ucs/

Finished! Sidepods extended below: And here she is flying in formation with the Pegasus - The Bucket and the Beast! I stuck with the original narrow nose design, but made some tweaks through the build process for stability, robustness, etc., which are reflected in the LDD files now available in my Bricksafe folder (and a couple of Word doc files for stickers: one clear-backed, one white-backed). It's now at about 3300 parts. More pics in my Flickr album. A parts list (double-check against the LDD files!) is available on my Rebrickable account. I didn't do instructions (and won't), but I split the original design that the last render was done from into LDD files with component groups and used the LDD-generated instructions to build the components, then did a bit of de/reconstruction to pull it all together. I may have gotten a little out of sync, so they may not be perfect - I'll leave it as a challenge for the builder... With a bit of creativity (and hey, that's what Lego's all about!), you should be able to build it from those no problem. I'm particularly happy with the Colonial logo on the shield on the back. The LDD uses a 4x4 dish instead, but I'm not good enough to figure out how to do a sectioned sticker that can fit on a 3d compound curve with a hole in the middle, so I went flat instead. There's no 4x4 round tile available, but with 4 of the new macaroni tiles (27925) and a 2x2 round tile (14769, not 4150), the sticker holds it all together as if it was a single 4x4 round tile, and fits where the dish was. I cheated a bit and used rubber bands (one red one twisted up a bit to tighten it up, and one blue one, both genuine Lego ones - in the parts list but not in the LDD files) to hold the "cheek" plates on the head in the right place and at the right angles. I could make connections that'd make it work with some extra parts in LDD but couldn't actually assemble it IRL because other parts get in the way and make it impossible to do it! Not sure that "floating" approach is strictly legal, but hey - works for me! Actually, some rubber bands would probably help tighten up the head section of the Pegasus as well... hmm. The side pod/launch bays slide out and in on grooved bricks & door rail parts. They stay in or out just through friction at the angle it's at on that stand (shallower than the stand for Pegasus). I'm relieved I didn't have to design a locking mechanism for them! If anyone builds it, please share your pics afterwards, and good luck. Here's a shot of my BSG fleet.

Ooh! Great, thanks for the heads-up! I had substituted 4085b (1x1 plate with clip vertical) for all of those to avoid the silver... I may build it that way to begin with, and then substitute the 49668s later, when I can get my hands on 'em.

Excellent build at an unusual (to me) scale - for some reason I'm particularly impressed with the curved "shoulders" of the R2 unit... Great detail!

Good luck! That sort of time investment is why I shy away from it myself. Too damn lazy to put in that much time perfecting it all, and my natural restlessness is always driving me to get 'er done, declare success and move on to the next thing! Good on ya for doing it! And awesome wife for supporting you through it. (mine moved to Canada with me, so I appreciate the awesomeness of supportive wives )

Thanks! Yeah, good ideas. But now I bit the bullet and bought the 41747s and subbed out the two 4287s for 3665s, the rest are definitely not as frightening to buy (good tip for others, though!). Plus I prefer the curves on the 41747s... I already did the 41762 swap - I had used that before in another MOC previously (the @Renegade Clone B-Wing) - you can even smooth-off the studs with a 1x2 tile instead if you want. I've been trying to swap out everything that looks rare & expensive (e.g. the barrels), but keep stumbling on parts that weren't expensive a few months ago but now are - that's why I'm thinking all of us building this thing are creating a parts shortage and a sellers market!

Cool! Hope it hasn't been scorching where you are, like the recent 47c in Sydney! Stay cool, dude. On the flipside, I walked to & from work (45min each way) in -35c with windchill last week, but with good preparations (lots of layers), it was all good. Most cities in Canada were colder than Mars between Christmas & New Year... My version (for all its imperfections) is probably over-engineered there, too. It'd be an interesting exercise to see what a Lego professional would change to right-size and optimize the overall design according to TLC build/production rules. I'm definitely not a pro! If you get it finished in time for the April exhibit, will you share the build/final pics (or prototypes of your design ideas) so we can celebrate it with you? Good luck with your studies - so glad I graduated with my Bachelor's degree 23 years ago, but I went back 15 years ago for 2 years of an MBA (d'oh). I still get flashbacks & dreams about being unprepared for exams, etc... Now it's just professional qualifications I need to keep current, so it never really ends!

Heh. I decided to stick with Sand Green when I did a colour-swap for Sand Blue, then priced that vs. the original Sand Green. There was only a ~$50 difference after doing a tweak to swap out the 2x 1x3 33 inverted slopes for 1x2s (and most of that was due to 2x$20 41747s), and across the total cost of the parts the difference is kinda immaterial. It's still gonna be astronomically expensive overall, though! I'm now sitting at 88% parts ordered... waiting for more sales!

Looks great in the brick - awesome job!

<snip whine about sand green wedge prices and changing colours> decided to bite the bullet and stick with Sand Green, while I'm still working...

Yay! Works fine here on my GTX1070. Phew! I was hating having to ugly it up...

Sadly, Canada Post has screwed the pooch big time with my final BL parts order and I'm having to reorder them while the original package is sitting in idiot limbo somewhere. It took a week to get to Canada from the US and clear customs, spent the next 3 weeks sitting in Richmond, BC being ignored as everyone's Christmas mail went past it, then a few days ago it was sent to Mississauga, Ontario, for some unknown reason that Canada Post can't even tell me after 30 minutes on hold to talk to someone in Customer Service, who did tell me I have to get the sender to ask USPS what Canada Post has done to the package while it's been in Canada... It's only like $15USD worth of used bricks, so not exactly pushing the limits! I'm sitting here in Calgary dumbfounded at the mess they've made of it. I just made the replacement order tonight from a Canadian BL store, but it'll be probably a week or more until it gets here, so there's gonna be at least that much of a wait - unless the original order arrives here from its magical mystery tour before then. On the upside, I managed to get a UCS Falcon when it was available just before Christmas, it came just after New Year and the parts for the vertical stand have finally arrived this week, so I've got that to work on while I wait.

Just joshin' on the scale thing. I could also have said that to make mine to-scale with your big ones, mine'd need to be about the size of a bus... but maybe just the size of a small car (like a Lotus Elise) to scale with the smaller ones. Cool news on the Raider. I'll be watching for a new thread! PS my BrickLink orders got caught up in the holiday postal deluge, no signs of the parts yet. Gah!

Just got an email about the Falcon being in stock on Lego Store Canada. Order is in! I can see it in progress already but now comes the nervous wait for the confirmation email and expected ship date... Update: confirmation email received. She's mine! And a black VIP card, too. Sweet! Update 2 (order time + ~5h): Order shipping notification received. Good lord, TLC!

Once I've validated the build in the brick, yeah, sure you can have a go at it. I'm not convinced the way the head side-plates are secured (at a single point only) is solid enough, and the lack of a locking mechanism for the sliding side pods makes me a bit worried they'll move out of alignment on the stand just under gravity - though there may be enough clutch between the 1x8 door rail plates and grooved 1x4 bricks they slide on... I want to test those out in real life and find out what (if anything) needs to be tweaked and made more robust before releasing the files. There's probably a lot more internal parts that don't need to be LBG as well, but I'm less concerned about that aspect. Thanks! Do you mean the big ones or the small ones? This and Pegasus would make a great set with your two big ones, for sure. To be closer to-scale though, your small ones'd have to be just smaller than a 1x1 tile... When's the next set of pics of your big-scale Raider coming out?

Thanks! I won't be doing full instructions like some of those awesome guys who know how to use BluePrint and LPub (too lazy to rebuild my files to leverage that software properly), but I'm expecting to use the auto-generated instructions coming from split-up LXF files of the final model in the renders above to build this in-the-brick myself using the LDD-generated instructions. If those work for me, then I'll release those files (plus the sticker sheets) through my BrickSafe account. Bear with me - just have to wait for 2 more BL orders (though one is coming from Poland so might be slow over the holidays)... I'll post as-built pics and file links here when I'm done!

Ah, right! Gotcha.

Cool! That's a great initial hit-rate for parts... With the rotating section, is your idea with the wheel to try to make it rotate? I'm very interested in how that might turn out!

Thanks! I'm constantly amazed by the frequency of new MOCs from some of the posters on here, but for me it has taken ages, persistence and practice - and occasional inspiration - to do the (very) few MOCs I've done, and all are based on something that already exists that I can copy from, rather than being totally original. The original creations I see here and on Flickr groups every day just blow me away. It's a fun journey, though - well worth it. I've learned a lot from looking at other MOCs and techniques that other more creative folks have used first, as well as some official TLG sets. But hey, even if all I ever built was unshareable junk I'm still enjoying the process and mental creative exercise. Otherwise, I'd just be surfing the internet at night all the time - rather than just half the time... Bear with me and once I've got 'er built the files are all yours - any anyone else who's interested!