kaitain

Thanks. Hi It took all my free time in September to complete, so 4-5 hrs on a work day and every weekend full time. Not something that I want to try and repeat in the future. I normally come up with an idea for a large display by Christmas and then work on it over the next 9 months, however in this case the idea finally crystallised at the end of August. It also took two large Bricklink orders for the extra 2x2 jumpers I needed. Even after I cannibalized about ten Heroica sets. One change I plan on making is to have the buildings in the town lift off, so that players can get at their characters when playing through there.

Hi All, I haven't posted here for a while, but having just shown my latest endeavour at the Great Western Brick Show, I thought anyone who doesn't usually frequent Flickr might like to see the MOC. IMGP9984 by kaitain, on Flickr IMGP9966 by kaitain, on Flickr (Just some Christmas lights added to give a fantasy feel to the display). "Heroes of Heroica" is a 240x112 stud campaign map, featuring 16 different routes into the forest from the 8 beach landing points, 57 dungeon entrances (these lead to random Heroica dungeons) in the forested area alone, 3 multi floored "Dark Druid" towers, 9 villages where treasure can be sold and equipment/potions bought. A goblin fortress to sneak into, lots of different heroica monsters to fight, including new snakes, scorpions, and even Dragons. The entire build process is available on my Flickr photostream, and when I've sorted through the photos from the show, I'll upload those as well. The aim is for the game to be played co-operatively like any other RPG. The extra campaign rules are still a work in progress though. Regards Kaitain Edit: It should have been 16 routes off the beach, not 6

Yep I'm a fan, and have even created a couple of MOCs (see Flickr sets below). Here's my take on "Marineville" from "Stingray". and a Captain Scarlet 6x figure. I'm looking forward to the new Thunderbirds series when its released in 2015, but still need to catch up with the CGI Captain Scarlet in the meantime. TTFN Kaitain

Hi All, Members of the Brickish Association will be exhibiting space and sci-fi themed MOCs (including Dr Who and Gerry Anderson) at the National Space Center in Leicester this coming weekend. More details/directions etc can be found on the NSC website (link below). http://www.spacecent...sh-weekend-2013 Regards Kaitain

For those of you who haven't seen it don't click the spoiler button, just remember to sit through the credits. Regards Kaitain

Excellent, and the action didn't let up for a minute, even after the credits had finished rolling. Don't leave until you've sat through the credits ;-). There were a couple of twists I wasn't expecting having avoided the spoilers on the web, which made it a great story. It was better than Iron Man 2. Next up is "Startrek". Regards Kaitain

I saw "Oblivion" last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I get the 2001 comment as it felt a bit slow at the start. I'm off to see Iron Man 3 tonight as well.

Hi Paul, I'll look forward to seeing you on the 4th May as I'm exhibiting my model of Marineville at the Aldershot show. You've probably already seen it as it was at Steam last year. http://www.flickr.com/photos/31191557@N08/8123355842/ Regards Kaitain

Hi, How about getting a bottle of masking fluid. Paint this on the areas you want to remain unpainted, and when dry paint the new visor colour using an acrylic. The masking should just peel off after everything is dry. Given the size of the helmet, you will probably need to use a fine brush, especially for the masking fluid (just remember to wash the brush in soapy water to get all the masking fluid off). Hope this helps. Kaitain

Hi, A quick Google of "Dickens Opera House in Longmont Colorado" came up with these. Image Image source http://caturner.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/mysterious-death-of-william-h-dickens/ image source http://www.hauntedcolorado.net/Longmont.html The official looking lineup are the local ladder company (firemen to us Brits ). If I were to attempt this, i'd probably scale the building based on the upstairs windows, using 2x2 and 2x3 frames, then adjust the wall sections accordingly. This definitely lends itself to a "Cafe Corner" style build, although it might end up larger than a 32x32 baseplate. Also LDD would really help with prototyping these structures. Hope this helps, and looking forward to seeing your final design. Regards Kaitain

Hi Bpbill, and welcome from another UK member. You might want to try car boot sales as that's where I've managed to get some good bargains, just remember to give the bricks a scrub before using ;-). Ebay is also a good source of bricks, but you then need to factor in the postage costs just like Lego's online PaB and Bricklink. On a separate note have a look at the Brickish Association website, (http://www.brickish.org). You might find it helpful. Regards Kaitain

Sorry . I just thought you might find the reference material useful for your build. Kaitain

Hi All, I noticed this thread yesterday, and thought everyone might like to see my take on the "Defence against the Dark Arts" classroom, which I built for last year's "Great Western Lego Show". Here's the link to my photo album for the show where you'll find some more Hogwarts related MOCs among the displays, and the final display version of my MOC with a borrowed Gilderoy Lockhart. Great Western Lego Show 2011 Here's are the last WIP shots I took before taking it to the show. Defence against the Dark Arts - WIP 28th Sept 2011 I would have entered it for the Hogwarts community build but it was a bit too big . TTFN Kaitain

I think the designs are really good and would fit in well with my Phantom Manor MOC. I did a similar thing with Madame Leota but used a glow in the dark Snape head and stuck a light inside it. The table wasn't as ornate though, given that I'd relegated her to the attic, so only really viewable through a window (see below). Its an old MOC now, as I built it for a show in 2009, and the rest of the display got demolished in 2010, but I still have the house. Here's a winter view of the Manor with the lights on. My favourite Haunted Mansion site is "Haunted Dimensions" which is where I got the inspiration to build Phantom Manor. At some point I might revisit the theme and build the other two Disney manor houses to the same scale. TTFN Kaitain

These designs look really good, but I was wondering if you had any hi-res versions you could provide links to. I'd like to have a go at an "Avatar: The last Air Bender" style display and have been looking for examples of Oriental roof design. Note:- Done some digging and found the link to your store (Bricktw shop). I should have realised from the forum the post originated from that the pieces were custom. They look very good. Are you planning on releasing them in other colours, say red, dark blue, green etc? Thanks Kaitain

Here's my 2008 version of Phantom Manor taken at my first major Lego show as an exhibitor. I also included Harper Goff's design for a haunted church. The full display The lights in the Manor. Interior shots (modular, but not to the Lego standard ) Here's a link to the 360 fly round of the display. I broke up the full display in 2009, but kept the Manor house. With a dusting of white plate it looks great as a snowy Halloween MOC. The Church I rebuilt in LDD. I'm not sure I'd buy a Haunted House Modular set, but I'd probably pick through the instructions for ideas on how to improve Phantom Manor. One thing that I need to fix is the grey wall syndrome. Kaitain

Hi, You could always try using the Kerkythea renderer. Here's one of my brick built MOCs rebuilt in LDD, exported to MLCad to fill in the missing bricks then exported as obj files for rendering in Kerkythea. There's still some work to do sorting out the colours, but its a WIP that got put on the shelf a couple of years back. I might resurrect it in the future. Kaitain

Thanks. I'd still like the ability to hide the ground plate whilst building though. Kaitain

I've been using it for the last few days, and would love the following:- 1. A new recently used brick selection area. This could be placed at the top of the palette panel, and be separate from the main palette. It would make switching between bricks easier by reducing the need to open/collapse the main brick palette all the time. 2. The ability to hide the ground plate whilst adding bricks to the underside of a model. This would be useful when taking screenshots as well. If this already exists I'd love to know the shortcut. 3. The ability to bake thumbnails into still images, as my PC takes forever to render the thumbnails of my latest models when starting the application. Not sure why this needs to be full 3D anyway. 4. More decorated pieces, including all the Heroica characters. I can't think of anything else at the moment, but I'll update the post if I do. Kaitain

If the helmets are anything like the ones used in the Troll battlepacks, Lego could probably squeeze three or four face variations on a single brick, to represent either the different characters, or the emotions of a single character. It would look odd if a Goblin or Uruk lost their helmet in battle though! I'm looking forward to seeing some closeup pictures of the minifigs in this range. Kaitain

Here are some pictures of my most recent MOC produced for a group build at the "Great Western Lego Show" which ran last weekend. Here's the link to my album for the whole show. Regards Kaitain

My favourite at the moment is the opening from HBOs "Game of Thrones", followed closely by The Pacific. Game of Thrones title sequence The Pacific But the original Battlestar Galactica is high on the list. Kaitain

In fact the PS3 version comes with a license key for the PC/Mac version as well so you get 3 for the price of one, and you can play cooperative games between PCs/MACs and PS3s. The XBox 360 version is standalone, and coop is restricted to Xbox 360s only. I'm not sure whether to get the PC version or the Xbox version, having played Portal 1 on the PC originally, but I've got used to playing fps' like the Halo games on the Xbox 360. The PC version should give access to the modding toolkit though to create new levels. That will probably swing it, as well as the price difference. Regards Kaitain

Just read the interview and found it very interesting, and having played with LDD4 for several hours last night, I'm glad they added the brick outline facility. Regarding old bricks, I would love them to add the bow and stern sections for the old pirate ships, as the mid section and other pieces are there in LU mode. I could then prototype ship designs before building them for real. Another thing would be for flexible backpacks to close up so that you can actually use them on minifigs, unless there's a technique I haven't discovered yet . I would also like more decorations for bricks, especially minifigs as I tried to make a redcoat soldier last night and couldn't find the torso decoration. Another useful thing would be for a preference setting that allows the user to start LDD in freebuild mode in the theme of their choice by default, as it seems to take a while to load up the thumbnails of my previous models on the themes splash panel at startup. All in all I like LDD4, and will continue to use it as my main cad tool, and only resort to MLCAD when the bricks aren't available, or I want to do a photo realistic render in Kerkythea. Thanks once again for posting the interview. Kaitain

Hi Dr D, I started building the chariots about the 19th May, and had the track completed and playable by the 31st May, for a display organised by one of the members of our club, to celebrate the 1st anniversary of his taking ownership of a games shop. I've added the buildings since then with the aim of getting the entire MOC ready for the Great Western Lego Show on the 2-3 October. Its also going to be at a show at the National Space Centre in Leicester two weeks later (16-17 October). Its definitely a mix of imagination and historical research as the track design is purely based on the board game, whereas the buildings are influenced by the game artwork and reconstructions of the Circus Maximus and other arenas I found on the net. The only real constraint preventing a historically accurate arena is the oval track. The starting gates normally take up one end of the arena, and the chariots have to race in their lanes until they reach the first corner. I could have used the game "Circus Maximus" which uses this layout however its not a game for quick races where the public can join in at shows. With the need to close the end of the arena, I decided on a pair of arches to make the construction easier (modelled after the real "Arch of Titus". On the actual game board the buildings at either end are different, but I was starting to run low on grey and white bricks. The imperial box, is purely from my imagination. The size of the original in Rome would have taken most of one side of my arena. Regards Kaitain