ED-209

That actually makes a lot of sense!! Wow, I've never seen that before! Now I wish I had some of those torsos too!

You don't remember where or when you acquired them? I don't think that's ever been an officially produced Lego part. If the actual part feels/looks genuine (as opposed to a Chinese knock-off brand or something), then perhaps it was a custom print? It looks like it's based on the bull faction torso: Either way, you're lucky to have them because they look great!

Of course, that's what I post them for!

That's a little more heavy-duty than a regular inkjet! But enkeybo, I've used labels from a company called Avery and found them to be cost effective and decent quality. I use a colour laser printer, but they do make versions for inkjet. Both white and clear are available. Try to get the type with only one sticker per page, just to minimise wastage (although you can use the other types with two-, four-, or six-per-page without much problem). Not sure which country you live in, this link is to an Australian shop, but try looking in large office supply outlets: http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/avery-l7167-no-white-laser-labels-av952007?searchTerm=avery%20labels

While I'm not a fan of minifigs myself, your mods are great! I love the Docs!

Thanks Velouria, I think I'm going to have to experiment with some nail polishes now! If that's the case, have you considered spraypaint? It can be hard to match colours, but multiple light coats will get you a nice even finish if you follow the instructions on the can. You can even get some spraypaints that chemically bond to plastics, which will wear much better over time.

Wow, very nicely done!!

I love the architectural style! I could see this as a whole range, a variation on Lego's traditional approach to Castle sets. Something akin to the old unreleased Europa series. You should do one featuring the Man in the Iron Mask in his cell!

Gorgeous! I love the torsos!

Thanks everyone! And yes I was going for Charlie Cox - I think you guys are right that Larry will be donating his hair. It makes perfect sense to use a barista's hair for a barrister! (Ouch, that's terrible! ) Oh yes, I just hadn't found a clear photo of what the costume looks like until yesterday! I'm also adding Matt's law partner Foggy Nelson. He seems to love his tieclip and patterned ties! I'm thinking this hair in dark tan?

I agree with Darkdragon, it's going to be very difficult to find something that matches. Take a look at the legs in the picture you posted - gold ink printed onto olive green plastic and it doesn't look the same as the pearl gold plastic. That being said, you could try some model paints made for wargaming miniatures. People like Games Workshop do plenty of colours, you could probably match the official Lego gold ink if not the pearl gold plastic. And Velouria, nail polish is a great idea! I'm interested in your experiences using it on figs. It's not too thick? How does it hold up to handling?

I've been enjoying the new Daredevil TV series, so I figured I'd draw up some minifig designs! If you're not familiar with the series, here's the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia....vil_(TV_series) First up we have Daredevil's alter ego, Matt Murdock. A white "light sabre blade" piece would make a good cane. I'm thinking of giving him either the classic male hair, or the one that came on Larry the Barista. Any thoughts there? Matt's first (read: low budget) crime-fighting costume that he wears throughout most of the series is all black, with a black headscarf covering half his face. Ideally a custom sculpted part for his full mask could come down to his nose, In lieu of that, the classic pirate bandana comes in black and should be an acceptable substitute when paired with the face decal. The villain of the series is Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. Wonderfully played by Vincent D'Onofrio I might add. I'll add some more of the supporting characters as I do them, but in the mean time here's a bonus! Daredevil's classic comic book costumes, based on his appearance in the Lego Marvel Super Heroes video game: As usual, I'd appreciate any feedback and/or ideas for additional designs!

Oh I'm sorry I misunderstood! Yes the arms have been switched, to my knowledge it was only available with light bley arms.

By Odin's beard! It's wonderful! I always felt Lego overlooked Thor's helmet, in fact that it should have featured more heavily in the films too.

The one on the left? It's from the Vikings series: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=973pb0377c01

I've PMed you. I love the classic variants! I hadn't noticed the Tudor wall panels until Firefly mentioned them - is that flute custom printed too? Just for a splash of colour perhaps? There are some pictures floating around of some old prototype castle sets that used white Tudor panels, but that part never made it into any released sets. At least as far as I'm aware. The corner parts would require printing on three sides, wouldn't they? I think either tan or white would be good. If you're thinking of an updated version, I'd go with one of the newer panel types: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=60808 http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=59349

Very impressive results indeed! I'd love to see what the cliché/plate looks like. I expect that would be biggest hurdle - you can build a stamping mechanism out of Lego which would hopefullyl be precise enough to eliminate registration errors, but getting the cliché's etched would be an ongoing cost. Would a CNC laser be able to do it? Or what about some of the home circuitboard etching techniques? I've seen a method where a printout from a standard laser printer is ironed onto a metal plate to create a mask, then etched in an acid bath. I've not done it and don't know if it would be sharp enough, but it might be worth investigating?

As much as I love the print job on the figs I had done, it honestly wasn't a great experience. The quality is 100%, and the pricing was very reasonable (I had 10 of each design done.) But very poor communication, and it took months and months. So, some mixed feelings from me about the whole experience, but I would use the same printer again in a heartbeat - except that when I emailed for the next job I wanted done the price went up 30x higher with zero explination. I was still prepared to go ahead with the job, but I asked what had caused the price to go up, and got no reply. I've since sent a couple more emails but got no reply at all. From what I undertsand they don't do custom work at all any more, I guess it just isn't worth their time. So yeah, can't really recommend them sadly. After that I've used Poppunkmunky. As I said previously, I've found them to be great to deal with and really helpful. And their pricing is very reasonable. As to the issue of quality, a large part of it does come down to the printing technique. Pad printing is the traditional method, and is what official Lego parts are printed in. It's kind of like a printing press, you have to etch a seperate plate for each individual colour of ink used (which is why you'll notice Lego torsos are usually limited to only four or five colours), and this makes set-up costs expensive. The quality is better, and you can use non-standard inks like metallics, but cost is high unless you plan to do hundreds of identical figures. Also because you need a new plate for every single colour, a more complex/colourful design will cost more to produce. Actually running them is also a bit of a headache, it's much more "industrial". The next best method in terms of quality is flatbed printing - fundamentally the same kind of idea as a home inkjet printer, but using special inks and it's of course built for physical objects. The print head sprays out combinations of CMYK ink which are layered together to make any colour you like, just like an inkjet. Often there's white ink, and transparent sealants and things too, and the inks are "baked on" with UV light, but it's all controlled in the printer. While the printers themselves are expensive, the individual prints are not. The downside is that there's generally a slightly raised effect, and you can't use things like metallics. The upside is that you can print in very small batches very cost effectively, and you can use as many colours as you like on one torso without increasing the costs. Because the technology is newer than pad printing, flatbeds are still getting better. I doubt they'd ever get quite as good as pad printer, but the top-end flatbeds now look much better than they did five years ago. The quality gap between flatbed and pad printer is getting smaller. So in my book, it's kind of a nessesary trade-off. Not really weird at all - you've got to remember that the actual logos in the shields are still the intellctuas property of The Lego Group, regardless of whether we add belts and things. Whether it's an exact reproduction or is being sold comercially isn't the issue. We're all lucky that TLG have such a fan-friendly stance on the issue, but it's by their kindness that we have such latitude. They'd be within their rights to take legal action against anyone using all or part of their designs. And would probably be more likely to do so if there was money changing hands. So CitizenBrick are basically taking the position that they aren't willing to jeopardise their business by printing the designs. They'll print things that are 100% your own work, I'm sure. I had two different shades of brown in the original design, so I reduced the number of colours to save costs. As mentioned above, pad printing costs more with each individual colour. Custom or not, they do contain Lego's Falcon logo. You'd need to find someone who offers a pad printing service and doesn't mind reproducing the logos. I don't know anyone who does that any more I'm afraid. Raminator often recommends Stein Drucker, have you tried asking them? 100% agree! And Firefly, the painted greathelms look almost spot on! I think that may be your best bet for replicating the old grey.

I like it, that's a very clever design for the wings!

Ah, sorry I should have realised you meant grey like the classic castle helmets! Sorry, I haven't seen those ones around for a while. Have you tried contacting Brickforge directly? If you're wanting large enough numbers they might even be able to make some as a special order? They look really good! I've used Poppunkmunky before and found them to be really friendly and the quality very good. I particularly like how well the Black Falcon with the quartered tabard turned out! I did a run of my own a while back (although these are pad printed, with metallic silver ink!): As for the camera, see if it's got a macro setting mentioned in the manual. And you'd be amazed how good your shots can look if you put together some controlled lighting. Take two desklamps, put one on each side of your model, tape some greaseproof paper from the kitchen over the lamp as a diffuser and you'll instantly get a huge improvement in your photos. Just make sure the paper doesn't touch the bulbs and start a fire!

I think different people could/would react differently, so I'd be careful about how you word that kind of thing in future. But as far as I'm concerned using my designs is perfectly fine, as long as you say that that's what you're doing - so I thank you for changing to first post to reflect that. If you want to see a quick overview of how I draw my designs, I wrote this tutorial a while back: http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=67532 Thank you, I had a lot of fun making all the different versions - the Black Falcons were always my favourite faction when I was a kid! My recollection is that Brickforge's "steel" colour is comparable to Lego's pearl dark grey. They do have stock of the great helm in "steel", but sadly their website no longer seems to show you what each colour looks like: http://www.brickforge.com/store/product.php?productid=18507&cat=601&page=1 I expect it'd be more expensive, but you could buy from a reseller? Firestar Toys has them, with a picture too: http://www.firestartoys.com/Shop/Minifigure-Headgear/BrickForge-Headgear/14367-BrickForge-~-Great-Helm-~-Steel.html

Looks like some of my old ones in there too.

Thanks everyone! I was just pottering around when I started it, but I'm really quite pleased with how it all came together. I'm hoping that it'll really "pop" when the bridge is lit up!

But sometimes in very, very dark grey. I love the calendar, I really wish TLG made something like this! You've done a great job in capturing the look of the vehicles in micro scale. I'd certainly buy a DC calendar like this, but I'd really love to see a Marvel one! Not sure if there'd be enough iconic/recognisable vehicles in the Marvel Universe though? (PS: you should totally do a Marvel one too! )

In Marvel's "Thor" movies, Thor and the rest of the super-powered space gods hail from the Realm Eternal, the majestic kingdom of Asgard. For those not familiar: http://marvel-cinema...com/wiki/Asgard I've seen lots of micro-scale castles and always found them to be very cute, and often very inventive with their parts usage. When I saw Matti's micro Hogwarts (http://www.eurobrick...howtopic=103245) the pearl gold roofing instantly made me want to try making my own micro Asgard! I plan on buying the parts off Bricklink once the mad rush of Christmas is over, so for the moment it's only in digital form. It may not be totally clear in the pictures, but the Rainbow Bridge is made of four rows of transparent plates in red, orange, yellow and green, capped off with a row of trans blue tiles. There's also room for a light brick to be mounted behind the bridge, which I'm hoping will look pretty nice when lit up. The main building (I presume it's Valhalla?) is made from a series of SNOT 1x2 jumper plates to create that "pipe organ" look seen in the movies. Here's a view showing more of the layout of the water, buildings and mountains. And Heimdall's observatory is hinged for all your trans-galactic teleportation needs! The underside: Feedback is most welcome!