Fallenangel

Looks fine to me. Is there something wrong with it?

I was admittedly a little pissed but willing to tolerate the joke (I even offered some constructive criticism pretending this was a serious attempt at an MOC) until Mr Man decided to act pretentious about it: Choosing to take a crack at my opinions regarding the potential of LEGO Star Wars MOCs and my affinity for the X-wing studio miniatures by making some kind of sick joke about pretending this blocky red thing is the best LEGO X-wing ever less than a day after half the entire community got through telling the resident X-wing fan of Eurobricks that he shouldn't be such an megablocks about accuracy is grossly inappropriate and poorly timed. I'm aware that we should all learn to laugh at ourselves but this is hardly the best time. Sure, it's April Fools' Day and I should be able to take a joke or two but this is harassment. I'm still trying to pick up the pieces after def finished telling me off; do you honestly think that after another member already started a thread on the premise of denouncing my opinions and ridiculing what he evidently perceived as the absurdity of my position regarding the accuracy of an MOC I'm going to just laugh if off when a bunch of people say that this piece of crap is going to make me proud? After having thoroughly demonstrated to me the importance of respecting others' opinions it strikes me as hypocritical and sophomoric that people here would go along with something like this. I suppose that at this point you want to tell me to calm down and take it easy, that it’s all in good fun. Well, give me a chance! This kind of thing has been happening way too many times lately and the last thing I had expected was for someone else other than me to perpetuate it. Hardly well-deserved. Troll and trueness ON: I take back my previous statement; were it not for the four wings I don't think I would have even been able to tell this was an X-wing. Your average non-Star Wars fan probably would have thought that it was just some big red spaceship thing without the X-wing concept ever occurring to them. (X-wings aren't the only science-fiction ships with four wings, after all.) With a forward oblique view of an X-wing two of the first things that should catch your eye are the angular canopy and the large air intakes. On Mr Man's model the former isn't very prominent and the latter is nowhere to be seen and all that's left to look at are those blocky and obtrusive wedge pieces in the front that destroy any attempt by the viewer to identify the X-wing's thin nose (which marshal_banana did a fantastic job of representing - probably the sleekest nose I've ever seen on a LEGO X-wing). The fact that the ship is actually wider in the front than in the back just kills whatever attempt at association with the X-wing is left, leaving the viewer confused and disappointed. If the purpose of a Star Wars MOC is to capture the "essence" of a ship I fail to see any "essence" in this big red blocky mess. I've never had much admiration for LEGO's X-wings but I'd take 30051 or even 4502 over this MOC any day; they might be ugly, but hey, at least you can tell at first sight that they're X-wings. Troll and trueness OFF.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant, and to be honest it's really not an issue with me either. If you're looking for the change in mindset though, it really is the minifigures. Finally, someone gets it! I'm glad you took the time to clarify your statement, and in defense of brickartist he knows his stuff when it comes to the BARC speeder and was just offering help to KielDaMan in the way he felt would best benefit his MOC (which, I suppose, would be for the MOC to be more accurate). They really were quite easy points that doesn't take a whole lot of complicated brick magic to fix. It's not tedious, not a chore, not nitpicking, just a couple points he felt could be improved.

It's refreshing to see some good, clean humor in this thread again. Where's the piano? Grievous should be playing Tchaikovsky.

Kotobukiya seems to have what you want. Unless you're looking for something you can actually play with...

Indiana Jones and the Lost Crusade.

But they just got through with doing that. This is too soon. What the hell did I ever do to YOU?!

April fools or not making an entire thread for the sole purpose of bashing me is just bad taste.

On the one hand, I can look at this and say, “this is a MINI X-wing”. You’ve taken the core components of the X-wing and incorporated them into your MOC, which deserves merit. On the other hand… The ship is almost entirely colored an angry red that you would notice from a mile off, in a way that reminds me of the N-1. X-wings are not meant to be flashy or vibrant; they are beat-up fighters that have become worn with age. I would suggest a base color of gray, with a couple blotches of white and dark gray here and there. The MOC Is far too stumpy. The wedge pieces you’ve used to represent the ship’s nose area is completely inappropriate in representing the sleekness of the ship, especially at this scale. I would suggeset making the rear fuselage a few studs longer and the nose thinner. It’s far too studded. I know from seeing others’ MOCs that it is possible to put in tiles into a build of this size without creating the impression that the model is bulky. If you are asking about the accuracy of this model, I don’t even know where to start. The MINI scale is one that yields either brilliance or garbage and to be completely honest I’ve never really tried to inspect them for shaping or detail. Sorry, but I really can’t help you here.

... which is why he's still reworking his UCS BARC.

Despite your claim that this is not a referendum on me def the condescending tone of your post in KielDaMan's thread as well as here certainly make it seem that way. Well, as you can infer I was certainly not one of those people... we're all pretty special here. It may just be that people here, being AFOLs, are more familiar with or have a greater affinity for the sets than with the actual ships (as opposed to myself, who became more acquainted with the ships through a careful look at the sets). 7658 Y-wing and 7665 Republic Cruiser are undoubtedly the best examples of this. The spam issue is also something that really bothers me; that's one reason I moved away from sites like MOCpages and Flickr. What initially attracted me to sites like Eurobricks was the amount of MOCing talent as well as a concern for good quality. I admit I was rather disappointed by the number of regular spammers on these boards once I had spent spent some time here. The reason people don't like my criticism is that I'm apparently being "condescending and unpleasant" and "knocking into others for failing to achieve perfection", to quote blueandwhite, though I honestly don't know why anyone would even bring up perfection on a LEGO forum. People here don't like being compared to other MOCers and held to high standards for aesthetic appeal, nor do they like others being told that they failed to include certain details in an MOC that someone else could (in a way that was both accurate and aesthetically pleasing, I might add) despite the fact that in hearing this they gain potential to improve their build. You may even go so far as to say some MOCers here aren't willing to have people have a thoughtful opinion of their MOC and thus view criticism, constructive or otherwise, as demeaning and offensive. While I would agree that my criticism was rather brutal, I maintain that in spite of the fact that I've repeated myself on this matter at least a hundred times my stance on how much accuracy is to be expected (or whether any accuracy should be expected, for that matter) has been misrepresented in this topic as being more extremist than it actually is, partly because people here keep mashing my words (def's insistence that whenever I use the word "resemble" I actually mean "replicate" is only one instance of this) and partly because of a recent thread involving three Fellows and more instances of misinterpretation and MOC bashing than anyone was willing to tolerate, myself included. blueandwhite, since you've brought this up for the second time, allow me to explain that I was NOT hell-bent on criticizing others and making myself look good but was instead trying to convey to marshal_banana that my repeated jabs at his X-wing were not to say that it was any better or worse than other X-wing MOCs I've seen. I've already changed my style of criticism drastically (that's right, def) so I don't see how labeling me the antagonist is going to help you or anyone else here. Oh, and by the way, lefty, this was made only a few months ago: The practice of making MOCs of ships is alive and well, so I'm afraid I don't see what you mean. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that superfluously detailed minifigures have been all the rage since the introduction of battle packs in '07 and the debut of THE Clone Wars in '08. lefty... if you look at brickartist's own minifigure scale BARC, you can see that the handlebars have in fact been done quite correctly and done well at that. I think you may be underestimating just how much people can do with LEGO in a small scale, and in doing so you've offended countless MOCers here, myself included. Referring me to plastic bricks of an even lower quality doesn't do much to help your argument either.

Nah, screw that - the real issue is that it kills me when people don't agree with me. So again, I'm sorry.

Man, what a stupid thing to say... I'm sorry everyone. I'm not an accuracy stickler anymore.

Several people here, including def, appear to be implying that because Star Wars MOCs are not based off "real" ships there is less reason for them to have to be accurate. Keep in mind that while the ships themselves may be fictitious the models used to represent them are not: This is one reason "official" sources such as the Essential Guide and the Incredible Cross-sections books can largely be ignored, as they are imaginary and idealized representations of said models and thus contain many figures and dimensions that mean absolutely nothing. There is no way Vader's TIE Advanced x1 could have been 9.8m, for example, because the size of the 1/24 pilot used in the studio miniature clearly demonstrates that the x1 was intended to be much smaller than that. The same could be said for the ever-changing dimensions of the Executor that was intended to be eleven times the length of an Imperial Star Destroyer and stay that way.

What's all this garbage about 'intense level of accuracy'? I already stopped doing that. I didn't say anything about sets. The consensus here is that System sets, like Hasbro toys, are exempt from accuracy, and I can see how that would make sense. I guess the reason for my phrasing the statement the way I did is because many members with whom I've brought up the issue of accuracy have always argued that there is a greater priority in aesthetic appeal, while not necessarily acknowledging that one can help the other. Please note also that I used resemble as opposed to replicate. You've changed the intended meaning of my statement in replacing that verb and have apparently built a jab off of that, which I do not appreciate. You're going off of implications that weren't there; I see that my statement came off more harshly than I had intended. I did not mean to say that KielDaMan's MOC doesn't make a conscious effort to resemble a BARC speeder, because it does. KielDaMan acknowledges that it does have inconsistencies with the source material (which is perfectly all right, to a certain degree), which is partly due to the need to sacrifice accuracy for aesthetic quality. The end result does have the look and feel of a Neo-Clone Wars-era BARC speeder, which is as good as any LEGO MOC gets. This approach is different from MOCs that are disproportionate or misshapen on a level that borders on obscenity for no apparent reason other than that they were too lazy or uncaring to find some decent reference and pay homage to the source material. Yes, to strive for perfect accuracy is unreasonable, especially in a toy medium, but tossing accuracy out the window completely is just as extreme and can have disastrous results. You've used that word "replica" again, which I did not mention at all. I did not intend to go so far as to consider MOCs as being "replicas". As for "how much accuracy we need", you seem to be implying that we need "none", whereas I would advocate "enough so that it feels like the real thing". Please note that this is considerably less tolerant than my previous position of "as much as possible within the limits of the medium" which you seem to be under the impression that I am still supporting. What's the use?

But it doesn't have to be a tradeoff. I guess this is really what I've been wanting to say every time I made a jab about accuracy. A certain degree of accuracy can have a positive effect on aesthetic quality, and there are many MOCs that reflect this idea. What's more, there's really no point in calling an MOC by the name of a Star Wars ship if you're not going to make a conscious effort to make the MOC resemble that ship.

Since Lucas said so... Perhaps since Jedi are keepers of the peace, they're taught to speak many languages (for reasons of diplomacy).

Let's not discredit brickartist now.

Mm. I guess the thing is that I don't like that particular rendition of the Alliance Assault Frigate. What are DBG and LBG? On the contrary, both 7778 and 8099 were very well done. They've got a solid build, good size, and the detail of a UCS set at a more affordable price. It's a shame they weren't popular among the minifigure hoarders.

I concur. The bloody truth of the Clone Wars would certainly have been much more interesting than poorly acted love scenes. As for the Expanded Universe, when you put it that way it does seem rather unreasonable. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that certain authors of Expanded Universe lit (Timothy Zahn and Michael A. Stackpole merit mention) appear to have a better feel for the franchise than Lucas does?

But on the other hand, who's to say kids would even know? LEGO wouldn't even have to say they were predecessors; kids would just assume the Alliance also had A-wings and B-wings during Yavin. Oh, it's nice to able to say it again: Bah, retcons! Nope, 30 Rebel ships at Yavin, and only X-wings and Y-wings.

That's the one. If I remember correctly, the same book also said that Jar Jar's head basically made no sense.

Why is EVERYBODY talking about this song...?

Actually, if you want to get right down to it, you could argue that whenever ships jump to lightspeed they are time traveling because the passage of time on the ship is slower than in realspace. I once read a book which presented a possible explanation for Luke and Leia appearing to be different ages in that Leia spent much more time in hyperspace (being a diplomat and all) than Luke (who's been stuck on Tatooine all his life).

Excuse me, brickartist, but I'm not quite sure what you mean in saying that we contradict ourselves. Could you expand? Actually, maybe not. If you don't like where this argument is going (and I know you don't) there's no need to participate. I guess it's like reading those crude, pointless arguments on YouTube to you. While you are correct Aanchir, you must remember that some of us have preconceived notions of certain characters and events from the non-official source material, and when "official" sources contradict that, it upsets us. An example would be Grievous's entire backstory which was pretty much retconned with the Nahdar Vebb episode. So as you said, there's no "real" issue with continuity, since C-canon is below G-canon; it's just that we don't like it. Basically what happened with the Prequels back in '99. I know now that it really is quite pointless to whine about it, though, because the only one over at Lucasfilm who actually cares about the Expanded Universe is Filoni, and he's already doing what he can. You could argue, though, that because the '08 series has contradicted so much established canon it could be classified as N-canon... but nah. Lucas approves it, therefore it's part of the "core" with the six (or is it seven?) films and the '03 series. By the way, I think what you're referring to is THE Clone Wars. The "Clone Wars" TV series was way back before Sith, and believe it or not there are a few inconsistencies between that Clone Wars and this one as well as with the films, though they're mostly pretty small. (Again, Grievous... in particular, his coughing and his voice)