jof

OK, I was inspired by someones comment on the dodgy Belville space creation posted a while ago. Particularly the Barbarella references. Did you know that the craft posted was belville 'child' size, not belville 'adult'. So I dutifully raided my daughters sets for a couple of people and here is the result. OK, its a bit stubby & somewhat constrained by my collection of clear 'window' pieces, hence the shot with the front section removed Than a view from the back with loading ramp up and down. Also notice the sides open for my kids to play with them. What do you think of my results of my 'had to be done' challenge? Is anyone else brave enough to build something on the same scale (or admit access to belville figures) Jof

The cockpit was sort of a "landmark" for the theme. several other sets used the same design. It's a shame they didn't use it in other sets later on as well... X-O Hey, I still use this style of cockpit when making spacecraft for the kids, as its so easy for them to get the man in/out of it Jof

Oh No, Stop it! Now I feel some inspiration coming on. Time to extract my daughters Bellville people for a Barbarella spacecraft challenge. Now how do I model fur lined cabins? No seriously, I know its been a long time since this was first posted - but the challenge of a reasonable craft on a larger scale.... Something with a sense of humour & slighty falic shape to it.... Jof

Yep, they are CD's from a belville set. I am currently picking up packs of strange & interesting pieces from Legoland Windsors surplus shop - its loads cheaper than the pick a brick. P.S. my 8 yr old daughter won't let me near her belville stuff - its all kept hidden away from her little brother/sister. Jof

OK, here we go with my first kid playable minifig scale spacecraft for quite some time. Front View (I havn't had a change to scale the pictures nicely - so I will just like to brickshelf) Back View The modular cabin means I can rotate it, or use it on another body. The original idea for the cabin is based on some 'pods' I made for a much larger ship some time ago, but they were general maintainence/cargo lugging pods There are a couple of other pics in the brickshelf folder, but my camera is pants for close ups, so you can't see the pilot & controls that well. See, I should have been more active & posted on the fighter competion, but isn't that always the way! Jof

OK, I admit it, I havn't been MOCing as much as I should for a while. Not really a dark period as much as trying to get the kids to make their own stuff. Now what I am having problems with is my desire to make things big & detailed, with the fact that the kids are just going to play with them. I spend the occasional evening knocking up some components & playing with ideas, but end up going nowhere (Exception being a hydroponics bay which eldest daughter has kidnapped) If I get a good shape, its too fragile for kids to play with, of I get a good underside, but can't get a satisfactory transition to the topside. The Kids, they like simple blocky constructions - its the playing that counts, not waiting for dad to keep on scrabbling & then start on something else because it wasn't good enough and want the pieces they are already using. I get them playing with part made frameworks, lining up the people on it & sticking on printed control panels where they want to go. (And me just investing in 30x 6*16 grey plates, making a nice octagonal prism 48 blocks long as a cargo pod - but I just can't seem to get a handle on the freighter to carry it.) So I think I will be moving to a more compact - kid friendly swishable format, in the hope that I can get past my creative block. Jof

I am also a fan of using the old wheels as engines trick, But I only have white ones. Jof

I am pleased that I managed to keep a couple of mini Ties & some mini arc170's still in their bags too! I also have a couple of the new A wings. - they look like they go for up to

Thats an ambitious list for a single year. Jof

I may just send you a small random bag of interesting pieces. Tell you what, we could have a brick swap ring. we send a small number of interesting bricks round a list of people. If you see something you like, replace them with some interesting (but un/under used bricks from your collection) and send it to the next person. I am not on about a major brick exchange, but a small package that cost about 1 euro in postage price. Jof

Well with the pick a brick shop moving down into the main park & the price going up to

Its not new, there were trans pale blue ones of these in one of the belville sets my daughter got last year (think its bed knobs from princess and the pea set - 5963) Jof

Little Jofsson got: 7898 - Big freight train we have had fun building & playing with that one (even though One of the parts is mis moulded - they are getting sloppy arn't they and on such a high price set) 7239 - City fire truck - but as this is a double, I may let him swap it for another set from my unopened stash 8360 - small pull back & go racer and Jofette got 4756 - shrieking shack And the kids got me 4 small storage boxes for sorting my lego Jof

You never see the police out & about these days, as they are all hiding behind their speed cameras. And, you won't know you were speeding until weeks later when you get the fine (I'd love to have had time to knock up a vignette of a man getting a speeding letter, but havn't got the time what with christmas aproaching and mrs Jof out on a jolly & me having to put the kids in bed) Jof

I have no problem with yellow - just build in the old blacktron style, using the yellow as highlights. In fact my kids seem to prefer the black/yellow combination to anything grey & monochrome that is produced by the Jofian shipyards.

What you need to do now is team up with a Brick Film expert & go from some still shots, to a movie set! It seems a shame not to use such a fantastic structure to good use Jof

If you can't make it to the park this Christmas you can still Shop At Home! www.LEGOSHOP.com is exclusively offering all Annual Pass holders FREE delivery on all orders placed before 30 November 2006. Simply enter the code LLAND6 in the promotional code box when you checkout to claim your FREE delivery! I am going to assume this is a general code, so I'm posting it here in case anyone finds it works / is useful. Now what have they got in their sale?..... Jof

I think its a good mix of classic design/colour scheme with a little bit of trendy snot thrown in. Jof <we fear the bley>

It makes we want to dig out my instructions for that car/caravan & build them. Alas, all my collection is comitted to prototyping / building my next space moc. (Which is taxing my brainpower on how to do the bottom section). Jof

It looks to me that Legoland are selling part pack of these trains in the clearance shop. The price for the bogies & base plate is high (& I have enouth of them already) They are are also selling bags (loose/assorted) of the bits to make the train bodies. However I don't know if these make up the whole train body, or just part of it. I don't know if they are the small or large engines They don't have corresponding tender parts. And what do yu think would be a reasonable price to pay? (I think its a good idea to sell random bags of stuff in clearance shop, as you never know what you may come across) Jof

Thats OK Cap, I am just playing with designs & shapes at the moment. The board are full of final product MOC's and occasionally deconstruction of said item. I thought I'd be different and have a thread that charts the prototyping of a design, through ideas and partial builds through to the final product (hopefully) I am not even sure I will be happy when I start bringing the bits together, and I suspect I will start compromising as my kids tell me they can't play with it because its too delicate or we can't get the people in/out of there. Given some of the earlier comments, maybe I will call it something like "FTV (Fleet Training Vessel) Ceres" And this won't be the bridge design, but some sort of training/observation area. Jof

The orange bits are temp consoles (i need to check collection to work out how many real consoles I have) Yep I am thinking white & yellow for the main colour scheme. May have a stripe of yellow running through, of even augment with yellow + red stripe. Havn't decide yet. There will also be grey and black due to part availability & limitation, but I hope I can keep black on the bottom sections as heat shielding. Jof

OK, I was going to build another microscale capital ship, but I have been overruled by the kids. So I am prototyping to minifig scale. So I start with the bridge, which I think is quite a cool shape, but I can't make it air tight due to both shape and lack of clear parts. So I am going to have to pull the playabilty card & say I need it open for the kids to be able to get their fingers in & move the figures around. What do you think? I will probably go work on some engines next, then the main body. I am thinking of mounting an open docking bay set back under the bridge for some sort of landing / shuttle craft. This would get round trying to reproduce / construct a matching bottom section. Jof