Rufus

Good point, I hadn't even thought about that. There will also be little circles of uncompressed asphalt every so often...

Thanks! I'm glad you like it. Here are pics from the side and one with the door and boot open (the bonnet should open, but I can't get LDD to realise that!) The two clips on the top at the rear were to attach a folding roof, but try as I might I could achieve that on LDD. @Legostein: you can't see it, but the silver-haired girl is happy now

About a year ago (and long before I joined Eurobricks), I was messing around with Lego Digital Designer, and made a number of car designs. With this one, I was trying to create a genuine four-seater sports car that looked good, and I'm fairly pleased with the result. Unfortunately, when I applied the new patch, the original model didn't load properly so I had to change a few things, but the overall shape is the same. The car is 7 studs wide, which makes putting the windscreen on quite a headache! I noticed on the MOC index that someone else (edit: LuxorV's Cabriolet) had used a similar technique with the angled windscreen, but I had to offset it by half a stud with jumper plates. The bonnet, boot and both doors (should) open - it's difficult to get LDD to do that reliably, or to tell how strong the model is. Despite a modest number of pieces, Lego.com estimate its price at £33!! I guess that's the cost of picking the pieces and making the box. One day I'll make it myself out of spare parts Hope you like it, C&C welcome! Rufus Edit: Click here (or scroll down) to see how it turned out in the plastic!

Hello City fans! I can't believe no-one's reviewed this yet. Series: City Number: 30003 Name: Steam Roller Pieces: 31 Release year: 2009 Availability: Daily Mirror Promotion (UK) Price: Free (Newspaper cost 45p) The bag: A standard size for these mini promotional sets. The pieces: Two 8 stud technic beams, four smooth round pieces that will be all too familiar to Star Wars fans; nothing particularly remarkable. The diminutive instruction book is included for size comparison. The instructions: Apologies for the slightly blurry pic. 7 steps will build the complete model, a few minutes work. We've seen that consturction scene before. The minifig: Nice dungarees! The face is quite common amongst this years 'figs, and is availiable on Factory and PaB. This is the first time I've noticed that he has pupils! Look closely and you can see small white dots in the top left corner of his eyes. The build: The two halves are symmetrical; as you can see the 'wheels' are not connected between the sides. The two sides are held together by the 2x4 grey connector brick and the 2x6 dk grey plate which will sit on top. The finished article: Construction-dude is obviously quite proud of his new Steam Roller! You can see that the 'wheels' don't automatically line up. I like the use of the double-inverted slope piece which sits comfortably above the rollers. The grey half-bush behind is the only leftover piece. Overall, it's a nice little model, and a good addition to the construction range (though it gets swamped by the larger models, particularly the mega-oversized 7685 bulldozer). The technic beams tend to make it a little wide, and the rollers will slide on a smooth surface (a problem with which owners of the Sandcrawler will be all too familiar). Always useful to have another minifig, although I'm a little worried about the craze for ginger goatees in Studsville! But, for 45p, who's complaining! Hope you enjoyed this mini-review for a mini-set. Sorry if the pics aren't the best - it gets dark awfully early in England at this time of year. Thanks for reading! Rufus

I'm a big fan of both. They are very different genres, really, although with the Clone Wars serialisation SW has encroached on ST's territory. However, SW is really a fantasy tale set in space, whilst ST is more of a soap opera (in a good way!) that happens to have a futuristic setting. As Joey Lock says, Trek focusses more on relationships with plot in the background; Wars is the other way round. The one thing they have in common is beautiful spaceships, and that's the reason I love them both; though I must say I'm not so keen on the CGI stuff in the Next Gen and later Trek series.

Nicely done! From the face-to-face pose of the two ships, I take it this is based on the standoff between the Enterprise and Commander Kruge's BoP in STIII Search for Spock. My only criticism - the round nacelles and straight pylons suggest the first Enterprise, rather than the movie version, but hey! @Tereglith: Yes the birds of prey are much smaller (crew of 20 compared to 400 in constitution-class starships) but in the movie they look similar in size.

Great work! They'd look right at home in one of the many squares in Bloomsbury. Sadly, most of the real ones are offices or hotels now.

Wow, I just found this thread; the Modulex has got me excited. I've got a whole heap of the stuff in the loft at the family home; I inherited it from a friend back in the 80s when he moved to South Africa. As I recall, he got it from his dad who's company had used it for modelling a display of their factory. I made spaceships out of it. When I dig it out, I'll share some pics with you. I didn't know anyone else had ever heard of it, and I didn't know it had anything to do with Lego. All I know is that it was impossible to combine with standard Lego. Thanks for sharing!

Some things count for both playability and accuracy. You wouldn't want an X wing that had wings that didn't move; black non-functioning cockpits like on the chrome UCS Naboo fighter (or the Yavin X wing in the Visual Dictionary) might look right but wouldn't interest me. Another example, as someone has already said, is landing gear. Is this accuracy, or playability, or both? All I know is that while I don't really play with the sets, it's great to be able to pose a ship in flight or landed. The best sets - in my opinion - strike a balance between playability and accuracy, and perhaps add a little of the unexpected. My favorite example is the 7665 Republic Cruiser - it looks, perhaps, better than the movie version; while it's not to scale (so can only fit one minifig in the cockpit) it has stuff you're not expecting, like the guns, and the interior (which I know some don't like), which I think adds greatly to the overall package. Plus, of course, it has landing gear that is both functional and accurate. R. Interesting topic, from before my time. Right or wrong, I'm glad you revived it!

Hmmm.... interesting! Tho' I'm not sure I have the spare parts. Should there be a guideline as to what goes where, eg. rooms 1 to 5 should be engine rooms?

Wow, it's almost worth it just for the spares. There must be a big error margin in Lego's sorting mechanism to give you 3 levers when there's only 1 needed. I got exactly the same spares as you. The farmer guy is great - he just needs a piece of straw in his mouth & he'd be perfect. Compared to this year's two proper tractor sets, though, this is more of a lawnmower. Can't complain for 45 p!

Hmmm, some very good ideas here. Here's my top three: Tatooine Homestead with Owen Lars & Aunt Beru, igloo-like entrance structure and various rooms (oil-bath, dining room), some moisture vaporators and perhaps a womp (?) rat or too. Would go nicely with the Landspeeder. It would have to be a little abstract as I can't see a way of making it 'underground'. Mos Eisley Street Scene including (a better) cantina, some junk, some Jawas, the entrance to docking bay 94 and our friend Garindan Might also include a couple of Sandtroopers and a variety of other scummy and villainous characters... Most importantly Imperial Shuttle - a better one - with black-suited imperial officers and kepi hats, either Palpy with red guards or Darthie with an Imp Officer (grey suit) and a stormie. Rufus

Ooh, tricky! I fell in love with the newish Lego vehicle design (SNOT front end and wheel arches) with the Ambulance a couple of years ago, and this year has seen a plethora of great vehicles all with slight variations on this theme. So I've bought most of the more affordable vehicle-related sets this year. Going only on the sets I have, I've made a shortlist: 7641 City Corner ( that windscreen) 7747 Wind Turbine - the source of my avatar, in case you hadn't noticed. 7639 Camper ( the Legobabe - what's she doing with Surf-dude loser???) 7635 Horse Trailer with 4WD - I think the 4WD is superbly realistic yet a simple build and an instant design classic. Shame rider-girl has no hair though. Overall, I think the Horse Trailer gets my vote. Rufus

That's made my day!! How about an Imperial Health & Safety BP - stormies without helmets (they impede vision); guns with big Lego 'Don't poke peoples eyes out' warnings attached; posters saying 'DON'T use the Force' and big sefety nets for the more precipitous drops in the Death Star.

Jabba's sail barge. 2 years or so ago I had the choice between JBS and the UCS Tie Advanced; I chose the latter. Can't get hold of the JBS for love nor money now.

Fantastic, in-depth review, BigCam! I bought this set a while back. It certainly has lots of features, though the big missiles (I think) detract from the potential by taking up too much interior space, and like many others I detested the rudimentary 'landing gear'. I ended up demolishing it to build my lambda shuttle, but then regretted it and bought another which is still sitting sealed in the box; when eventually I build this, I plan to mod it to overcome these problems. My original set came with a correction page in the instructions (some problem with the missile firing mechanism) - I take it this has been corrected? Rufus

I was just looking at the link from paanjang. They look new to me, tho' I could be mistaken - pretty difficult to see at that scale. [goes back and has another long look at the pic] Or, they could be standard pilot helmets (like the rebel ones) with some neck attachment. Sorry for jumping to conclusions

Thanks for the link, paanjang! The new ARC is probably worth getting for the new style helmets alone, although the fighter looks very similar to the old one, apart from the new nose, oh and the engines look wider at the back. Not quite sure what I'll do with another Kit Fisto; I didn't know what to do with the last one! Looks like he might have a shiny lightsaber hilt this time though.

Hey that's not bad! It's probably the best version I've seen. I'd just suggest more detail on the front of the engine section:

Great review! You've really shown off the features well, and the pictures are clear and informative. It looks like the wings sag a bit - is that something you noticed? Nice subliminal advertising - you should get Starbucks to sponsor you I bought this set MISB recently, but have yet to build it; seeing how big it is, I might have to wait till I've got some more room. How did you add the poll? I don't seem to be allowed to do that!

My fiancee found a better one. These were in a discussion on a non-lego site, so I don't know the origin I'm afraid. I really can't see how they've done this one.

Awesome photo. I had to take a moment to work out how they'd done it. I'm now very glad I put that disclaimer in the first post.

Hello EB. My fiancee found this online. I just had to share it! Apologies if it's been posted before; I did a search but came up with nothing. My entire LEGO collection to whoever builds it first!* Best wishes Rufus * Obviously I'd never actually give up my lego, even for this.

Nice work, Peppermint! I got the David Prowse reference straight away. Something about crossing to the other (Dark) side? You'll have to help me out here, been staring at it for 20 mins! Rufus

Great BP! I'll side with the others though: the new Ewoks would make this fantastic, and a definite buy. Nice to see lots of vegetation.