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Introducing you to my latest Midi-Scale spaceship, the timeless Y-Wing from Episode IV - A New Hope! At 546 pieces, this compact and intricate model is barely wider than your average smartphone's height, but keeps a dense, detailed look and accurate proportions. I initially made a first prototype more than a year ago but was unhappy with the half-baked, almost playset-ish scale. I took on the challenge again and recreated it entirely from scratch: it's now smaller, more accurate, and just better in every aspect. Despite the small size, I did my best to capture the essence of the original ILM prop: tilted cockpit section, engines off-center relative to the thin support struts, asymmetrical greebles from top to bottom, cockpit turret... Believe it or not, the deceptively simple shape of the body was not easy to capture at this scale: with such a tiny surface to work with, a subtle balance had to be struck between incorporating complex greebling and "drawing" an accurate body outline. The cockpit section was a whole other beast, but once I figured out how to create the tapering, things clicked pretty fast. I managed to reproduce the slight downwards tilt, the yellow stripes on the fuselage, and the more discreet gray stripes on each side as well. I believe it's about as small as you can go when creating a Y-Wing cockpit without sacrificing crucial features and proportions! This model comes with a removable stand. Although it being purely a display piece, its swooshability is very good. In addition to being cost-effective, I think it makes a nice desk model for anyone loving that ILM prop look, with a small space footprint. ► Instructions for the Y-Wing are available at BrickVault! More pictures on my Flickr page.
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As an absolute fan of the original trilogy, I had to build more Empire ships in Midi-Scale. I decided to start with my favorite TIE model, the TIE Advanced. This 496-piece TIE Advanced features a fully SNOT and detailed surface. It also includes rear engine thrusters at the back of the cockpit dome. Most importantly, being able to design smooth but razor thin wings was the key to making this build look proportionate and realistic. The same applies for the rear section of the fuselage which, being only 1 tile-high, ended up looking just a thin as the original prop model. Logically, the ship scales well to my previous TIE Reaper - I'll keep exploring more of these in the same scale, and maybe one day have a whole fleet of Midi TIE ships! ► Instructions will be available at Rebrickable soon. More pictures on my Flickr page. ♥ Patreon ♦ Instagram ♦ Rebrickable ♦ Eurobricks ♦ Reddit
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I’ve finally finished my first real MOC! My goal was simply to make a minifig-scale TIE Fighter that is as accurate as possible in its proportions and details. (Note: if any of my terminology confuses you, feel free to consult the glossary.) I started working on this in March, after completing my mod of @Jerac’s TIE Fighter (working from his first version). My mod changed a lot of the details, but kept the internal structure of the cockpit and spars. It also kept the wings mostly unchanged—not because I was satisfied with them, but because as a novice, reworking them felt daunting. Wing Hubs I knew that the technic 6-blade rotor had potential for a wing hub (thanks to Koen Zwanenburg) but it doesn’t come in LBG. I found a way to skin it that closely mimics the ship’s greebling, and isn’t too thick. Once I made these wing hubs, I knew I wanted to make a whole new TIE Fighter to match them. Wings I built a rim with the correct size and shape, and filled in the wing panels with my stacked 1x1 technique that suggests ridges running perpendicular to the wing edges. Coincidentally, 1 stud is very close to the right spacing for these ridges, so the overall look is quite accurate. I wanted to minimize gaps around the spokes, which meant using a lot of 1x1 plates (almost 150 per wing). I placed pairs of plates together where possible, to give a suggestion of the subtler parallel ridges. For the spokes I wanted smoothly tapered tiles rather than the standard steps and exposed studs. The spokes are less sturdy this way, but the wings overall are reasonably solid. The angles are a perfect 60 degrees. It’s annoying that TLG printed a tile for the central wheel with quite accurate details, but shifted the angles to 45/90. Spars Once I had the wings I moved inward to the spars, which present a trilemma: ideally you’d want your TIE spars to be cylindrical, sturdy, and free of non-Lego parts. You can have two of the three. My cylindrical, axle-based construction looks far better than stacked plates, but makes for wobbly, droopy wings. With standard Lego axles, this model is for display only. Following Cereal Eating Builder’s lead, I caved and bought metal axles. The hardest detail in the whole model to render was the “shoulder plate” on either side of the cockpit. I made a couple dozen prototypes (some early ones here) before finding one that represented all the angles (so many angles!) and wasn’t too chunky and distracting. I don’t love the gaps and exposed studs, but this is the best solution I could find. Cockpit Exterior I still prefer quarter domes for the cockpit. They really limit interior space but the smoothly rounded shape can’t be beat, and the greebles I wanted to include fit nicely in between them. The main inaccuracy in this model is the size of the canopy and top hatch, which should be 5 studs in diameter at this scale. The only solution would be to scale the ship up to match the 6-stud canopy, or down to the 4-stud version. Maybe someday. The canopy hinge and the quarter domes also push the cannons too low and wide, but I was able to get them just a bit closer than my previous version. I’m convinced that space binoculars are the best piece for the “bowties” beside the canopy, but they seemed impossible to attach. I struggled for a long time to make even an asymmetric connection with a clip or minifig hand, and I almost gave up before hitting on a sneaky solution. Can you guess how I did it? There’s a hint in the interior shots below. Rear The rear cone was a challenge. My previous TIE had a crude version with handlebars and 1x1 clips. I wanted something cleaner, and posing stands (now in LBG!) seemed promising. The trick was filling in the gaps between them. Purists may feel that I’ve cut my pneumatic hoses too short, but I’m pretty pleased with the result. The main issue again is that it’s a little oversized—6 studs wide rather than 5—but I’m ok with it because it’s in scale with the hatch and canopy. I was able to include the cone hump at the top—another oft-overlooked greeble. To me the dark bowties around the engines are an essential detail, and I was determined to include the red engines, which I couldn't fit in my previous TIE. I considered cutting a red hose, but I was ultimately able to work in a nipple tile. Cockpit Structure It was challenging to attach the spars securely to the cockpit. 1x2 bricks with axle holes are the obvious choice, but I couldn’t handle the asymmetry. There aren't many other options, so I ended up using 2x2 bricks with pins, reinforced by 2x4 technic plates and brackets. With metal axles they're almost solid—in spite of the reinforcements, with swooshing the spars can pull free and rotate forward slightly on the pin bricks. The quarter ellipse liftarms are structural, and not only do they make for a smoothly rounded exterior, but their half-stud width is ideal because the details around the edge of the cockpit—the hatch side greebles and the shoulder slopes—are 1 stud wide. TIE builders who prioritize smoothness and disapprove of my wanton greebling might still be interested in this technique. Cockpit Interior I wanted to include the shape of the dark grey “dashboard” and the triangle at the top of the canopy, since these are visible on the exterior model (although missing from the cockpit set). The interior is very constrained by the quarter domes and the structure holding them together. I was less concerned with modelling the interior accurately, but I did want to make sure that it fit a TIE Pilot (with oversized helmet) and that it looked reasonably cool. The pilot sits quite centred in the cockpit. There’s no space for a seat, but the movie set didn’t have one either. I was tempted to add a bunch of interior details with stickers, but once you start with that it’s hard to know where to stop. In the end I restrained myself to just 2: the iconic targeting display, and a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the rear “window”. Other designers have included transparent rear windows in their designs, but I haven’t seen any that put the interior window the correct position—high up behind the pilot’s head. Struggles with Scale This is my first attempt at scale modelling, and in the end I found the proportions are not as precise as I’d hoped. Part of the problem is that the hubs, although reasonably flat, are much thicker than the “real thing”. I wanted to define the overall width by the centre of the wings from the front view, meaning that the chubby hubs encroach into the spars’ space, and the T-shaped end plate gets squashed. But beyond that, my spars ended up being a bit shorter than the reference, for reasons I don't fully understand. I may try to fix this at some point, but I’d probably need to learn digital design to really nail it down. The side view, however, fits like Cinderella's slipper. Acknowledgements & References I’ve enjoyed discussing TIE Fighter building with Jerac, Cereal Eating Builder, and others. (If anyone else would like some feedback about a TIE in progress, get in touch! In building this I’ve gained a lot of knowledge that is really only useful to a freelance TIE MOC consultant.) My primary reference (the white overlay above) was the blueprint from the TIE Fighter Owners’ Workshop Manual. Unfortunately, I’ve recently noticed some inaccuracies compared to physical models. The EFX prop replica seems more reliable, and you can find some pictures of the original props here. Glossary I tried to keep this introduction short and sweet (seriously) but I am prepared to discuss every detail of this model at length if anyone cares to ask. In anticipation, I’ve created a visual glossary of all the greebles I tried to include, so we have some shared vocabulary. What do you think?
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This layout took me a while to put together, so I hope you like it. It includes various official sets, and many more custom mocs.
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Inspired by the upcoming T-16 Skyhopper set, I made this MOC. Initially, it was an attempt to recreate the future model from what little pictures were available, but as I worked more and more, I realized that I was not satisfied with what I had created. I scrapped the attempt and decided to create my own take. LXF is included so the design can be messed with. T-16 Skyhopper.lxf
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Hello, So recently I was at my school's local book fair and I saw this on the shelves: So I was wondering has anyone else seen this? Why does this book (from 2015) have the Celebration Luke minifig? And also why can't I find any indication of this book existing anywhere I look (I checked Brickset, BL, & LEGO Shop@Home)? Anyway if you can help me figure out what is going on here. But nonetheless I'm super excited to have this fig and I am going to buy the Celebration Han off a friend in a few days, now I just wish the Celebration Leia was cheaper.
