Brick Separators !

✨Brick separators !✨

Run, they have teeth now !

This is a silly project I did ages ago; given that I've officially been posting for a year straight each week (ignoring my disappearing space station post, ahem), I thought it would be nice to post that little guy whose view welcomes me every morning.

And, sure, it's not my finest work, by far, albeit I could go on a rant about the many fun technics I used (look at the horn !). But that's alright !Why ? Because the main goal of legos is not to build extravagant looking buildings, or ships, and landscapes. I don't even need to give a profound answer to what it's meant to be; everything is in the title :

"The name 'LEGO' is an abbreviation of the two Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”. It's our name and it's our ideal." - Lego.com 'About Us' page

In the end, it's just a toy, and what you build with it is not important, as long as you had fun making it ! The pieces I enjoy the most are the one that come to me as a vision that I develop, and I appreciate them much better than some of my (arguably better) commissions I get (because, yes, that somehow happens), because commissions are not spontaneous.

The morale of the story, I guess, is that you don't have to hesitate if you want to build something, no matter how silly it is, no matter it's your first or hundredth moc; and you should be proud of it, no matter how it turns out, if you had fun with it.

✨Kamino’s citadel challenge !✨

I am…very excited about this one. I’ve had this vision for a long time, and I’m so happy it’s ended up looking like that.

Now, there are a lot of things I’ll go into details along close ups under the cut; the only thing I’ll mention above is that I’m very grateful for TCW’s episode guides’ artworks, without which this would have been quite a hassle.

Okay ! Before diving into all the details and things, here is a view from above, to really display how big it is. Dimension-wise, the plank I built it on is around 110*70cm.

Now of course, the first detail which is noticeable is the floor, because, well, it’s everywhere.

This was probably the most challenging part of the build, because making a grid out of Lego is tough. Most of it is rows and rows of dark square, light lines, separated by 1*n tiles. It was the easiest way to get this pattern with as if it were just tiles; because this is one of the objectives I had here : most of this MOC is smooth, except for a few zones (usually voluntarily).

The fact I used this technic means that the floor in most place isn’t very stable, but it actually holds up pretty well because of some hidden connection points with the foundations underneath, which are mostly hidden under the cover blocks.

Here for instance, I’m using modified 1*2 bricks with a Technic hole : it hold the cover block, and it also attaches the floor to the foundation.

Of course, another problem I ran into were slopes. Much harder to get a smooth effect with the technic I’ve used, so it’s a bit wonky and unstable. Also, most them are not aligned properly, which is visible in the picture above (and some area have some really big misalignments because of a few problems I probably won’t bore anyone reading this with).

Now, since they’re also here, I can deal with the cover blocks. These were, among the details, the hardest to figure out, to get a good size while keeping some texture. Eventually I came up with this design, which, ironically enough, uses the same technic the floor uses, in a different orientation.

Another detail : the miradors :

This is one of the first elements I had in place, because I needed them to get a good sense of scale (and was made better by an existing concept art of a tower alone). Most of it does not have anything noteworthy, except for one illegal technic I used (can you spot it ?)

The pillar holding the roof of the mirador is using a technic I had in my toolbox for a long time, but had never had the occasion to use : if you take two 'brick' bricks and attach them perpendicularly on a snot brick, the small space separating the lines of 'bricks' align to let a 1*n tile in. It’s somewhat reliable (for an illegal technic) and an easy way to get octogonal shapes.

Now, before looking at the Citadel itself, let’s turn around for a minute.

This point of view obviously isn’t the intended one, but it’s still worth noting, if only for some composition.

Notice that the wall here is quite small (smaller than the miradors, even), and light gray; it’s in contrast with the towering dark gray wall on the other side, behind the citadel, which technically should give at least some impressions even to the people who never saw TCW.

Anyway, it’s also on this view that we can see most of my slope struggles, including the central one, which is the biggest I had to do.

And I can’t not mention the most important element :

What would be the challenge without a squad of clones to take it on ? These clones (4 privates and a sergent) are ready to fight ! Well. Kinda. I wish I could have actual cadets, but they are not part of the Lego universe (and the floor was enough of a fee, I can’t afford to get customs figures too). I wish I had the Dominos though. I have TBB Echo, and I plan to get my hands on Fives at some point, but they wouldn’t fit here, sadly, so instead I used some movie accurate clones (because all the others are used for a project I still haven’t posted..maybe later…)

Notably, I at some point tried to get the elevator to work - needless to say it was a disaster (it’s too close to the plate underneath to make something working).

Now, without further ado. The citadel.

I’m very proud of it. I got the proportions just right (I actually made some measurements to make sure of it), and there is just enough texture to not make it bland while leaving it as artificial. This alone took roughly 8-10h (which were all spent during an accidental all nighter, whoops), but it was worth it. It’s completely empty inside, and, in fact, the wall behind it isn’t full as well, anything behind the citadel is opened. The spikes are simple 1*3 angle plates illegally connected, and the walls’ small details were made with a bunch of modified 1*2 plates, there isn’t anything really special in it.

The only really complicated zone was the middle tower, because I had to put all the cannons while keeping it clean and smooth, and including the vertical lime lines. It was a fun challenge. And I included the 'flag' At the top, too, just a red transparent cone on a stick (there’s no need for more), which peeks above the gray wall (for composition and because of a lack of pieces).

Anyway, such a long project deserves one behind the scene photo :

Yes, my desk is messy (and include my mandatory tea cup).

On the left, you can see my remaining floor tiles, which have not been used yet; and just under the citadel, you might notice the foundations visible; it’s a checker of 2*2 tiles which gives my floor a good base to be fixed on. There are also some slopes which haven’t been placed yet (in front of the background miradors), and at this steps, there were no cover blocks or walls yet.

As far as my tools go, you might notice brick separators scattered all around my work environment (I never have enough of those), as well as a tablet in the bottom right hand corner (which i use to check and measure concept arts), and in the middle, the red triangle is an official (albeit old) Lego measurement tool which counts in stud, Lego bar holes and axe length.

Also visible, finally, is the bottom of the foundations, which are stacks of 1*2 bricks (each of the three floor layer is separated by a height of 3 bricks), which means that looking directly under it can lead to watching the dark basement of my build (which isn’t aesthetic…).

Anyway, if you read until here, thanks, I guess ? I still have a few TCW related stuff (a small one next week, some other in the foreseeable feature), so feel free to stick around and maybe leave a note, if you feel like it ? That’s it, bye !

I rarely, if ever, reblog things, but that’s just beautiful; Lego at its finest.

BESTIES BESTIES BESTIES

FOUND THIS SUCKER IN A LEGO STORE IN NYC

and the employees had pronoun pins as well!

✨Custom technic vehicle !✨

Something which I had never really posted on before was that, although I enjoy bricks (or Bionicle parts) a lot, I also like to mess around with Technic, when I have the occasion to.

Most of this one is a bunch of additions made on top of the 42065 set, because it's an overall really fun set, with enough space inside to cram in some additional mechanisms.

Here is a video of that thing performing :

...And the remote !

Of course, details and close ups under the cut !

So, here is the (non exhaustive) list of what I added/changed :

Colours of the middle line and addition of some decorative tubes;

A fancy blade at the front;

Plenty of lights;

A turret.

I'll discuss all of these below (except for the first point, which is quite straight forward.

The front :

So, the main plate I used for the vehicle's blade is often used in large Technic cars, mostly for roofs; but used the other way around, it has a nice shape. It's not very functional, but it's aesthetic, and inside are two of the lights I have integrated (some of the cables are visible on the right).

The side :

From here, we can see my beautiful mess of cables (I forced the top open to show it, because it's not as opened at rest). Most of the large cables here are getting power from the battery to the RC receivers; while the small cables are all lights (I might have used too many-).

You might also notice the there are some bumps on the tread pieces : these are rubber grip pieces which I stole from a Nexo Knight Fortrex (it's doing fine without them). These make the plastic less slippery when on rock, but it does a poor job on grass (because grass blades get caught in the gaps of the treads pieces) - to fix that, I would use some of the old rubber treads, but they're way to small to be used as suchs. Instead, to remedy to the problem, I changed the original motors from the default PF M to PF L, which have more power and torque (and can thus reach their max speed even with the added mass). While the two motors have the same theoretical speed, this modified model drives faster than it's standard counter part (it's funny to take over other cars, don't judge).

Back view :

Here you can see the PF M I was talking about (bottom right, the second one is at the front of the vehicle). You may also notice that I have a second mess of cables , because my two receivers are here.

Two major problems with that :

The placement of the receivers makes it so that I can't control the vehicle, unless behind it (oops 1);

Because one of the receivers (on top) had bad wiring with one of the tread motors, the turret is heavily limited in its movements (oops 2).

Turret :

So ! That's the most interesting part of it (obviously).

Now, please note that it was my first time trying to do it, and plenty of my design choices were bad, but fixed in my V2 (will probably be posted next week~).

The way it works is actually quite simple : I have a motor underneath (PF M) positioned horizontally, which is connected directly to the light gray gear (just under the trans green piece on the left) which itself connects to the black base gear on which is mounted the turret. Because of the direct motor connection, the turrets is a nightmare to aim. Not good.

As for the cannon, it's just a servo and a spring cannon. When the servo is activated, the grey technic piece presses the projectile and it flies. Surprisingly simple. (It also lights up the green lights on the side, for fun).

Anyway, this is a fun project to play with. Next week, I might post the V2, which is...Quite different. You'll see :}

And bonus cat picture !

✨Aroaceage pride flag !✨

Another one to my collection ! (see the previous one here). I don’t even understand how I had never even heard of it before, but now that I know it exists, it is now comfortably sitting with all the others.

Like this and don’t see your flag among the ones I made ? I’m open to requests in my ask box !

Additional note : I made a matching bracelet ! (Shades of blue slightly different because of the colours I had available).

✨Clone wars Scuba trooper !✨

A like to make custom clones only using official pieces, here is a scuba (because lego did not give us a Monnk...)

It's not really complicated, although trying to get a DC-12U was far from easy. It's still a bit bulky but I like how it turned out (and one day, I'll try to have multiple of these to get a small underwater diorama, that would be lovely).