LUGNET News : ~3249/


David van Oorsouw /

Alright, let’s try this member-page thing out!

Welcome to my LUGNET Page. Here, I’ll try to keep a log of the things I do with that brilliant toy named LEGO. First off, let me explain what it is I mainly do with LEGO.

My favorite theme is Star Wars. Ever since I have seen the Star Wars Movies (around the age of eight, I believe), I’ve been trying to make Star Wars-related things out of LEGO. Especially, Star Wars Spaceships. So when LEGO actually came out with a line of Star Wars products, I was thrilled! I never did stop buying Star Wars LEGO, although I didn’t love it as much as I do today.

Some time ago, I discovered Ldraw and related programs (especially MLCAD) and Bricklink. A golden combination, if you ask me. That’s when I started to do what I still do with LEGO today; design and assemble Star Wars-themed Spaceships.

Here’s a list of the projects I’m working on or have worked on, so far.

Projects

From here on, I’m going to keep a log of what I do (Regarding LEGO.. ;-) )

19-02-2007

I started working on a bomber in the Selkath-line. I aim to make a full range of spacecraft with the same global theme (Selkath/Manaan, in this case). So far, I have:

-An allround fighter (like the X-wing), Odonata Manaan.

-A multi-role superiority craft (like the B-wing, Assault Gunboat or even TIE Defender), the Assault Fighter (real name pending).

-A fast, light interception-craft (like the A-wing or TIE Interceptor), the Aggrovator (real name pending).

So I definitely need a bomber, and I was thinking of making an armed shuttle, too, kinda in the same range as the Millennium Falcon. I would like to make some more craft in this range. I might come up with some more..

Also, I still have two project pending that I started on long ago in this Selkath-series. One command vessel, a small craft, but really heavilly armed (gunboat class), and one a strike vessel with a hidden turret in the rear. I will finish these projects some day, however, I need some time to figure what I was going for when started these projects... I should make sketches more often...

Anyway, I named the bomber “x1”, because I saw the x-key when I was in a hurry to leave and had to save quickly. And, of course, because it sounds sooo mysterious.. ;-)

20-02-2007

I put in some more work on the bomber, today. It’a actually nearly finished. I have to decide on some colors, though. Black and gray are the most obvious choices, because I noticed that most parts are available in at least one of the two. And, if I can only get a part I wanted grey in black, it won’t mess up the color scheme too much.

A shame that black and grey are also the most boring colors. I should add one “real” color to liven up the model a bit. I hope I can get some dark green parts. I’ll have to check availability before I make the changes to the model.

Anyway, like I said, it’s almost done. As soon as it actually is done, I’ll post some pics.

22-02-2007

Looks like I’ve finished the bomber. Sadly, I couldn’t get much color in the model. I went with a streak of brown running across the hull. I took some snapshots in MLCAD. I’ll render some better pics soon.

I still haven’t come up with a name, but I intend to think up a name for this bomber and the assault fighter and aggrovator tomorrow. I’ll post them as soon as I figure them out. Meanwhile, here are the pics I took, so far

23-23-2007

Didn’t all that much today.. I made some preliminary sketches of the interior of a light freighter/shuttle type of craft in the Manaan series, but I’m not quite sure how I’m going to realize it. The interior will be easy enough, but the exterior is a trickier bussiness. And, I’ll need to roughly design the exterior to outline the size of the inners of the ship.

I’ll do it some other time, I tried doing it today, but I really didn’t feel up to it. Too much strange angles and connections that might or might not fit. It’s quite possible that I’ll need to order some parts to try some things out IRL, because you can’t always tell if something’s going to work if you use MLCAD.

Outside of the freigher/shuttle, I’ve been feeling quite low in inspiration. Probably because I have vacation.. It dulls the mind ;-).

11-05-2007

Well, it sure has been a while since I updated this page. I didn’t do a whole lot of LEGO’ing lately, so there wasn’t much of a reason for me to update this page. I have finished assembling my Odonata Manaan, though.

As I expected, the colours turned out a bit different than those of the original MLCAD-version, and I had to make some changes in the way the lower wings are attached to the body (they kept falling off). But, other than that, it turned out just fine.

Also, I started work on a new series of ships. I don’t have any names, yet, but I do know that the ships will be darker and more “alien” in appearance. I only have some ideas in my head, some rough sketches on paper and a few small parts in MLCAD, so far. I think the actual designing will have to wait for a bit, since I have to focus on final exams for now. But the images in my head are still vivid and lucid..

And yesterday, I started working on the building instructions for the X1 Bomber. Typing this makes me realize I still need to come up with real names for some of my ships... Ah, well, back to the instructions. I worked out the instructions for the main hull, so far. I suppose the wings are next. I’m not a big fan of making building instructions. Especially when I find out I made a mistake, a few images back, and have to do all the images after the mistake over... I do feel that building instructions are very important. If I ever were to lose the MLCAD files of my LEGO creations, I’ll still have some building instructions in back-up.

Well, that’s about it, for now. I think I’ll get cracking on the wings of the X1 in a bit.

12-07-07

Between the last update and this one, I did two LEGO-related things;

I ordered and assembled the Assault Fighter I had to change some parts’ colors and I made some structural changes to enhance it’s looks and structural integrity. It turned out nicely, but I had hoped for the colors to be more like I designed it. I couldn’t get some of the canopy’s parts in trans-black, so I had to replace them with a solid color.
Also, I started to design a V-Wing, as seen in Episode III somewhere. LEGO has a V-Wing set, but to me, it looks a bit... Ehm... Dinky, I suppose. It was pretty cheap, compared to most other ships LEGO came up with, and that shows. It’s a great set, but I feel it doesn’t quite fit in with the rest. It seems too smal. So, I got to work and came up with a model that matches the scale a bit better. Here’s a link to the project page regarding the V-wing, with some MLCAD- generated pics.

While looking around on Bricklink for some parts, I discovered two troublesome things;

I’ll probably need to make the model’s red parts light-red instead of dark red. Too bad, because it looks so good in dark red.. I counted on having to make it light-red, though.. I designed the original in light-red.
Those wheels I used to attach the wings to are, appearantly, very rare. I only found two in Holland, and theu were $22,50 EACH. I went ahead and ordered them, because I really want to make this model work. This does mean that I’ll need to wait until next month to order the rest of the parts.. *SIGH*... It had better be worth it ;-).

Primary content in this document is © David van Oorsouw. All other text, images, or trademarks in this document are the intellectual property of their respective owners.