Happy New Year

Lamest post ever, I know. I think it's been about a month since I posted, but I do intend to start posting more useful stuff in the very near future, including a tutorial on how to use BrickLink's Wanted List interface to find all of those missing parts to your old Lego sets. Basically, over the holidays and into the new year, I've been very lazy as far as updating the blog has been concerned. But stay tuned. More Lego goodness will be happening in 2013.

Variations on a theme: Slave II

While doing my usual perusing of MOC pages I came across this little doozy on the left. It's the Slave II (Boba Fett's spaceship from the Star Wars universe) but done entirely in a LEGO fire theme. There's so much good stuff on this build from an extendable fire ladder, to the original guns being replaced by water hoses. The build is by Giovanni Seynhaeve, and if you go to his MOCpage, you'll see that not only is he an accomplished AFOL, but he's got more of these variations on a theme (VOAT, for short) in his builds. All of them are equally wonderful and creative in their own way. Included are a construction theme, pink girly theme, Batman, castle, and Fabuland. In the comments for the fire theme, Giovanni has revealed that he's currently working on an ambulance version. I can't wait!

10179 in POV-Ray

After yesterday's post, I wanted to try out some limits on POV-Ray. I had an LDD file of the UCS Millenium Falcon that I created in Lego Digital Designer (which took a few days of spare time) sitting on my computer. Using the LDD to POV-Ray Converter, I loaded it up and started POV-Ray. I started out with a small picture and messed around with settings, so each of the renders took about 20 minutes. Then I upped the resolution to 800 x 600 and cranked the quality settings all the way up and let POV-Ray work it's magic. 5 hours and 37 minutes later, this is what I got. It actually looks somewhat like a professional photo of a fully assembled Lego set, complete with shadows. I'm really liking this POV-Ray stuff!

LDD to POV-Ray Converter

I explained in a previous post how to take a model in Lego Digital Designer and through several steps, create a realistic looking picture of your Lego creation via POV-Ray. While perusing MOCpages recently, I came across a very helpful article (LDD models rendering tutorial) that explains an easier way to achieve, in my opinion, better results. The method used in that article uses a program called LDD to POV-Ray Converter which, shockingly, converts LDD files into a format that POV-Ray can then use to render an image. It's very streamlined and you can setup almost everything you want (quality, lights, colors, etc.) in the Converter instead of fiddling with endless text files in POV-Ray. Once you have all the settings the way you want it, you just click Convert and let the program work its magic. Once it successfully completes, the Converter will even automatically launch POV-Ray and start rendering the scene right away. It's a great tool for both POV-Ray pros, and people who are intimidated by POV-Rays minimal interface. Depending on your quality settings and how big you make the final picture, it can take anywhere from a few seconds to an hour or two. With just a little fiddling with the controls, I turned this Turkey creation in LDD...

...into this glamour shot.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Now instead of the flat, shadowless colors in LDD, we now have shadows, textured surfaces on the sloped bricks, visible seams, and that shiny, plastic Lego brick sheen we all know and love. My favorite part of the finished results is that the light on the wing makes the LEGO logo easilty visible on the studs.

French Frigate Minerve

The Pirates theme was just starting to come out shortly before I went to college and didn't have much time to play with Legos, but I always enjoyed seeing pictures of the different sets. The sails and twine rigging were a new and welcome addition to the Lego system. Come AFOLs, like Bonaparte Napoleon on MOCpages, took the theme and ran even further with it like with this French Frigate Minerve. Instead of just settling with a bit of thread here and there to keep the sails in place, he went so far as to create rope ladders and  intricate rigging with block and tackle. Add to that 20 cannons and around 12 sails, and you have a very nice looking sailing vessel from years past.

SR-71 Blackbird

Yeah, I'm a day late with my MOC Monday entry, but I just had to post this. I was into military planes when I was a kid, and my absolute favorite was a beauty called the SR-71 Blackbird. At the time, it was the fastest jet in existence and could go faster than Mach 3. I think even today in retirement, it still holds the record. So as you can imagine, I was very excited to see how well David Low at MOC pages captured the essence of this flying beast. The build may be aided by the use of black bricks hiding some lines (the original jet was black), but I can't get over how realistic and faithful to the original it looks. Wonderful job!

Project 10179 : Update

I mentioned earlier that I'm currently slowly collecting pieces to build the ultimate Lego collectors set, 10179 UCS Millenium Falcon. As of right now, I have 486 of 5195. So I still have a long way to go. Since I don't have a lot of money to sink into this, I've been funding my project by buying and selling Lego sets I find at yard sales or on Craigslist (keeping the relevant pieces for myself, of course).
One crucial question to ask yourself if you decide to collect pieces for a project this size is "Do I want to own the set with it's original pieces, or do I just want the building experience?". One of those options is much cheaper than the other. For instance, the original set is almost all gray. Specifically, it's the newer shades of bluish light and dark gray in use right now. However, if I my selection to use some of the old light and gray bricks that are the same types, then I can speed up my collection quite a bit. Also, I think the final result would look more like the original movie version of the Millenium Falcon which was a piece of junk in the story.
Also, some pieces that are used will never see the light of day once built. For instance, this little piece here was yellow in the original set. Since the yellows are relatively rare, they cost more on Bricklink than the black ones do. But those yellow pieces are only to hold the guts of the model together, so you can't see them once it's built. Some very rare pieces like the custom painted satellite dish can set you back $50. However, a plain gray dish that is the same size only costs $1. If you want to own the original instruction booklet, you might have to shell out $100+ on eBay. If you just want to build it, you can download the instructions in pdf form for free from Peeron or even the official Lego site. It just depends on how much you care. As for me, I just want to build it, view it in all it's glory, and feel how heavy the sucker actually is.