Adventures in Crude Lego Models - Klingon Birds of Prey, et al

[Mike J.]

Presenting "More Adventures in Humble and Crude Lego Modeling!"

[strike]A long time ago, in a gal[/strike] About a year ago, I posted some Sulacos (from Aliens) that I'd made in Lego's Digital Designer software. Slightly faster than building by hand, but with the same frustrations of parts-hunting and missing colors! :lol

My Sulaco Thread

Recently, I was going through my pics of cool Lego stuff I'd saved from the internet, and saw a pretty nice looking Klingon Bird of Prey:

So few pics!

Her creator on Flickr

So I poke around and start collecting pics of people's D7's and KBoPs, and I hunger for my own!

And so here we are. I started small, and tweak them in various way. Trying to keep the proportions close, and the 'feel' right. I am reasonably proud of the big one.

Anyway, thanks for looking.


-Mike J., huge dork. :lol

 

[Mike J.]

Also wanted to tack on this cute little X-wing.

I claim next-to-no 'originality' in execution of this little X, nor the two little KBoPs. They are heavily influenced by those who posted their models online. I stood on the shoulders of giants.


-Mike J.

 

[Mike J.]

Mr. 2x4 also made this very nice KBoP here:

Flickr

Which I tried to recreate in LDD. Not knowing all the parts, it took some squinting and deduction, but I came up with a pretty close Bird. I then tried to 'polish' the bird - add details, make my own bridge, etc. That final hybrid is the model you see below.


-Mike J.

 

[blownhemi]

These are really cool! I messed around with the digital designer ages ago, these make me want to give it another spin.

 

[Mike J.]

Thanks, Hemi!

Here are three more. Not entirely my original creations, substantially similar to other people's versions. LDD limits the colors of pieces, so there are a lot of parts on all my birds I'd use green for, were I to build them in real life.

Not sure which one is my favorite. I'm not quite skilled enough to build my own, yet, from scratch, using whatever 'features' I deem best.

I also 'built' a D7 / Qonos One, based on someone's excellent creation. That puppy I've already ordered some parts for - she will be mine That took some detective work - How did he do that? What's that part? How are those stuck on? Is that a 1 x 2? Etc.

Anyway, on with the show.


-Mike J.

 

[Mike J.]

Here is the awesome D7 / Kronos 1 I mentioned previously:

By Peter Markowski

I just bit the bullet and ordered the parts for 3 different KBoP and Qronos One. 'Buying' the parts through pick-a-brick at Shop Lego was quite time consuming - If I'd had the latest version of LDD, I could have done it automatically. Because I don't, I had to manually add each different brick to my shopping cart. Woof!

Attached are pics of some of my recent KBoPs & Q-1. Unfortunately, the wings on 3.5.5 look too long and there's no way to shorten them in small increments. It's always a swapping of parts in some fashion. Perhaps ironically, the bird I jokingly called the Ugly BoP turns out to have pretty good proportions and overall shape. Someone clearly put some effort into designing her. Where the neck meets the main body is particularly clever, if not very sturdy. I just lengthened the neck and the wings - I think it looks a little better. I've also tried to work over the rear ends / engine of the KBoPs, for some semblance of accuracy. Spent a lot of time watching ST:III and ST:VI lately. Got some nice caps.

As always, my ability to reverse-engineer from photos, the limited parts and colors in LDD all mean these are far from ideal models, and not even mostly my own.

Thanks for reading. Build models!


-Mike J.

 

[Mike J.]

A few more, for fun. This first one is a KBoP from Enterprise, designed by John Eaves, IIRC. The original Lego model on which mine is based was made by Mr. 2x4.

The other two are variations on a cute little space ship I have pictures of from I-don't-know-where. I am calling them space tugboats.


-MJ

 

[Mike J.]

So, a box of Legos arrived yesterday from Poland of all places, and I spent the evening building. I laughed, I cried, I cursed, I dropped some on the floor. Here are the end results.

The big one, Q-1, I'm still missing some hinges for. The warp nacelles need some old-style hinges in order to hang at a pleasing and more correct angle. Color scheme's a little off - "Brick Yellow" is not what I expected. Ehh. Pretty happy with the two KBoPs.

One KBoP is not shown - that's an inelegant one. The wings are too long and the wing hinge structure had to be rebuilt - LDD lied to me about the physical possibility of my construction. Little glitch there.

Now I may scheme to acquire some more accurately colored pieces.


-Mike J.

 

[Mike J.]

And a couple more quick pics:

One more space tug and two space container ships.


-MJ

 

[Mike J.]

Slightly revised models & nice pics. Swapped out a bunch of parts for their green equivalents.


-Mike

 

[blownhemi]

Oh, wow! Seeing these in actual Lego really brings out the 'awesome' factor! And that's pretty slick using the clear parts for the stands. :thumbsup

 

[Mike J.]

Thanks. The clear stands are something I saw online - not my idea They do look classy, though.


-Mike J.

 

[stromo]

Great thread! Thanks.

 

[Mike J.]

An awesome little Snowspeeder has appeared online: Flickr

This guy also has some nice Y-Wings.

Go and see!

 

[Prefect42]

SS Brody,

Your work here is just all sorts of incredible! Well done.

And as someone said earlier in the post, the digital models are cool but the physical models "blow them out of the sky" so to speak.

Looking forward to more creations.

Ted.
Prefect42.

 

[MooCriket]

Awesome thread! I love what you have been able to accomplish!

 

[Mike J.]

Lego has revealed their 2011 advent calendar - one micro kit a day (24 total), all in a handy box.

All Star Wars!

The reason I mention it is because it contains some nice little 'micro' vehicles & droids:

Radiant VII

Trade Fed Spider Droid (fixed legs?)

Slave I

X-Wing (generic Red Squadron)

Shuttle Tydirium (folding wings?)

Blue-marked Trade Fed Battle Droid

Snowspeeder (all gray, no orange markings)

Black R2 Unit (death star, right?)

Mouse Droid (mostly black with white bits)

Republic Gunship

Y-Wing (gold accents)

TIE Fighter (crude)

Millenium Falcon (crude)

A-Wing (crude)

(Note: many figures excluded from this list)

See for your self:

Lego Store Online


-MJ

 

[Mike J.]

And thanks for the accolades, guys :love

 

[Damocles]

Cool stuff!!!

 

[OylPslyk]

i just love Lego, working with them in 3d is just as fun as when i was a kid too; except i never have to worry about running out of parts!!!

here's my E i did:
View attachment 65698

a couple other small lego's i made and some more pics of that Enterprise can be seen here 3D Lego 101