Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

It's been a while and to be honest these photos have been sitting on my phone for quite some time. It is time to reveal my Lego TARDIS. I wrote a blog a while ago on my inspiration and the computer design, it is now the time to reveal the real thing!!

Now already during construction there were a few modificatons. Just to stability or due to lack of pieces being found. In the end I had to go to 5 piece providers to get all the bits in the colours I wanted.

I'm very happy with how the pieces I got at Brick 2014 worked in the set.

I understand that with Lego unleashing an official set later this year, my design is slightly redundant. But as my first ever computer design, with procurement of the exact bricks I needed I am VERY proud of the results!

It now takes pride of place on my desk at work.

 

 

With the doors opened put it stands very well on the surface, no wobble at all. I even think it's not too badly scaled for a minifig either.

You can see how cramped it is inside once the doors are closed, so unfortunately you cannot transport a minifig around inside.

Lastly are some construction pics. If you like the look of it and want to replicate it please let me know through the blog or my Instagram (whinney_g). I will send a PDF of the computer generated designs free of charge to anyone that wants a go.

Please feel free to build it, mod it, improve it. I'd love to hear ideas for how it could be made better in general or for your own uses.

 

 

 

 

Hope you are all well and happy building!!

McLaren P1

So, me and the new fiancé took a day trip to Cambridge for a bit of R&R and some shopping. She picked things up for the house, our daughter and the upcoming baby, I picked out this!

From the new Lego Racers range, the McLaren P1. The two Ferraris were in the shop also, but I preferred the McLaren. Mostly because it was yellow!!

Now for £13 I thought it was a pretty good price. Any more than £15 and I'd have been put off a bit, even if it is a special range. What I like about the box is that it has a picture of the actual car and some vital stats on too.

What first struck me upon opening the box was that there were two instruction books. I think that they could have done it in one really. The other thing was the amount of stickers. Now I understand that some would be required because some of the shapes aren't doable in Lego. Plus to print every brick would probably add production cost.

However a couple of the stickers I feel they could have printed, one the exhaust, as that is a prominent visual piece and even a slightly jaunty sticker could ruin the look of the car. The second was the dashboard. A sticker placed on a 2x1 wedge. Again, too easy to get wrong. 

I'm not opposed to unique bricks for a set, especially one such as this where the look and shape of the car is paramount in recreating a real life vehicle in Lego. But there were a few custom pieces I've not seen before and cannot see appearing in any 'normal' set. Is this a slight laziness on the designers part? Or were they trying to not only capture the look of the vehicle, but make it playable too?

One of the downsides of the DeLorean from Back to the Future is that because of its construction it is not very playable as it is quite fragile. Custom bricks would have improved stability sure, but it would then be hard to describe it as 'normal' Lego.

I fear it is one of those battles Lego will never be able to win and please everyone.

Now this does sound quite a negative review, but there are so many good things to this. One, again is the price. For a real world car I gladly paid that amount. The detail is astonishing, especially with the small scale of the model. Oversizing it would have made it easier on the designers, but not right to play with with a minifigure.

Lego supply two sets of 'alloys' 10 spoke and 5 spoke depending on your preference. The model is VERY well constructed and easily playable.

On the whole I'm quite happy with this purchase and it has now shown me the range is good enough to warrant buying some more. Just have to convince the missus I need them!!

Red Dragon

Just a short post today to show you my latest Lego purchase! It was even approved by my other half, under one condition, that our daughter is allowed to help me build it.

And here it is, modelled by the young lady herself;

This is set 31024 for ages 7-12 (it's just a suggestion). With my daughter's help it took about 40 mins, but I must say I am very impressed.

Including the Castle and Ninjago ranges there have been a few dragons produced by Lego. I've not always been that impressed, they either have good wings with not so good limbs or vice versa. But this set has it all. They have used a mixture of joints, the staggered clip-hinges, the ball and socket joints and even the newer mini ball and socket joints.

Each have been put to good use, none trying to hold up something that's too heavy or maintain a stance with too much weight applied.

Put together this lends itself to a very poseable dragon. It is also strongly constructed so very playable too! Even (mostly) by a three year old! 

The set, being a Creator set, also makes a snake and a scorpion, but as an avid dragon lover I shall keep it in this form. It has even made it to the office, where today it is keeping a colleague's hands warm!

You can see a lot of the used joints in the last picture. At the price of £17 I think this is a must have for anyone who likes the Creator range, or just dragons in general.

That's my quick post done for today. Have any of you got this set? What did you think of it? What is your favourite Creator set?

Until next time!

Lego TARDIS

Happy New Year to you all. Hope you had a good one and a good Christmas.

I'm going to start this year with a post about two things I enjoy very much. Lego creation and Doctor Who. Now I've only really been a fan since the revamp with Christopher Eccleston, but I am a solid fan. One thing that has bugged me was how the rights too constructable toys for Doctor Who were snapped up by one of Lego's rivals.

Now I am a massive Lego snob. If it's not Lego I generally will overlook it. Megablock's HALO series being one of the very few exceptions. That said, I went to a Doctor Who exhibit in London some years ago, pre-Mat Smith I believe, and they had the Lego equivalent models there. 

I had to buy the TARDIS, and it is pretty good, but there are a LOT of custom bricks and stickers required. And I feel, as proof of my required snobbery, the bricks do not really fit well together. This has lead me to thinking one day I should try something better. With Lego.

I'm not the only one out there with this idea and a guy called Flailx in conjunction with Glen Bricker and Kaminoan created this;

It is posted on the Lego Creations site and isn't doing too badly. You can check it out here; https://ideas.lego.com/projects/59237

I love the detail and the fact that you can open it up and have a playable model inside. Instantly I wanted to recreate it for myself and set about trying. I used the free Lego 'Digital Designer' (available free for Mac and PC users). However, I struggled. It may just be my construction method, I prefer to have stability in my models for playability, and I just could not figure out how the side panels were fixed.

So mine ended up like this...

Close, but not good enough for me.

The other downside was the number of stickers required for the detail. Not an issue if this ever becomes a real set, but for those of us trying to recreate it at home a real issue.

Deflated, I gave up, my model looked nothing like the picture and I struggled to make it work.

Then a few weeks later I started again. This was spurred on by a Lego purchase at Brick 2014. Along with a very cool custom minifig;

 

This was from the Brickarms stand and the detailing, especially on the sonic screwdriver is amazing. Although for copyright reasons their figure is called Inspector Q. Not only that, they had produced some custom sprayed bricks for people in my very situation;

Now I had the minifig, the bricks and the motivation to get cracking on my own design. Inspired greatly by the creation of Flailx, my task was to use these bricks to minimise sticker requirement, to build something that looked TARDIS-like from the outside, but could open up to look like a playable set.

Weeks of tweaking later I have come up with this;

Not having the time, due to parental responsibilities, to have my Lego all over the floor for days of tinkering, I used the Lego software and am pretty happy with the results. As you can see the top has darker bricks (1x4 smooth plates) to show where the printed 'Police Box' plates would go. The 1x1 White square plate is the printed information sign also bought in the set from Brick 2014.

Apologies for the crude rendering of a Doctor, but he is there just for scale. Now, for me anyway, comes the exciting part, opening it up!

As you can see, the inspiration is massive from Flailx's model, but I feel more confident with the fixing of the side panels and the structural integrity of the model as a whole. I have included two over head screes that can also be hinged and possibly rotated.

If it looks a bit cramped inside for your liking you can easily replace the Orange, black, yellow and red sections from the centre of the ceiling (kept as random colours purely for ease of differentiation in this blog) and use the new circle stud with a hole in. Two of those stacked will allow you to raise the central 'lightsaber' bar up and connect inside.

This shows a bit more of how compact the design is, when the doors are closed it is very tight inside, making the addition of consoles and screens hard, but an interesting challenge.

The bottom edge of each door and the 4x6 dark blue plate on the base of the main model are all floor touching, enabling maximum stability when open for balance and playability.

The top section looks bulky, but the centre of the sandwiched 6x6 plates is hollow and the center console acts as a support also.

In this view you can see that the right angled bracket holding on the top of the rear panel may be interrupting the rotation of the screens. The downside of creating a model in a computer program is that you just don't get a hands on feel for it.

So there you have it. My Lego TARDIS. My aim is to purchase the bricks required and actually construct it, but with a new child on the way money has been diverted to more essential things! :)

What do you think? Have you managed to build something similar? Or are you too in the midst of designing a solution to the problem of making something bigger on the inside?

If you like the idea I have managed to save the Building instructions as a PDF which I am more than happy to share. Even if you wish it as a starting block for your own design as I did with Flailx's creation. There is nothing more exciting than thinking that I too may have inspired something great.

Please do not forget to try the Lego software either. It is totally free and the library of bricks available is all encompassing! Just Google Lego Designer and download the appropriate program for your computer. However, if you are not the owner of the computer, please seek their permission first!!

Happy building. Until next time!