Dude, it's friggin LEGOS!

[wolfmane]

Well, here's my first one:

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Anyone who has been checking the Kickstarter can tell I used the Ijad bottom frame but then built the top to add to it.

Here are some weapons I was messing around with for when I build some more anthropomorphic frames:

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[DarkTails]

Spiffy, I think making weapons is one of everyone's favorite LEGO pasttimes and amazingly they always look cool!

Also, I was waiting for an excuse to post our stuff

Mechs in particuluar I've only built one decent one, along with some little bots. This one is Space Police 3-based and has an '80s Transformers vibe because of the flat joints lol. It has decent articulation and interchangeable weapons.

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I mostly build Sci-Fi and Vehicles, lately I've been on a Futurama trip. You can see most of my stuff here and here (some builds aren't shown in both places, lots of neat stuff)

[Seer]

*snip*

I AM SO JEALOUS!!!!


They look so good, please post some more.

[wolfmane]

@Darktails. Nice stuff! I really like the space vehicles. The purple tri-engine one is sexy as hell.

Thanks Seer. I'll post some more as I build them. The problem is that I'm still missing a lot of the 'special sauce' links that are commonly used for the frames. My parts order came in the other day, allowing me to build the one I posted but I fubar'd the order numbers on some critical parts and ended up short. On top of that I finished going through my collection and I don't have as many of the specific parts I was looking for as I thought I did. I think there may be some wayward Lego collections somewhere else. So I've got another order of Lego on the way.

In the meantime this guy has some phenomenal stuff that I'd like to imitate:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mittenninja/with/6900604286/

[Seer]

In the meantime this guy has some phenomenal stuff that I'd like to imitate:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mittenninja/with/6900604286/

I'm not feeling well.

*faints*

I am SO getting into that stuff when I am able.

I really like that one, reminds me of the Tau Empire

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[Zidders]

Fuuuuuuu...

So much awesome. Tho, Dark...the pic of all those plushies in that plastic tub made me sad :/

[Seer]

Are those made with some sort of design program? I saw them in Darktails' post and in the gallery wolfmane posted.

[Zidders]

It was called Lego Designbyme. It shut down in January, but you can still play around and design stuff. Still, great idea, and nice of them to let people keep using the software.

"Over the years, we have also added other simpler customized building experiences like Hero Recon Team. However, the overall Design byMe experience has struggled to live up to the quality standards for a LEGO service. The feedback from Design byMe users has taught us that we would need to rebuild the entire setup of Design byMe to fix this. This would only make the service too expensive."

Apparently, the folks at Lego actually had to pick the bricks people ordered by hand. Ouch...no wonder it was so expensive to buy and costly to maintain.


http://ldd.lego.com/en-us/subpages/designbyme/
http://designbyme.lego.com/en-us/Default.aspx

I honestly wish I'd know about this before

[DarkTails]

Seer: The program is called LEGO Digital Designer, it's still updated sometimes and you can still download it from LEGO's website. The Design by Me part was so people could buy models quickly but with limited part selection at an expensive price (it's usually much cheaper ordering from Bricklink). It was made mainly so The LEGO Group could get ideas for new sets, they had a rule where they wouldn't sell you the pieces to "crappy designs". Any model you made and bought through the program would then be their property so they could sell your idea and you get squat diddly. To get around that, some people would build an awesome ship or whatever and then reconfigure the pieces into something different, like a mediocre airplane or crummy hot dog stand haha.

There are 3 sections in the LDD program (used to be 4 with Design by Me), Normal, Mindstorm, and Extended, that last one lets you use almost every brick ever).

[Wildman]

Damn you hawkn, you got me hooked on a new addiction , you just had to start this thread didn't you?

[hawkn]

Don't use LDD, it sucks for the kind of joints most mechs use. Look up LDRAW. It's much better.

Also, the dude's blog is here. http://mfzorion6.blogspot.com/

He does some awesome stuff.

[Seer]

I take it LDRAW is the community made and updated equivalent to the official program. I think that's a better choice. Thank you both.

It's also pretty cool that people write backstories for their factions and frames. One of the better parts of this hobby imo. So are those lego frame builders some kind of subcommunity of the greater Lego community?


EDIT: Does anyone know if the kickstarter project intend to keep going after the fund raising? I mean, could we buy the documentation at a later point in time from their own site someday? Couldn't find something relevant in the project page.

Thanks for the info and your time everyone.

[DarkTails]

LDRAW is for dorks

You can't make illegal connections in LDD and some parts are buggy, hinges are also a pain to work with sometimes and parts can be hard to find, but it's good enough for 90% of stuff (at the very least to make a quick draft).

I think you can manually position bricks anyway you want in LDRAW and can create your own elements if you're talented enough. I'm sure there are other neat things about it, I just haven't bothered using it since LDD does the job most of the time.

So like Hawkn said, LDD sucks for some things, just use what you need. If you're making normal stuff that doesn't require crazy angles and lots of articulation LDD is great, for complicated stuff switch to LDRAW.

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It's a good idea to find a site or some people who like building what you do so you can get some solid feedback. If you post your stuff on general LEGO forums you might get some "Cool!" responses and some "Hey, why isn't this star wars related!?1!!1? STAR WARZ RULEZZZ!!!!".

From what little I've seen of the mech/robot community, the builders usually seem pretty helpful and will share building techniques, which is a huge advantage because mechs definitely use some complex (and often "illegal") connections.

[hawkn]

I'd say a good 80% of connections in "good" builds in the 3" tall range use "illegal" connections, and "awkward" angles.

Also, the unofficial, but officially endorsed forums are here.

[Seer]

Illegal as in custom build parts by the community I suppose.



All in all, great hobby. I'll be watching it.

[hawkn]

More like "these shouldn't attach like this but I'll make it!".

[wolfmane]

New one:

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[Zidders]

Wolf <3

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What you did there
I see it

[wolfmane]

And another. I'm heavily imitating at this point but I find it helps me to explore the mechanics of some of these really odd or unique brick connections/junctions that the forms require.

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[hawkn]

Yeah, I'm about to try some hybrid of the Naga, and the Takafashii.

(here are the two I'm talking about)

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