More BrickLink Studio experients

I've been mucking about in BrickLink Studio some more which has been giving me some ideas for projects I want to make in real life. Mostly I'm just using the software to get an idea of what parts I'll need to acquire so I can muck about with the real bricks and get the design right.

Here's an early version of the hover ice cream truck with forward prongs in the style of the red truck.

I decided I wanted wheel arches, so it evolved into this. The proportions still looked wrong to me, so I've been experimenting with a slightly shorter version.

This is the sort of thing I have no chance of making for real with my current collection. I want to make big fancy space ships, but I don't really have the parts. The Rynocore Hercules here is the beginnings of a design I want to turn into reality. It will probably end up looking a bit different, but this is helping me work out the sort of parts I need for big space ship projects like this.

This render was done with POVray instead of Eyesight - this is quicker but gives a less photo real result. It shows the completed container tug.

Here's the tug with two containers attached - the eight prongs sticking out the front are the clamps which hold the containers together. There are technic pins for strength, but the clamps are the 'fictional' way the whole thing works. The tug also attaches via clamps.

An area I really want to work on is making large space ship engines. I don't have that many things which work so I want to spend time experimenting in software so I can work out what to buy.

Here's a close up on the tug with the containers attached. It's currently about 60 studs in total, meaning that if I was to fit four containers I'd be in S.H.I.P. territory. I like this idea because I can stagger out the costs by getting the containers one at a time.

I also finally had a chance to make a lego version of the Snotblox logo - I always wanted to do this, but I didn't have the right sort of parts in the right sizes. This log is technicaly impossible to build since you can't get one of those diagonal tiles in pink...

I'm going to start using this in upcoming videos and blog posts.

BrickLink Studio experiments

I've recently downloaded BrickLink's Studio software, which is very similar in concept to Lego's Digital Designer. The advantage is that you can convert models into wishlists on BrickLink so that you can buy the pieces needed to build them (much like LDD was originally designed to do before the Lego Designed By Me program was cancelled). It can also do a nice 3D render of your designs.
Naturally, I decided to have a go at designing some sort of hover car.

Since I like to display my cars infront of my collection of modular buildings, and since I've tailored my collection of modular buildings towards looking like a small American town in the 1950s, I decided to build a retro hover truck. I am thinking of modifying my buildings to give them a sort of 1950s dirty future look. This design is based on a wheeled truck I built to go with the town in it's normal 1950s state.

I've also been mucking around with a flying ice cream truck, but it's not really ready yet. The body needs a fair bit of tweaking to get the shape right and there's no interior at all yet. I do plan to order some of the parts to build these soon - I already have some of what I need.

Lego Galaxy Trucker

Recently Elliot has gotten very keen on the board game Galaxy Trucker. After playing it on Saturday I was struck by a thought - at some point I had seen a version of Galaxy Trucker built from Lego. So I told Elliot and we decided to have a go at making our own. This is the result.

As a result of what is in Greg's collection, we didn't end up building anything like the version I'd seen on Board Game Geek, and it's not an accurate recreation of the game pieces at all, but everything is recognisable as what it's meant to be. 

The modules are (reading from left to right, starting at the front of the ship) 

• Double cannons (which really should be purple, but Greg does not have much purple)
• Brown Alien Life Support (the only Macaroni pieces available were shades of brown so we built this instead of a crew module)
• Hazardous Cargo storage (with removable hazardous cargo pods under the grilles)
• Core (As far as I can tell, Greg's only got one of those hollow cone pieces so we're never going to be able to build another core in a different colour.)
• Double Battery
• Engine (It's impossible to build modules beside the engine due to the manoeuvring thrusters sticking out the sides - might need to change that)

 We did start a crew compartment, but dinner intervened. Elliot has been challenged to try to add more modules during the week. On Friday and Saturday I'll be going back and we might work on some more parts.