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"Zac Soden" <zac_soden@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:GF3DH9.HCy@lugnet.com...
> Hi all,
>
> I have just finished disassembling all of my models and had my sights set on
> a big dropship. I started trying to build it but it just isn't happening. I
> don't yet have the skill to beef it out properly. Having a small brick
> collection ddoesn't help, either.
> Can anyone please give me some tips on how to build the bigger models. I
> think for now I'll go down a size and make something else...
Hehe...this after just spending a weekend building on two different large
spaceships using two different building techniques. Let me try to answer :-)
Ok, the way I see it, is there are two ways to build big. Both of those ways
need one thing though - structural stability. When you design a large ship, you
need it to withstand the forces of gravity we are subjected to here on Earth,
because, even if you don't design a ship to land, fact is, we're on Earth and so
is your model. I'll give the two extremes as I see them, and then my happy
medium at the end.
1) Bricks, bricks, bricks. These large models use mass quantites of larger
bricks (2xn) to stay together. It usually ends up looking rather blocky unless
you put what I like to call 'space crap' or what others call 'greeblies' on the
outer surface. These are parts to make the ship look high tech, they're easy to
do but there's also an art to them. When you have a large ship, you must have a
strong base (which the ship sits on), and a strong way of supporting the upper
deck(s). Brick walls are the strongest way to do that, and the thing that
strengthens brick walls is ribbing them with supports.
Basic ribbing the way I do it is lay a 2x4, then lay a 2x3 rotated 90 from the
2x4, so it sticks out 1 stud from that 2 wide surface, lay another 2x4 and
repeat. The next layer, brick the 2xn wall over the 2x3 so it leaves a 1x2
footprint exposed, fill with a 1x2 there and then go back to the way you did the
first layer. So, it alternates and gets this 2x3 support integrated into the
wall. Doing this every 4 studs makes an incredibly strong wall (the master
builders use a variation of this technique on their large buildings). You'll
see that on the shuttlebay (brick enclosure) of my latest capship probably
coming out in a couple weeks (half done)
2) Panels and hinges. Here's the opposite extreme - have a few brick structures
tying in a bunch of panels and hinges to build the outer skin of the ship. You
still need structural stability, but that's often hidden inside. Having panels
and using hinges to mount them gives a much more interesting shape, and lends to
the SNOT or 'Studs Not On Top' building style. These ships are very lightweight
compared to the brick ships, but they don't take a beating like the brick ones
do. You have to be very careful to keep the panels on and if its on display you
might have to fix it often due to inquisitive hands. This style lends to the
most interesting ship designs, but often the weakest, unless done right.
--
This weekend, I worked on a primarily brick ship (the one I'm building with best
friend Brandon Grifford), and a much smaller panel ship (one I helped build with
Scott Sanburn and Trevor Pruden). I learned a lot about large ship building
from Scott and Trev, because they use a technique I haven't seen a lot in
person. Brandon's a very heavy brick user, and I've been struggling to break
away from that to give more interesting shapes to my creations.
I think that ships look and function the best when they use both bricks and
panels. This means sacrificing a little from both extremes - ships having some
studs-up brick walls, along with panel walls. This still gives the interesting
shapes panel ships have, but it gets more of the strength and stability of a
brick ship as well.
Example - Joel Kuester's Benevolent Grace [1]. Aside from the size of this
thing (I could lay down inside of it - its 8ft long!!!!) - I am impressed with
the techniques he built it with. Joel designed this ship using a lot of bricks
for an exoskeleton of sorts -- there are big black brick beams that wrap around
the ship. Then he filled in the gaps with panels, and almost all of them fold
out, come off, or flip up to get access to the inside. They serve a double
purpose, access to the interior by humans for this 4 deck monster, and
interestingly sloped sides to create a pleasing shape.
The real challenge of modeling space (or anything) in LEGO is that it has a
tendency to become very blocky. I think this is the best way to overcome that.
Unfortunately, it requires a lot of parts, including plates, which are uncommon
in sets and expensive on ebay and Brickbay. You either have to part out a lot
of sets or buy a lot online to get the quantities needed.
With the panel ship I worked on this weekend, we had the extreme luxury of a
collection of several hundred thousand pieces and also went out to the store and
loaded up on sets for parts and opened a lot more unopened sets in the
collection. This gave us the plates in the quantites needed to build a ship
like this.
With large ships, I think that one of the fundamentals is building it stable, so
it can be moved, or so it can be 'wooshable.' To me, having a large ship and
not being able to fly it around the room (unless its simply too big, like
Joel's) is a waste. Its possible, if you spend more time and thought on it, to
build a ship that's both strong and pleasing to the eye, and to have a lot of
fun with it when it is finished.
(for comparison, the ship I am working on with Brandon is 150 studs long and 30
wide, the one with Scott and Trev is <90 studs and about 30 wide as well. The
150 stud one will have three decks, and the <90 stud will have 2.5 decks.
Neither are finished).
Hope this helps! I'd love to hear comments on what I wrote.
-Tim
[1] http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=3797
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: Building big
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| (...) 3) Buid a frame out of technic! I think I'd always do this, but I'm biased - well over 90% of my collection is technic (but that is changing!) Regards ROSCO (23 years ago, 17-Jun-01, to lugnet.space, lugnet.loc.au)
| | | Re: Building big
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| <big snip> (...) <snip> (...) Another good example of using lots of panels and lots of bricks would be my 160 stud long big ship: (URL) Which is as of now still unnamed and unpublished. The interior is full of brick walls and technic beams. I first (...) (23 years ago, 18-Jun-01, to lugnet.space, lugnet.loc.au)
| | | Re: Building big
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| (...) (and even if you're not), I bow to your talent. I can only dream that one day I might construct something one-hundredth as impressive as that. (23 years ago, 20-Jun-01, to lugnet.space, lugnet.loc.au)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Building big
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| Hi all, I have just finished disassembling all of my models and had my sights set on a big dropship. I started trying to build it but it just isn't happening. I don't yet have the skill to beef it out properly. Having a small brick collection (...) (23 years ago, 17-Jun-01, to lugnet.space, lugnet.loc.au)
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