The air force of DIetterr89

It does not happen very often that there is a post about a single person's creations, but it is worth making an exception today.

As I started to build war planes a while ago, my goal was to find a scale that is the smallest possible,  but still gives me enough room to incorporate many interesting details. I have settled at 1:48. This is the scale at which the MiG-15 and the Bf-109 has been built, and this will be the scale for the next few too. I have never dreamt that it would be worth going smaller.

But the planes of Dieterr89 prove that it is more than worth it. He built an entire air force at 1:70. This is a Messerschmitt 109. It represents the shape and colors of the original aircraft as truly as possible:

Its opponent from the Eastern front is a Lavochkin La-5. This is a truely unique build, you cannot find many Soviet WWII planes built from LEGO. To make it more special, it has a radial engine:

In the case of the desert Ju-87 Stuka it was an extra challenge to build the fixed landing gear and the angled wing:

Its "attacker" is a Spitfire, also in desert camouflage:

As the war progressed, Mustangs started to fly their long range escort missions with jettisonable external tanks:

Its opponent is one of the first jet fighters, a Messerschmitt Me-262. I think this looks even better than the other ones:

We left two modern planes to the end. This is an F-16 Fighting Falcon:

Its pair is a Soviet-build Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29. Notice the nose bending down a bit:

Excellent collection, let's hope there will be more soon!

Beyond the hobby

LEGO is very popular all over the net: if you would like to build, you will find a lot of help: you can get bricks from Bricklink, older sets from Ebay, instructions and inspiration from one of the many community sites.

But for most of us, this is a hobby to spend our time and money. Well-known builders sometimes create instructions for their creations but frequently they don't. This is no surprise: many of the models gathering fame are complicated, fragile or contain special pieces.

An interesting exception is Daniel Siskind, the man behind Brickmania. He built his own business to create and sell sets without any official ties to the LEGO Company. Wars that happened for real are a taboo for LEGO's own designers (for understandable reasons) and this is the gap Brickmania tries to fill: the website offers more than 50, mostly military themed sets starting from World War II until armies in recent history.

The models are built from real LEGO bricks. Since these models are much more special than the ones you can buy in LEGO stores, they are noticeably pricier. For example this Jeep at $35 is one of the cheapest models. It is part of the 'Durabuilder' series, which in my interpretation means that it will not immediately fall apart if kids take it into their hands.

For this the buyer gets an individually packaged set in similar quality, but much more rare, including minifigs and other extras depending on the set.

Tanks form the bulk of the selection: there are German, American and Soviet vehicles as well, for example the T-34 below. This set is a lot more complex than the Jeep: it includes a fully rotating turret, a driver and the tracking mechanism. It contains 724 bricks and at $345 is noticeably pricier.

Besides tanks there are other types of vehicles. The CCKW truck below was widely used by US armed forces during WWII. This is a medium set at $100.

There are a few aircraft too, like this P-51 Mustang. Similarly to the Jeep it is also a part of the Durabuilder line. The number of pieces and price at $100 are similar to the CCKW.

There are probably quite a few of readers at this point who think these sets are way too expensive. On one hand this is understandable since LEGO is not the cheapest toy and these models are clearly above the price level of the official ones.

On the other hand it is also clear that the founder has invested a lot of his time and energy into Brickmania. These models were be designed, instructions printed and individually packaged. They are likely sold in much smaller quantities than official LEGO sets. The most difficult problem is probably to acquire the required bricks in sufficient quantities at a good price. For comparison, buying all bricks for my somewhat smaller sized MiG-15 already cost more than $80 and quite a bit of time.

Overall, I think that if you are into military LEGO sets but would not like to spend time designing and buying parts for your own model, Brickmania is a good alternative.

(bricksngears.com is not affiliated with Brickmania in any way.)

It can be built by anyone

I had a plan was to share some of my own creations. In my opinion Rebrickable is a really great site to do this, so I started uploading. Luckily the past few days gave them just enough time do review all the stuff, so here they come.

First, I have the classic Mustang about which I even made a Youtube video a long ago. I was surprised to find out recently that someone else has downloaded it to make another one too :)

I managed to publish the micro MiG-15 and MiG-21 too:

Finally I have completed the upload of the MiG-15 too:

The instructions have been made with Digital Designer so they are not the best of my artistic career, but they contain just enough to build the models.

Happy building and don't forget to let me know if you build one of them, or you use them in a YouTube video! :)

Cool things

A few cool things from the last few days.

We now have official information about the new large X-Wing. It will be built from no fewer than 1558 bricks and will hit the stores in the second half of the year. If I would live in the states and would like to invest my savings into LEGO sets, I am sure I would stack up a few. I predict there will be demand in years.

I think this Soyuz spacecraft is way cool. Even if it does not have any bricks. Creation of pasukaru76.

Dieter89 has built this superb P-51 Mustang. I envy him now. It is a pity that he just missed the great competition (on which I finished in the runner up category with my MiGs).

Our mandatory weekly cool microscale build is this. Created by True Dimensions:

I promise I will get back with my own creations. Sooner or later. See you next week!

Build your own Mustang!

I wrote about the mini Ford Mustang on the blog several times. The video is on YouTube and it is one of the most popular videos. Many commenters demand that I provide building instructions so that they can have their own.

Since I am not an LDraw pro, I could not do something as beautiful as _lichtblau_ does. You will need Lego Digital Designer (LDD), but you will have a way to build it.

1. If you did not so far, go to the LDD website and install Lego Digital Designert.
2. Download one of the Mustang models (or click a picture below) and open it in LDD.

Once this is done, you can use LDD to pimp the car as you like it: new colors, roof, spoilers, anything.

When ready, you can do the following:

• In "View / Building guide mode" you can create your own building instructions and click it through. If we have all the bricks then this is it, you are ready.
• In "View / Check Price" you can check how much it costs to order all bricks from the Lego company..
• In "View / Send model to LEGO.com" you can upload it to Lego.com (and make it viewable by anyone) and also buy it. You can design your own box, instructions, I do not go into details now.

If you compare the LDD model to the original red Mustang you will find some differences:

• LDD does not have all the bricks in all colors. Because of this neither of the downloadable LDD models are red. If you are brave enough you can try to order the bricks in all your favorite color from Bricklink.
• The hood of the car on the video is made of this part. Unfortunately LDD does not have this at all. If you would like to have this hood you can order one on Bricklink.

I have put a couple of new images here and these are the old ones from the red Mustang.

Mustang from bricks

Yesterday I have finally got all the missing packets containing Mustang parts. Of course I started building the Great Masterpiece immediately. This is the result:




I am quite happy with it. Of course I got new ideas while building it, for example I have realized that I could have made the interior of the door from tan colored panels. Maybe next time...

Until then some statistics:

• total time spent: approx. 6 hours
  
• total money spent: apporx. 40 USD
  
• waiting for the bricks: 10 days
  
• number of bricks: about 200 including the roof (not yet visible)
  

More images in the album. And a video:

Virtual Mustang

While I am waiting to get all Mustang parts I thought I would make a virtual version. Unexpectedly, getting all the virtual parts was not easy either - the mudguard was neither in the official nor in the unofficial parts of LDraw. I was lucky enough to get some help from gzurti so I have everything now. The result illustrates the difference between images made by LDraw (or POV-Ray to be precise) and LDD (click for more):


Meanwhile I got the first package for the real Mustang - I hope I will get the rest soon as well.

Mustang at scale

Now that we talk about Mustang - the grand master of pneumatic engines nicjasno published a whole album about the details of his own Mustang. This is much larger than mine and its main task is to test pneumatic engines, but it is very impressive on its own. At about 30 studs wide it is very similar to the details of a real car.

Mustang project

Although I am a Technic fan, these days I run into many realistic models. I like cars and aircraft most especially if they are not too large like the mini-Technic models from the Arvos or the cars from the Ralph.

I got so enthusiastic that I started thinking about how I could build something like that. First I considered replicating the excellent Porsche from the Arvo brothers. I did not drop the idea completely but so far it seems to exceed my capabilities. It would take a lot of time to find out how the invisible parts are done and it would take many special bricks like the windscreen ($26 used) or the a rear windows ($15 new), making it expensive.

Building small models leads to different challenges than large ones where the scale gives you much more freedom. With small ones one has to brainstorm about putting each brick to its place, considering different alternatives in many cases. It needs special pieces in unusual colors to return the characteristic features of the original. I have no clue about how pros do it but it seems impossible that they have all the bricks on their shelves in advance in the desired colors (it is worth to take a look at the color chart).

Finally, I have made up my mind. I have decided to try a Ford Mustang convertible (the current one, not the old one). Decisions so far:

• I have many bricks (ask my wife) but not enough. The car will be built solely from newly bought bricks not to limit building. I am also curious how much it will cost. Also, I would like to keep it in one piece forever.
• This makes designing a bit difficult. I have built prototypes for certain parts from the bricks I have but the final car is modeled in LDD because I do not know LDraw very well. LDD also makes some sanity checks like checking if all the bricks are connected.
• The car will be 6 studs wide. This is small but it allows me to use some special parts like the mudguards.

This is where planning is at the moment. There will be some parts that will look different and I will use other colors too. But the basic shape can be seen.



It seems like $40 will cover the financial side. Ordering was a bit complicated because there are some part I could find only at one merchant, so I had to order from 4 different shops to cover everything.

So far so good. When it is ready it will go to brickshelf and of course I will tell you about it on the blog too!