✨Progress Pride Flag !✨

What are we

Boop

That is a very boop question.

✨Christmas tree !✨

…Yes, it’s a very tall picture…So tall, in fact, that you can actually see the top of my shelf studio. I made this last year, and I think it’s about the time to showcase it, along with this year’s project, which I’ll post next week !

Fun fact : the top of the tree isn’t connected at all to the rest, it’s only held in place without any stud. I also couldn’t find a neat star for the top of the tree, so I opted for another shiny pointy thing instead-

✨Trade Space Station !✨

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Finally...More than 60 hours of work, I can present my masterpiece. I have been working and planning this project for a long time. Given the sheer amount of things to talk about, I will split all of my rambling in (at least) four posts : one about the concepts, ideas, and general aspect (you're here !); one about the technical side of things; one depicting how the project evolved (using pictures taken during the construction); and one dealing with all the smaller details, ships, and such.

Enough with planning, though. Explanations, other images and more explanations below the cut !

(less) edited picture of the build :

So. You might see, now that I got rid of all that pesky editing (or most of it) that there is a big arm holding the thing in place. It's easily a fifth of all the work of this build, because I absolutely wanted to hold this thing at an angle, and it's heavy, at around 15 kilograms (33 pounds). I'll talk about the technical difficulties of that in a later post, but it was important for it to be solid, because the station was the central piece of my second ever (very small) lego exhibition. AND it allowed me to meet the recruiter of a much larger exhibit. Long story short, in a month, I'm presenting this piece again (just before my exams, whoops-).

Anyway. Not only is it heavy, but it's also quite tall and wide. Around a meter at the highest point (tilted or not), while the diameter of the main ring is at around 0.75m. Quite a difficult thing to move around. Or is it ? Well, yes and no.

Here are all the main components (excluding the holding arm), when I move the piece around. Of course, all the ships are detachable (it allows me to move them around from one day to the other), but the dome carrying the antenna can also be removed, and then, the entire ring can be disconnected (that, too, was quite a challenge).

Removing the ring obviously makes it waaay easier to transport, because a single wooden plank can then be used (again, except for the arm, but that thing was made to be sturdy, so it can be transported with less care); and , once the dome is removed, I can just let the central cylinder stand upside-down (useful for storage). The only trouble I found with this system is that I once connected the ring the wrong way around, meaning everything in the small hangars was upside down. Quite an embarrassing moment.

Speaking of the hangars, I initially wanted to keep them all empty, to store ships inside, but it didn't really offer this piece the sparkle of life. Setting up these small decors inside most of them, with colors contrasting with the general theme of the build, was actually a really good addition.

The colour scheme as it is now is not exactly the one I had planned at the start of the project. I originally planned on using bright light orange (bricklink colour name) instead of sand green, but I found out that this colour was tough to find in large quantities, and I already had quite a bunch of the sand green, so this tragic decision was made. I think it would have offered a more vibrant colour to the build (resembling a Subnautica default palette, which I enjoy quite a lot), but in hindsight, the green works really well, appart from a small detail I'll expand on in a minute.

What's really funny for this project is that, when it started, I actually only wanted a nice way of showcasing all the little space ships that I tend to make whenever I have access to a small amount of cool pieces. Then came a long time where I only daydreamed about it and planned how I would want it to go, and only when I had a clear vision did I start the actual building process. So, taking all that into account, you can probably double the amount of time I spiritually spent on this project.

What I knew is that I wanted to get this huge ring held by beams to the station's body, which made the build both more interesting and more complicated that it would have been. But the challenge was appealing.

At first, the main body was completely flat and white, but I soon had to add texture, both because it was becoming ugly and because the 2*2 white curved slopes were starting to diminish fast. The first modifications I did were to add the sand green curved slopes instead to create stipes, then letters : the big A-2 you can easily spot. With the few bits of lore that I have created for this piece, you have to imagine that there are hundreds of these stations spread in the galaxy, which can be easily described through 3 criteria : the Letter, the Number, and the Colour. That would mean that, if you wanted to meet with someone at the exemplar I made, you would say something along the lines of 'Meet you at Sand Green A2'.

Texture-wise, the other element of the largest cylinder is the exposed bits of machinery, very classic in sci-fi, I know, but it does work well in this context. The second cylinder has much less textures, with only a few grates, and some 2*1 ingot pieces (because they look cool); but it also has its own, smaller ring (diameter slightly larger than the largest cylinder's).

Then come the smaller cylinders, which don't have much texture, except in their transition from one to another (barely visible in any of the pictures, but it exist).

Overall, I'm also really happy of how round it looks, given that circles are not my speciality.

Here is a completely unedited picture of the support arm (Lewa for scale), with a nice counterweight which might be necessary to hold the entire thing in place (it may not be, but I'm not trying to remove it. Bad idea.).

As you might notice, my studio is not a shelf anymore. I built something new from scratch with a green screen, because I thought it would make my editing job easier. And it would have, if I didn't use sand green in my build. Anyway, I'm keeping this for a few days, to snap some pictures of the MOCs which don't fit in my shelve (and are not green, meaning editing will be easier.

Here is the 'studio' from an outside point of view :

I know it's quite a mess outside of my clean perimeter, but I do as I can. You can see one light in the foreground, but there is also one (less visible in the background), symmetrical to the first one, and a third one behind and above the camera (outside of the picture).

You may also notice a lot of sorting boxes. Sorting pieces can greatly improve your productivity, if you label all your box correctly. Covered by the greenscreen is essentially a shelf full of these sorting boxes, labelled by colour and piece type, and it was really practical. Anyway. Thank you for reading until this point, I guess ? If you survived through all this rambling, you probably deserve something...

I mean- Have these pictures I took during the exhibition, I guess...

(You can notice that these are two different days because of the ships’ placement).

✨Aroaceage pride flag !✨

Another one to my collection ! (see the previous one here). I don’t even understand how I had never even heard of it before, but now that I know it exists, it is now comfortably sitting with all the others.

Like this and don’t see your flag among the ones I made ? I’m open to requests in my ask box !

Additional note : I made a matching bracelet ! (Shades of blue slightly different because of the colours I had available).

✨Another custom vehicle !✨

It has eyes !

This horrendous prototype is a follow up to this post.

Now here is a video of how it works (using the same remote from the other post, that thing is universal !). I wish I had a way to display the good all-terrain capacities of this vehicle (other than wood and seashells...

Details beneath !

Side view :

There are plenty of things here to discuss. Firstly, the suspensions ! Three spring pistons : one of the 'new' models, two much older ones (System, can you believe it ?). At rest, the two small white discs in the middle don't touch the tread, but as soon as an object pass underneath, they get involved. The advantage of this system is that, with every part mobile, the obstacles can be passed easily. And I added rubber grips too.

These treads are powered by PF XL motors. Very very heavy and big, they have the same speed as other motors but much more torque. We're talking of Mindstrom-level torque; this means that In theory, I can add as much weight as I want and keep it at a more than decent page.

You can also see that I fixed two of the biggest flaws from my previous model : firstly the RC receivers have been turned to get signals from multiple angles. Secondly, to rotate the tower, I used a worm gearbox with a PF M to really slow it down; and the wires have been fixed to have a broader angular range.

The turret ? The turret !

These eyes are the best addition to this MOC.

You might notice that I have a servo and a PF M on the turret. This is because the weapon here is a harpoon with a cable. And it has a winch ! All of that with only four controls : two for treads, one for rotation, and one to fire/retract cable.

How ? Well I'm glad you asked. The firing works just like in the previous vehicle : the servo's arm presses on the spring-powered projectile and it flies, along with the cable connected to the other motor.

As for the retraction, it's slightly more complex : on the remote, I press the firing lever the other way around : this causes the servo's arm to go on the winch and it fits nicely, so that when the PF M rotates, the thread can't escape the winch (a video will be in the reblogs, because Tumblr doesn't want me to upload two videos at once...)

Major problems here are the following :

the PF M often detaches itself from the turret

the harpoon often get stuck on the treads

the thread is too short (yeah...)

✨Smol Five Pebbles !✨

In a box, to be studied like a bug.

It’s a bit sketchy, but I really like the idea of small boxes diorama, so that you can just pile them up (this one is roughly the same size as this other thingy I made .

(You can also check up my Moon design, while you’re here !)

I tried to cram as much stuff as possible in there (an overseer, pearls, the entrance tubes…), which is quite the challenge in a 6x6x6 cube. I also added a small rail for the arm to 'slide' on. The technic itself is not exactly difficult, although, once more, brick-textured bricks are here to save the day. As it is the only 'illegal' connection of the whole build (who could believe it, coming from me, uh ?), I’ve also been refining it in StudIO to possibly make other Iterators~

Everything is held together through these four black brackets on the back, which makes working on it ridiculously simple : I can simply clip off a panel to modify it. (Also featuring my hand, for scale and because I still can’t take photos properly, it seems.)

Speaking of, since you made it all the way down here…I’m also working on another Rain World MOC, just a tiiiiny bit bigger. So here’s a sneak peek~

[edit] : here it is !

✨Trade space station !✨

<Previous< [2/4] >Next>

Today’s gonna be about the progress of the build in time, which allows me to ramble about the building process. Yay !

Before actually commenting the build. You may notice chocolate and my (empty) tea mug. They should be apparent in most of the earliest pictures (there was not enough space on the table for them at the end of the project, sadly~

So, here, you can see that my first step was to see the scale of my project. The template of the large ring to see how much space it would take, and the small ring to see how round I could make it (and at the bottom, you can see the white curved pieces. Enjoy this view, it won’t last.)

You can also notice above that I already stared making some small ships.

The next day ! You can see on the left my long rod. This was the ideal height for the central cylinder. I also created the first core of the build (replaced later because too fragile), and the first arms to hold the ring (too fragile too).

Progress ! This is the moment I realised my original color scheme would not work (you can see orange and bright green on the side, which I tried before the sand green).

I had half of the big cylinder added (you can see the slots left for the additional details) and another naked half on the right side. And my collection of boxes on the table is growing. It’s only getting worse after that.

See ? More boxes (and pieces) scattered all around. And a hammer, too. I at this point mostly finished the big cylinder (or so I thought, some reinforcements were necessary), started the smaller cylinder, and realised white pieces were running out. I also still haven’t touch the ring yet, as I wanted to stay focused on one bit.

Mostly done with the cylinders at the point (you can even see the start of the smallest one on the right side). Agin the boxes grow ominously.

Since it was time to start the ring, I created a replica of a sixth of it. Given that there were twelve sections, I wanted to be sure of the design before starting to build them all, starting with the facade. It took some fiddling around (you can see these aren’t symmetrical, as I was trying out different designs). Really, if you have this kind of things to do, try to make it in a vacuum first, you’ll gain a lot of time later, once the prototype has every problem answered (mine were mostly the curve, and the link between each plates (solved with mod 1*2 black plates).

See ? After the prototype was done, I simply built all of the facades and attached them (you can see my 1*4 curved pieces were all missing at the time though).

I kept the prototype on the side, because I’ll still need it later. I also am missing half of the ring (the part above, since there is only a structure below), because I was not sure of how everything would fit, and I waited until these parts were assembled before making it, in case adjustments were needed.

Here is the top part ! And all the hangars done, too. It took me a surprising amount of time to do all twelve of them…

Huge progress ! There is no more room on the table for the boxes, but you can see them…on the floor, on the left…Lot was done, from the bottom cylinder now finished along with its ring, the covering pieces of the big ring (except the internal faces), the hat of the station, and a huge reinforcement for the six arms, which was done separately). At this point, except for a few details, the station itself is finished.

And there is a picture taken moments before disaster. The station is done (ignoring the transitions between cylinders) the arm…supposedly, too.

Sadly, the arm wasn’t, in fact, finished. If you read the first post, you will notice it isn’t as bulky, and isn’t attached on baseplates yet.

Well, guess what ? When I finally tried to see if the arm would hold onto the station, it broke. Rather, two pieces broke, then the rest came down, and so did the station, which shattered on the floor below. Luckily for me, the main cylinder was so dense it practically completely survived. Most of the hangars of the rings only broke section per section, so it only took a few hours to get it back together, but much more time to make the arm solid. And now, it can hold the station for ten hours without flinching ! So, here is a lesson. If something you do fails when you do it with your heart, let the rage flow through you and build it back out of spite. It works* !

*don’t hold me accountable for any failure using that method

✨Mimic !✨

You opened the wrong chest this time !

This little build is a perfect decoration and was quite fun to build.

✨Tree ! ✨

So I found another technic. And it makes for great (albeit round) trees.

Anyway, some rambling about that below.

Another angle. It's not needed; but oh well.

It's very simple, I'll admit that. Then again, I don't do purely organic MOCs very often, the last one was probably my Camp Site, and it wasn't the main focus at the time, but I'm trying.

Anyway, if you actually decided to read that, you're probably seeking whatever technic I used to make that, not the random rambling. So here it is :

To sum it up : core piece is a modified 1x1 brick, surrounded on all sides by two flower stems (I've used the bar ones, the stud variants work too). Then flowers and leaves. To give some varied shapes, you can get some leaves upside down (cyan ones on the image), and you can also get rid of flowers by using a piece on the other side of the leaf (any piece works as long as it has a small bar connection), like the blue one on the right. Of course, same trick as before to give some shapes. It has some limitations, but I still think it's relatively good. If you like sphere, that it, hence why using a couple of them is better.

Also, I feel like, since I'm yapping about organic MOCs, I have to present my very first one :

That's ugly. But at least, you can technically tell it's a flower.

It's fragile and it's not interesting, though one funny thing is that, in order to keep it from collapsing under its own weight, I've had to add small iron bars (think unfolded paper clips) in the stem, which is actually really sturdy, while allowing for curvy shapes. Probably the only thing worth keeping from that thing.

Anyway, this whole tree thing was an accidental tangent from an actual, cool(?) MOC I was working on, which might actually be posted next week. Or maybe not, who knows really ?

Following in my pride flag series :

✨Ace pride flag✨

(Previous work here !)