Rebrickable 1st Entry Rickety Ladders

 Good morning everyone, I haven't posted in a while.  I've found as I get older that my attentions are all over the place these days, In 2020 my part/set collecting patterns were a bit interrupted and I diverted back toward modern sets.  I haven't posted much about those here... if at all.  I'm making an exception this time for a modern remake of a classic from 1990.  If I'm doing instructions for my MOCs I'll likely continue to post those here, and maybe someday I'll review another classic Space theme if I have the required sets.

When I was a kid there was an amazing theme called Forestmen.  Basically Robin Hood, but even better... Lego Robin Hood!  My introduction to Lego and Forestmen, and Castle... was none other than 6071 Forestmen's Crossing.  This is one of my Holy Grails... but unlike the Space sets I never picked this one up, it's always been hyper pricey as long as I've had the means... and it's only gotten worse.

Image source via Bricklink: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=6071-1#T=S&O={%22iconly%22:0}

Sadly, Forestmen was only a part of my childhood in my head... like Space, Castle was not really something my parents would get for me, and by the time I could write down my wish lists Forestmen were gone.  Most of this blog has been about Lego I wanted as a kid and wound up getting as an adult.  

Today I still don't have Forestmen's Crossing, or the other classic Forestmen bases; they're very expensive per piece even by my rather aggressive purchasing standards. I did pick up 40567 Forest Hideout gwp with a giant Elsa's Frozen Castle... I'm a big fan of the new satin light blue color in those Frozen sets.  I haven't built anything with the Satin light blue, I'm just hoarding my treasured new color; But that's not why we're here.  Forest Hideout is a true modern classic.  This is my favorite set of 2022, I like it even more than the next one I'll list.

Image source via Bricklink https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=40567-1&name=Forest%20Hideout&category=%5BCastle%5D%5BForestmen%5D#T=S&O={%22iconly%22:0}

I also picked up the Lion Knights' Castle and that was back in January 2022... that purchase killed all my Lego purchasing enthusiasm for the year... and hobby purchasing for most of the year... that is my monster... some people have the Millennium Falcon, or the Titanic... I've even seen photos of houses with all of the largest sets... woah! But for me if I'm picking a giant set it'll be this 90th Anniversary Castle set.  It's got... even more modern Forestmen!  3 more plus a blue peasant with a Forestmen hat in blue.  

I'm somewhat annoyed that all the forestmen in these modern sets all have the same shirt... but I'll live with it.  I decided to take this castle apart because it hit me that I'd have a few extra days off at the end of the year and I wanted to see what I can build with it.  Nothing too ambitious yet... I saw some cool instructions for it on Rebrickable, I might look at those later, I'm pretty new to rebrickable and haven't ever used it seriously.  And I don't think I'm ready to scale up a MOC the size of this Castle set all by myself yet.

I made my little Alternate project off these 2 sets and I liked what I had so I reacquainted myself with Studio 2.0 provided by Bricklink, I finally managed to finish a project on that software.  

For my first outing on the Castle teardown and Studio digital recreation project I made a modern Forestmen's Crossing which I call Rickety Ladders.

Here's all the photography I took of it.  

The new method I took for the Bridge,  caused some problems in Studio, and the official modern Tree limbs weren't fun either, I also had trouble installing the ladders going up the tree, because I put them on the trunk after the leaves so they kept attaching to the leaves and not the trunk in Studio, so I probably should have chosen a simpler model to start with.  I did finish the project and as a sort of belated Christmas greeting I'm able to provide the instructions.  I think if you have the Forest Hideout and a selection of pieces on hand you can get this model pretty darn close with your available parts so long as you have some gray bricks and green plates, but the Lion Knights' Castle was the basis for me trying to build this and you will find the necessary parts in the 2 named sets.

For your curiosity and use here's a Rebrickable link to the free instructions and I wish you all a pleasant 2024.  

Forestmen: Rickety Ladders

A Spaceship Holiday Special part 2

 I posted this ship on the site years ago now... at this point I do feel like Futuron of My Youth is years ago too though.  

So I made a Blacktron version of my last non Legoland Spaceship I ever made.  This Dark navy blue spaceship has a canopy design my brother showed me that he had done... So... I happened to like it and have come back to do it a second time.  The rest of the Spaceship design is all me.

The main shaping element of all that triangle work is the humble classic hinge plate times 3 spaced 6 studs wide in the front and folded with the third one under the Galaxy Explorer windows in the back creating some weird shapes to handle in an era better known for 90 degree straight edges  Image via Bricklink 

I used to be able to modify the link name... sorry about the ugly link text.  Point is... 

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=2429c01&name=Hinge%20Plate%201%20x%204%20Swivel%20(2429%20/%202430)&category=%5BHinge%5D#T=C&C=11  

Hinge Plate 1 x 4 Swivel (2429 / 2430)  

This is the workhorse doing all the geometry shenanigans for this design.  I attach the elements on a 6 wide structure at the front; the windows and rear hinge float over tiles and open gaps to the rear.

The wings are attached beneath the windows and the attachment points aren't terribly strong, so I kept the armaments light while attempting to give them a 'heavy' look.

There is no attachment point for the cockpit, so I create a nice shape that can lock into place and just let it rest in the desired position... This spaceship is more sculpture than toy since it can't fly upside down.

I tried the undercairage engines with available black and yellow elements and couldn't see the defined seperateness between cockpit frame and engines... it took away from the design I wanted you all to see.  and... Invader has a puny 2x2 cylinder rocket... So I gave this railgun looking ship some really big thruster capabilities.  Gotta keep flying forward when you fire the rail you know.  

The Triforce Logo placement sets off against the rakish swept back wing design with geometric perfection.  I'm really proud of it.  Good Job old Lego triforce print... you're doin great work Triforce <--(Now I remember why I thought this seemed funny.  It's my David Lynch playing with a Lego brick impression "You're doin great work brick!").  I feel like I'm looking at a Space Invader, but not a Blacktron Space Invader perse

The snout has a crosshair for aiming down the sight, that was part of my first design and I didn't think I'd be able to replicate it with the older Lego parts... I tried a wrench but it's lopsided and... it was too tall.  Then... I'd given up mostly and all of a sudden I remembered the Classic Space robot arm... specifically the clip end.  It was close enough in height that I went for it.  And I used a control lever as the reticle instead of a Dragon fang/frill/animal claw element.  Slightly older and lumpier instruments but... that's progress I guess.  Blacktron didn't mind... they're all about the warning shots... that's why so many Space Police have Blacktron prisoners and not mounting insurance claims for lost Mission Commanders.

I'm remembering that I had a bit of fun writing up these old blog posts... I hope you enjoy the written portions too.

Bonus build with less commentary.  I built this ship this past summer and haven't written about it here as of yet.

This design was based on the Bad Batch Shuttle.  But only the cockpit... and only as a loosely interpreted inspiration... and no... I haven't watched the Bad Batch yet, given that I haven't watched Clone Wars I'm not sure if or when I will.

This Model is Futuron based and I spent as much time on the front canopy as I did the rest of the model.

You might say it was a desperate salvage effort to make use of that arcane window shaping... which is why the rest of the ship design is sort of Classic Space box standard.  I tried some mouting tricks for the sail using fences, technic beams, and the 260 era rack and gearbox elements... But that was very easy compared to the cockpit.  My only complaint is that the sail design means the vehicle barely fits so I can't have a crew quarters in the back like I wanted.  The engines on either side are attached via a Technic beam running through the center fuselage and locked in with careful brick placement.  I put the Lego down for a while after this one except for checking out some small Ninjago and Frozen II Princess Book Lego sets.  

That's all I have as of Christmas Eve. 

I wish you all a very end of the year.

Sincerely, The Cure-all Pill

A Spaceship Holiday Special

I haven't built an M:Tron Moc all year... 

I like the theme, but whenever I'm building, I tend to gravitate toward builds that use trans red, trans blue, or trans yellow...

poor M:Tron.

So earlier in the year as summer began I built a Futuron cough... but I'm getting ahead of myself... I built a Classic Space A-Wing... 

The Classic Space color scheme was borrowed from 6820 Starfire 1 

which in my opinion looks similar to the above water color scheme of the Seatron development theme I based my modular shapeshifting MOC on.

At this point it was not pure A-Wing design, it was the idea of an A-Wing in service to my own Lego Space idea.  I added lots of rockets.

Variant 2 became the first of my 3 takes on a Futuron A-Wing.  For this version I kept the base model the same, swapped in or added some trans blue or tastefully selected trans red, and used the 6990 extended cockpit for my cockpit choice.  I also swapped out the classic blue astronaut for a blue futuron astronaut.

I replaced the Starfire 1 V print with the Classic Space moon print that had some distribution on regular slopes in Futuron... I've always thought it was a good Futuron print, by themselves the stripes don't say quite as much as a good moon print does.  In my opinion, this still didn't capture the A-Wing flavor.

Enter Futuron variant 2  As you can see, I shortened the cockpit and completely redid the nose to get the A-Wing nose with the central split in the front. I changed the armaments to a more Starwars esque build style, less emphasis on transparent elements, more emphasis on a heavy firepower look.  I also removed the rockets and revisited the tailfins which had been part of the initial design.

In place of the rockets I went for more obvious A-Wing styling in the rear.

Here's a topdown view... I think the shaping was quite perfect at this point, and a forum viewer asked if I'd change the window to the blue one matching the red one... soo

I revised the design further... maybe he just wanted the window changed... but I took the opportunity to make further improvements.  I brought in more slopes, and returned some of the rockets to simulate the A-Wing's flattened football curvature.  I think the design really flows from this angle.

I haven't really shown off the interior up to now, here's the one photo I took for it.

So, you might be asking... why show off a Futuron A-Wing if you led with I haven't built an M:Tron MOC...

Well, I decided to build a B-Wing, and what got me on that mental track was that I'd built an A-Wing and I liked the result.

So, to get back to my longwinded story.  

Here's an M:Tron B-Wing and the still assembled A-Wing.  I built the B-Wing on Christmas Eve... to answer the call I kept giving myself... Build again, build again!

The design is vaguely like the very first 2000 B-Wing, but I only looked at it as I was wrapping up to see if the extending foils should have more lasers on them.  Otherwise I was building off memory of catalogue photos, and the Jangbricks review for it, that I watched recently.  

So, before I show it off I wanna brag on my solution... see, the cockpit swivels as a solid body front and back unobstructed by the arm leading into the main craft... and for a while I was trying to use the Particle Ionizer cockpit for my design, but with the efforts to get the rotating body, and the limited attachment points for the window I was looking at the bottom of the cockpit falling off with each rotation.  And the window was too long, which meant the body either had to be bigger than reasonable relative to the wing assembly, or featherlight, with only a few pieces to it.  After about an hour I changed the window choice for the prefab half octagon piece from Vector Detector.  It's a bit too open by Star Wars standards... but for Legoland Space, I think it's perfect.  

And that brings me to my solid rotating cockpit solution.  Since the Legoland Space theme didn't have 1x2 bricks with axleholes for easy front and back stiff attachments, I didn't use them here.  Instead the front and rear have plates pressed onto the side of the technic bush that can receive studs.  Then I built up the space around the plate with standard bricks.  I did this in the front and left it exposed to slot in the lowered cockpit, and it's buried inside in the back.  You can also see I've left a wrench for our astronaut to use on those necessary repairs.

I had a grand scheme to have magnets hold the foils out in the extended formation, and it dragged out the design troubles for 2 hours.  I eventually realized the magnets didn't fit, made the wings too heavy, and... the hinges had enough strength to hold position without the magnets.  So I ditched the magnets for the foils.  I still think it would have been cool if I could have made it work... but I think I'd need to make the model bigger, and I wanted it to be close to the first B-Wing's scale.

I did get M:Tron magnetized boxes on the ship though... and then I thought... but where will the engines go?  Soo, I pulled out the grey cups from Particle Ionizer... and I think they look really splendid.

For accent I added a few turntables to give the impression of a partially exposed mechanism turning the cockpit.

I had made a design decision early in the main body that gave me a SNOT opportunity, soo... I have an M:Tron logo slipped in on the bottom? of the fuselage.  Still using Legoland era parts.  You can see the fence inside attached to an eyelet plate... and I originally had a fence on either side of the eyelet plate, 

To get it positioned for the upside down studs I stepped the eyelet plate on a 1x1 plate into the back of these headlight bricks.  you can see the placement because it's the spot where I mounted my spare astronauts wrench

And tada... one upside down M:Tron printed slop tucked away... so the B-Wing has an M on the central fuselage no matter which way is up.

I was wondering how I would photograph the fully deployed engineering, but... cue 1 monorail stanchion to the rescue!  Sweet B-Wing posturing, and I'll see myself out.

Merry happy Holichrismakwanzonukah to all a ya.  

Sincerely the Cure-all Pill.

Movie Night: Re-Imagine Seatron Instructions

I've seen a fair few Lego instruction videos on Youtube and thought I'd give it a shot, not least of which, I've had 2 people ask me to make videos and I told them no, I've recorded and listened to my voice... and I have a voice made for digital text.  You'll notice I don't say a word in this video.😐

Comments are disabled for the kids, but hop on over to the Futuron of My Youth Facebook page, or drop a comment here if you wanna give a shout. 

For Experiment 1 I loaded up the ole instruction photos I'd already produced and set up a video for the Seatron Spaceship.  You can also find the individual slides on the Facebook page linked above, just look in the Futuron of My Youth photo albums.  I've also recently added a Ninjago Kai Fighter Inspired Space Police instructional album at the request of several folks on Facebook.  I used a similar style as this and it's what got me pondering starting this idea as an infrequent  but fun way to continue producing things for the blog without buying more Lego.

If you make a request for content related to my content, I may not get to it, due to lack of time, lack of proper equipment, lack of technical expertise, or  just my own personal disinterest, but I'll usually file it away as a generative idea for later. 
I do kinda like making instructions, so if you see something I've made and want to build it... as long as I've still got it built, and I've got the time I can definitely pursue these sorts of requests.


Thanks for visiting

Sincerely, The Cure-all Pill

Blacktron MOC: The Mantis

Over Christmas I was given a present.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Short review:
It was pretty good; I'd liken it to a Tomb Raider/From Software amalgamation
The combat at the highest difficulty was very satisfying
But eventually I wore down because progress was arduous and so I switched the difficulty down to the normal mode and the combat lost its luster at the easier setting, but I got to enjoy the story which I liked quite a lot.  I liked fighting Imperials and hated fighting spiders.
There's a nice looking spaceship in it called the mantis that inspired me to try some stuff with these Vintage 1980's/early 90's Lego sets.

I've added more broken down Lego models to my MOC supply so the 260 originals are sharing space with some more of their friends.

Here are some close up shots of the engine and inner hinge system I employed.  The yellow engine is a Bricklinked piece I picked up loose and first appeared in Timecruisers where it is an exclusive color, I never acquired the theme as a kid and mostly remember admiring it in catalogs.  I picked up the yellow engines specifically for Blacktron MOCing. 

The Blacktron logo had to go somewhere so it went on the engine.  This engine is version 2, during the initial build I slapped something together and hated it so much this MOC was almost never photographed.  But on the third take I specifically rebuilt the engine based on the general outline of my first design, and I'm pretty happy with it.

The wing was the first part of the design and it, along with its frame has survived the modifications mostly intact.  I did add the camera cannons to it when I removed them from the gap behind the cabin's side windows in favor of Renegade's 2x2 striped tiles.  I also added the 8H antenna during the MOC's second incarnation.  I'd broken down another MOC and so it became available.

Here is a closeup of the classic era hinges that push the engine out.  These are the 2x4 over 2x8 variants, and the hinge base terminates into a 1x6 technic brick the engine is pinned onto in the engine's second version... Initially I built the first engine directly onto the hinges.  The printed stripe slope passes between the gap in the frame, and so the design gap is not stylistic invention.  It's there of necessity.

Here's a closeup for the wing.  The tile is removed as with the handlebar plate in Renegade, but in this case it's to let the wing fall.

The technical limitations of the era are no match for a determined swing wing builder!

In back I've got some of the odd shape pieces doing the job of pressing against these inverted slopes so the engine can't swing down past the frame when the wing is locked.  I had a more tightly fitted design that accidentally put stress on the parts so I had to redesign it to hold properly.

Version one of this ship was a solid body and very miserable to build, because I was building on a design with a fragile flopping wing, and an engine that often swung out and upset my balanced grip.

Version 2 started when I broke 50 percent of the ship down into parts and opened up the rear frame to make a technic mount point.  At that point I simply matched the shaping of a new seperated cabin design to stick to it and focused on building a piloted cabin with a large lower window section that would sit between mandibles. 

The first canopy design was Battrax canopy over Renegade canopy as with Space Police 2 stackover method.  But I thought the design should be more sophisticated, so I busted out the trans yellow panels from Cosmic Fleet Voyager and hinged them.  Here's a top down view.

The Lower windshield had a wide open space so I set up an instrument panel so the pilot could look down.  This was a great opportunity for me to use a handful of Classic Space transparencies for the first time so I went to town building a delightful cockpit.

The trans green 1x1 plates are a Blactron element taken from Invader and I wanted to imitate the sort of interior night mode look I inferred from the original design.  Behind the pilot I had some unused open space, so I set in a removeable box.  Initially it was black, but also in Invader fashion, I replaced it with gray to give myself a better photography situation.

You'll notice I use a bit of grey here and there... there is gray in the Blacktron color scheme in trace amounts, and here I took inspiration from the engine in Nautica theme's Dark Shark, which I had as a kid and still have... minus some stickers and heavily played with.

Nautica Dark Shark  This was my first set with black visors and given that I missed Blacktron by a few years as a kid... it had to cover for the accident of a mistimed birthyear. 😉

That's my take on the Mantis.  I hope you enjoyed it.

Sincerely, The Cure-all Pill