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

Space Police: 6831 Message Decoder

This is dispatch, We have two astronauts causing a disturbance at radar tower road, send a unit... over.

Today's unit is 6831 Message Decoder!

This is a very small Space Police cruiser equipped with radar.  The front logo says Police, and represents the first word based emblem for a space theme.  The Officer livery continues the Futuron fashion print from the black spaceman with a color change for the hand component.

Of course, what would a police cruiser be if it weren't performing routine traffic stops,
weuweu!
Screeeeeeeech!

You sir, are an obstruction to traffic!  Ticket!

and dealing with your run of the mill astronauts going medieval sort of thing.

Desist from your 1980-something beamsword battle in the name of the law!

I should take you both in, but dash it all, they gave me the one cruiser without a jail cell.  I'm confiscating these 1980-something beamswords.
But officer, those are collector edtion 1980-something beamswords!
Well ya should've thought about that before you disturbed the peace and quiet around here.

Collector edition 1980-something beamswords not included in main model

Man oh man, 2 confiscated 1980-something beamswords!  I'm on a roll today!

I held up on reviewing this set for months, and the entire Space Police lineup as well... because my copy came with part substitutions, I want to bring you the best most accurate photographs so I tracked down the real element somewhere on planet Zenda and brought the wheel well imposter to justice!  Prison cell and wheel well plate not included in actual set nor is the crater plate.

There's very little to say about this rover.  It rolls on classic space era metal spindle wheels and is one of only two space sets to sport the red rims with a black plate.

Viewed from above Message Decoder is classically thin, 2 studs across at its narrowest points.  The overall spread of the sensor array gives the model much of its apparent girth.

The self same sensor array is Message Decoder's main moving element which can adjust to refine any static into a clear message; kind of like Mom or Dad turning the tv antenna in the 1980's to see if the weather could be made out amidst all those ants on the screen.  These days it's better to reference a person with a cellphone getting a dropped call, then watching them stumble into three bars.

The set contains five elements which don't appear in the rest of Space Police.  One of them was the missing element I had to acquire after buying the set.

This angled wheel well has been around since the advent of Classic Space.  Outside of Classic Space's first two years it didn't get much play in the Space theme.  Then the theme era began: Black-Tron received 2 in black, natchly, and Space Police received a pair as well.  This was the last outing for the low use component in space.  It's been out of production for a while, but parts have reappeared before, so we may yet see it again.

Message Decoder was the last appearance of the metal spindle rolling stock in Space.  The part would live on into the early nineties, but as its fortunes fell to basic play buckets and the themes switched to the plastic hub and spoke method it appeared less and less until it was gone.  Shame, they rolled quite well when they weren't choked with my sisters hair.  I'm betting this component is gone for good.

This blue component was a semi regular Classic Space element from '85 on,  Space Police has a reasonable selection in black, but Message Decoder has the only blue version.  Incidentally, this is one of the pieces needed for the 260 robot build (Which I will get round to eventually).  These days the design has notches in the angled edge to allow closer fitting with studs.  It kills the fine edge and can make a mess of some designs, but for fitting curves into stud heavy areas the new version can really come in handy.  I say both should be in your collection.

Message Decoder's box contains a small selection of alternates to choose from.

The small size of the set does limit the ideas somewhat, but these are attractive looking examples for what's inside.

And with that, here is my own interpretation of the pieces.

First up is this hover kite.

The rear design conceit is for an electrostatically simulated antigrav mechanism.  The rear tilts upward and propels the small scooter forward via static discharge.  The result is gentle forward repelled movement based on generating an inverted dipole charge, interactive with, the lunar surface.  If any real physics majors want to make hash of my pseudo science explanation... have at with it.

This model is a ground scooter.  It has a simple landing gear and scoots forward with small laser jets.  You know, nothing fancy, just an astronaut and his low tech scooter cruising around on a jovian moon.

That's all I have for today, but I hope to start the Space Police series with a vengeance now that a new school year is upon us.

Sincerely, Cure-all Pill

Final Score: B-
Pros: Quick introduction to the theme, wheelwells are a nice touch
Cons: Lacks the theme's defining characteristics, thin on parts