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1/11/2021:
* Finished shaping and stickering the #27 car.
* Finished stickering the #31 car.
* Reshaped the #33 car to get it finished with the parts I had available.
* Built 11 track official minifigs.
* Rearranged driver heads and built full pit crews, spotters, and owners for the #1, #13 and #29 teams.
* Started work on the pace car, as I will need to order orange wheel wells for the #37.Pretty good progress, but I really want to work on getting doors that open on the pace car before I take pictures of anything.
@tfdesigns, can you send me a breakdown of that Porsche so I can gain new techniques to try?1/12/2021:
Now I’m thinking about unifying the car “models” through shaping and paring them down to a lower number while I still can as I build the higher numbered race cars. It’s turning out to be pretty easy to select which race cars belong parallel to existing models based on which stickered parts exist for it on the surface of the eventual MOC. I will still have over 20 different models in terms of shaping at that point to choose from, because…
In this way I can create these custom sports car models as standard street models more easily and consistently.
Maybe even a custom manufacturer to build a showroom for, much like the Audi showroom on Liberty Avenue or the smaller showrooms on Baum near @philmatt24’s house. That would be a nice associated modular building beyond the City Pizza modular I still have lying in development hell…
In other news, a new #73 car has become live, as I have discovered stickered bricks and tiles for it. It looks like this one will be blue and medium blue with touches of green and yellow. I like this color scheme already, as these colors transition through each other. it has a silly and confusing “Team 1” as a sponsor, but… it is what it is.
1/15/2021:
Received the first of 4 BL orders I placed recently.
* Added some printed parts to the start of the #73 car.
* Switched out helmets on the #21 pit crew.
* Assigned XRFuel as a sponsor via the stickered 1×2 blue tiles to the #37 car.
* Built torsos and hip and leg combinations in whole or in part for drivers of the #8, #22, #37, #42, #43, #56, #73, #78 and #85. Unique fig heads and a purple torso are incoming, then I can cap most off with the helmets I have on hand.
* Finished the 12th track official. I will need many for a larger, full circuit GT display, and I think 12 ought to do it.Pace car is giving me fits. Fully functioning doors is surprisingly hard and gets in the way of shaping, since I’m stuck with a 1×4 brick as the door. Meh. Might set it aside again for the easier race cars.
1/18/2021:
Just finished the #43 car, and here it is.
#27, #31 and #33 are also done. Pics of them to follow soon.
1/18/2021:
Rebuilt the #78 Expedite / Jr55 car. This is the closest to Blacktron I’m going to get. I can sticker this car up even more with the black/LBG “Jr55” fire onto the hood’s 1×3 curved sloped and “78 Retour / Spark Plux” on the sides, changing the sides to more black. So this car might not yet be in its final form. I might want a Blacktron I torso for ths driver. Thoughts, @randomdan?
You’re clearly looking for the official Blacktron racer! I noticed your driver has yellow hands. Fun fact: there was an official Blacktron fig with yellow hands. I just discovered that last week. Coincidence???
You’re clearly looking for the official Blacktron racer!
I noticed your driver has yellow hands. Fun fact: there is an official Blacktron fig with yellow hands. I just learned that last week. Coincidence???1/25/2021:
* Added torsos and heads to multiple drivers.
* Finished the #42, but not in its final form. I need more red 1×2 ’42’ stickers or the 1×2 stickered tiles. Maybe 3 of them, one for a ’42’ on the trunk and two ’42’s for the spoiler.
* A second look at the completed #33 makes me uncomfortable. I may ask for design help on this one. #27 and #31 are fine for now, as is the 42.#77 and #85 are next in line for racecars, but I might shift to the pace car and build a blue/black hardtop street legal car beside it so I can get the architecture right between the blue parts I have and the white ones I’ll need to order.
I am now officially over halfway done on the massive race car field. I may expand this field from 34 to 43, but I’m split on that. With 2 cars per baseplate, even that won’t fit on a 5×5 baseplate ring with 16 baseplates involved. The plan is to be able to fill a big Monroeville sized display with a full circuit if need be as a theme, or a couple of tables with a long Martinsville arrangement 3 baseplates deep.
If I do go for a NASCAR sized field at 43, I will be using stickers from the Xtra sets for business signs as sponsors. This deviates from the “everything must be from LEGO race sets or racing vehicles” self imposed rule, but I have run out of sponsors entirely otherwise. I might stick with the scheduled 34.
Thoughts on field and display size?
I have an idea for a display of your race cars, although it might be hard to see all of them at once.
I like the wide open look of this. This might be the template for the car dealership modular, as I like the noncubic floor plan as well.
That is an old picture of a work in progress. Right now it has clear panels covering most of the openings. The longterm goal is to build an RC elevator. It is base on this:
Are you thinking road baseplates and do you have a lot of them? If you do an oval with straight sides on an 8′ banquet table, that’s 20 plates. If you’re using LUG tables, then the question is do you want the oval to be 3-deep or 4-deep? (The rational for keeping it 3-deep could be that you still wanna leave room in the front for passing train tracks.) A 3-deep oval on three LUG tables would be 26 plates.
There’s options for expanding then, you could make squiggly sides to the track instead of straight (although this may not appeal to you, since they don’t appear to be cars for that kind of track), or you could expand the track to a second banquet table. If you don’t want to cover the entire second table, it shouldn’t be hard to find other ways to fill that space if it’s a group display.
You also have to figure out how you want to spread out the cars. I don’t watch racing but I think of them as tending to bunch up in a pack, or multiple packs. If you have 20 plates with 43 cars and evenly distribute the cars at just over two cars per plate, you will have a ring of cars going the whole way around, and I think you run a big risk that instead of looking like a race is in progress, it will look like a big ol’ parade of cars. You don’t want that. So I think some empty space on the track is necessary.
The bigger the track gets, the more road plates you have to acquire, but the other issue is that if you do it that way, you’re gonna want at least some stuff off the track, pit crews and spectators and landscaping and whatnot, otherwise the track is gonna look pretty empty and lonely. I don’t know if this was part of your plan, but the bigger the track, the more stuff you’re gonna need, and it can be remarkable how fast something like that uses up parts.
Are you thinking road baseplates and do you have a lot of them? If you do an oval with straight sides on an 8′ banquet table, that’s 20 plates. If you’re using LUG tables, then the question is do you want the oval to be 3-deep or 4-deep? (The rational for keeping it 3-deep could be that you still wanna leave room in the front for passing train tracks.) A 3-deep oval on three LUG tables would be 26 plates.
3-deep is ideal rationale both for the presence of rail or modular buildings in larger collaborative displays. However, not all of the circuit needs to be displayed, especially in a Grand Prix environment where any nonbasic circuit layout will be MUCH larger than the display space.
There’s options for expanding then, you could make squiggly sides to the track instead of straight (although this may not appeal to you, since they don’t appear to be cars for that kind of track), or you could expand the track to a second banquet table. If you don’t want to cover the entire second table, it shouldn’t be hard to find other ways to fill that space if it’s a group display.
Also agreed. You have a good sense for what I’m trying to achieve. As for the vision for the style of race, the closest analogy is not NASCAR, but Australian V8 Supercars, not because I like that sport particularly, but it’s the closest in shaping to the near-future sportscars I have built.
Any racing league can be twisty, banked, and with elevation changes if we want it. I do not expect to integrate any circuit with a City/Town display fully. That would be far too much artistic sacrifice to expect of fellow builders. But it would be cool… one time maybe, and I would thrive creatively on others adding their buildings next to a major civic event on shared streets on a Race Day.
You also have to figure out how you want to spread out the cars. I don’t watch racing but I think of them as tending to bunch up in a pack, or multiple packs. If you have 20 plates with 43 cars and evenly distribute the cars at just over two cars per plate, you will have a ring of cars going the whole way around, and I think you run a big risk that instead of looking like a race is in progress, it will look like a big ol’ parade of cars. You don’t want that. So I think some empty space on the track is necessary.
I totally agree, and my estimate of 2 cars per plate is kind of a maximum, like the tight racing of a Bristol or a Martinsville where most of the track does contain cars. It’s better to have too many cars than too few, including the probability that only the Start-Finish line and a couple of turns into the distance are part of the visible display. Cars can be changed out throughout the display time, and in any case, it’s better to have too many than too few. Maybe some story writing and rooting interests.
The bigger the track gets, the more road plates you have to acquire, but the other issue is that if you do it that way, you’re gonna want at least some stuff off the track, pit crews and spectators and landscaping and whatnot, otherwise the track is gonna look pretty empty and lonely. I don’t know if this was part of your plan, but the bigger the track, the more stuff you’re gonna need, and it can be remarkable how fast something like that uses up parts.
Acquisition of road plates is something I’m still doing over the long term that this dream project is. By the time I turn to track and amenities construction, which is the halfway point of the project, I’ll already be at the halfway point of roadplates.
However, this is one of those cases where track environment is best selected based on Rule of Cool. Most tracks *are* empty and lonely, surrounded by foliage, for most of every lap even during a race. Then the thunder rolls up and blasts by followed by the slow, isolated cars.
Our displays, especially the bigger ones, are usually very tightly packed, with limited space, and so a Grand Prix in a cityscape is the obvious choice for these GT cars, staff, and fans. I am thus taking a lot of inspiration from Formula 1 Grand Prix racing for track layout and amenities, including a common tight turnaround from a final turn, past a very limited pit lane and Winner’s Circle combination, and back into Turn 1 and off the table.
I think the biggest obstacle will be the catch fences. My initial thought was to splay 10 x 10 nets across flex tubing, but both of those elements are expensive. As it turns out, SAFER barriers look easy to build in a studs-out orientation, so the base of the wall seems not only doable, but flexible for any kind of curve. The catch fence, though…
@bengood921: Thanks for the extensive, well thought response. All those thoughts gets my mind tinkering with varying layouts, both complete and incomplete. I didn’t really consider the possibility that the LUG would allow the space for me to integrate a full circuit or a small oval.
I did some more building on an alternate “paint job” for the #18 team, and this is the closest alternate car to completion. I am interested in doing this for other car numbers because I have the sticker sets floating around. #2 and #3 interest me because of these sticker sets:
It’s neat that they’re begging to be an Orange / DBG color swap two car team. Unsponsored, probably, maybe with XRFuel at best. The current #2 and #3 are a weakly sponsored and weakly numbered lime and black R Power/Darx car and a much better #3 Smell Zwell car that contains dark red, orange and yellow.
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=8304stk01&idColor=0#T=C&C=0
I just like planning and building these cars. So satisfying. I’m starting work on the street legal sportscar versions of these race cars with the overflow brick, with much smaller spoilers and admittedly different shaping, to work in Town/City. I am also designing the logo of a car manufacturer.
2/15/2021:
After getting distracted by other things, I went back and looked at the #27, #31 and #33 cars to get ready to post pictures.
The color blocking on the sides of each car was awful, and the color blocking didn’t mesh well over the top of the 27. So now I have to do a little rebuilding, because I got too excited to complete the cars and didn’t have my best sensibilities about me when I did.
Lesson learned? Put a fresh MOC that you *think* is completed aside and forget about it for a while, then look again with fresh eyes.
Also putting more money into PayPal so I can BL parts for the #21 (pit crew figs), #73 and #78 cars.
2/17/2021:
Started building a blue and white street legal sports car based on the #1 racer. I figure, I have the spare parts, and it would be nice to parallel makes and models on the track with cars normal people are driving, unlike reality.
I am out of rims and nearly out of tires.
Never thought I’d say THAT.
3/3/2021:
Had another burst of creativity, and I decided to build a street legal version of the #1 car. I figure, I’ll need cars anyway if I intend to display City alongside LUG members, and @joshhall did say we need more cars.
I actually finished it with parts on hand in nearly all white, with driver. I just need to look at it again with fresh eyes tonight to make sure the parts are as close to exact as possible.
I also did some work on a blue compact car, making it sporty, and all I need to do to it is to extend the rear by a stud to add on a place for a gas cap.
Bought another $40 of parts to work on the #73, complete the driver for the 73, resume work on the #56, and restock 1×1 bricks in core colors.
It was a fun building blitz for a couple of hours. Fun, not work. Just like it should be.
3/8/2021:
* Cleared my LEGO building desk and put down the six baseplates for the basic four lane divided boulevard with median that will serve double duty as City boulevard and Start-Finish line and pit lane/Winner’s Circle. Built version 1 of the median onto these six roadplates.
* Finished the Pace Car.
* Built a street legal version of the #1 Octan race car in white.
* Did some touch up work on the #33. Not enough red on the sidewalls.
* Finished rebuilding a taxicab to include gas cap.
This was a very productive and fun build weekend for me. Fun!
3/9/2021;
Received my latest BL order. Now I have the parts to resume work on the #56 and #73 and make more street legal sports cars and compact cars.
3/22/2021:
COMPLETED CARS
* Finished the #56 Circuit Challenger car, but it still needs a driver. I need a plain white fig torso, and probably a yellow helmet for this one.
* Pace car is done. I decided to quit fighting the play feature of side doors that open into the design of the big cars, leaving that feature for the compact cars. If LEGO made this decision in its sets, I can too.
* The blue and white street legal sports car of the #1/#78 model has become an all white replica with a much smaller spoiler. This car is done and with license plate and a normal fig for a driver.
* This inspired me to build two more street legal versions of existing race cars: one of the #33, which I really like the shaping of, and one of the #14/#56 model, which isn’t quite right, as I need the 1×4 tall curved slope bricks in white. I have enough vehicle bases, wheel wells, rims and tires to do this several more times. Next, I am going to try to unify the designs of the #4, #7, #8, and #77 cars as the inspiration for the street legal model. It’s a long shot, but worth a try.
* Put the new driver into the #2 R Power/Graphix car. Switched that standard fig’s helmet visor from trans-black to trans-neon green. The old driver had a loose arm anyway. Poor guy. This car is going to be relegated to alternate / giveaway status along with the #3 Smell Zwell car that will probably go to @philmatt24 if he wants it. Because he likes rare colors, and the #3 has dark red in it.
CARS IN PROGRESS
* Did some work on the #73 Team 1 car, and realized that Rainbow Warrior is a GOOD thing in racing, so I’m going to do one of those, since the original 73 car had a red firesuit and yellow and green numerals on blue. So I changed the original fig to have a red firesuit top, yellow hips, green legs and a blue helmet with a clear visor.
* Shifted some blue parts around into enabling the building of the #37, and the orange parts that came out went into the new #2. I like the driver of the 37. The fig head reminds me of old NASCAR driver Ernie Irvan.
NEW CARS
* Started building the new #2 and #3 cars. The best plan I came up with, working backwards from the sticker sets, is to build a complete orange car and a complete DBG car, then swap parts between them to create striking patterns for the two car team and the two sticker sets that are reversed versions of each other to start with.
* Laid down the base for the #57 Fire Ghost, which is one of the final two cars in the base field. The other is the #64, which is a blue and black Brick Street Customs car. This will make 36 cars in the base field.
DESIGN PLAN ADJUSTMENTS
I thought about using the #16 and #28, but the parts that contain those numbers are just ugly, while acquiring the sticker set that has the optional #34 and #52 stickers is too expensive to me. So using EVERY number produced isn’t likely, and I have arguably more than enough race cars already. In addition to those issues…
I think I’m going to run out of racing sponsors at this point anyway, as I’ve duplicated some as much as four times. (Curse you, Octan! I root against your megateam! Underdogs rule!) I would need to shift into using the Xtra stickers as sponsors on the other double handful of cars that use parts with much smaller numbers that I don’t want to use on these big race cars. About those smaller number sizes…
My first thought was that the 27 has set the precedent for using smaller numbers on a car though, and since the initial goal was to build a race car for every car number that was built under a pure LEGO IP as a set, these numbers may very well be in play: 20, 29, 30, 45, 66, 80, 84, 88, 89, 99, along with an alternate 3, 6, 13 and 37. I am much more likely to use all of these smaller printed parts (which I have all of) for a go kart series instead.
As for the big cars, I think I’ll stick to these 36 cars with the bigger numerals and heavily sponsored, along with the “alternate” builds with duplicate numbers that have naturally developed from overflow parts and lesser design decisions on my part. I will have 8-10 leftover cars that have since been replaced with better ideas, better color blocking, and better stickering of the same car number.
TRACK CONSTRUCTION
* Did some work on the boulevard median, replacing the green slopes with LBG. I think I’m going to develop this toward the medians on Grant Street. Next plan there is to start building the combination Start/Finish line and traffic lights, or maybe test build one of the paddock stall/luxury parking spaces.
* Got some toolboxes for the paddock stalls and 4 sets of tools for the pit crews, and 8 working jacks. I need to find my harpoons to create the gas cans. Then I can create some computer console desks for the crew chiefs.
TL/DR: Multiple race cars finished. Multiple street cars finished. Plans for new cars adjusted. Significant progress, approaching major milestone.
* Put the new driver into the #2 R Power/Graphix car. Switched that standard fig’s helmet visor from trans-black to trans-neon green. The old driver had a loose arm anyway. Poor guy. This car is going to be relegated to alternate / giveaway status along with the #3 Smell Zwell car that will probably go to @philmatt24 if he wants it. Because he likes rare colors, and the #3 has dark red in it.
Ooh, dude… I still have those parts you had asked for months ago… still want ’em? If so, hit me up to discuss pickup!
But it’s true, I like dark red!
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