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That said, nets are a MUCH more versatile building element than we think of.
Nets as FULL 2D offstud construction? Why yes!But this is one of those nebulous foundation techniques that, while useful for anybody to bridge odd heights and distances legally, no one builds this way yet. Although if you want undulating, snowy or sandy dunes, or more flowing hills, this might be the very best way to do that and merge it back into full System on every side. Since this is string, this could be easily less than 10 x 10 stud sections, and could fill in any gap that bridges one surface to another.
That is suuuuuuch a sweet technique – I’d get behind a LUGBulk or LUG Support purchase to make it financially viable… if we LUG Supported it, we could get some epically organic sleddin’ hills for the Trolley Museum / other wintry displays, plus the new DUNE movie comes out in October, just sayin’. #threadjackin’
Thinking along this line a little further, this could help fill out the side hills to either side of the Incline too, and maybe with a big cut in part count.
With minimal but wisely distributed support at the key tension points, gravity will do its work and make the resulting shape look organic and natural. Not only this, but the top level of tile does not have to be standard tile or plate. Anything with antistuds will do. Height in either direction on the z-axis of the x- and y- axis net is what limits flexibility and shaping.
As long as the holes are the precise distance apart, any net will fit stud to stud perfectly. I think this stud center to stud center distance is 8.0 mm.
4/16/2021:
PART ACQUISITION
* I have five new BL orders in, covering most of the parts needed for the #2, #3, #22, #37, and #42 cars. These parts also include a torso I need to improve the driver of the #56, and a wealth of parts for blue street legal compact cars.
CAR DESIGN
* The #64 is out of the field. There is only one sticker sheet with the #64 that I planned on, and it costs $25. Nope. Not doing that.
* In its place is the #99, which I found extra numbered parts for, so this one can be designed like the #31 and #37 cars. The #99 will be in yellow, black and red and sponsored by EZ.
* It is possible by the end of this month to be down to three cars to go in the existing 36 car field.
CAR CONSTRUCTION
* This weekend, while I wait, I will begin construction on the #57 Fire Ghost car and maybe the beginnings of the #99 EZ car.
2 3 22 37 42 57 78 99
EIGHT CARS REMAIN
4/19/2021:
CAR CONSTRUCTION
First BL order of 5 arrived.
* Did some stickering on the front of the 2 and 3 cars. I realized I need a second sticker sheet to do the roof of the #3 like I can do on the #2. The #3 DBG car will have XRFuel as the major sponsor. This is the sticker sheet I’m using, combining both DBG sticker sets onto this car.
#3 stickers + XRFuel sponsor stickers
I think I’ll need to find another sponsor in orange to match.
* Completed the #57 Fire Ghost car in black, lime, orange and yellow. It still looks a bit bland, so I may reshape the edges of the car over the wheel wells to add some mean.
* Heavily built up a #99 car. I am maybe 10 parts away from completing it now.
* I want to revise the “version 1” Pace Car to add a larger spoiler that can hold the 2×2 “Track Marshal” stickered tiles.
SPAAAAAAAAAACE
* Went off the board and built an 8×8 Space shipping container cube branded for Frost Transports, serial number FT886P. This is part of my long term plan to convert much of my Space operations to convertible containers, including the Georges’ House, space diner, and medical bay from SWR I, and to plug these containers together with others into a SHIP.
* Did some sorting, and discovered quite a few sorted bags of brick that give me ideas.
Running out of 1×2 plate in both black and yellow.
2 3 22 37 42 78 99
SEVEN CARS REMAIN
4/20/2021:
CAR CONSTRUCTION
* I have 6 small 1 x 1 tile sized “57” stickers, 4 square, 2 round. So I can place them on larger parts, probably on the corners of the hood near the headlights and near the tail lights in back, and the last two on the spoiler. I plan to do that next after I take a look at breaking up the smooth contour of this… or maybe that’s what I want, a really smooth, simple car in contrast to the crazy elsewhere…
Second BL order of 5 arrived. I have no idea which one this is, as I had to run out the door for work. More building tonight!
2 3 22 37 42 78 99
SEVEN CARS REMAIN
4/21/2021:
CAR CONSTRUCTION
Another couple of BL orders came in.
* Revised the street legal version of the #14/#56 race cars.
* The #21 and #33 race teams now have full pit crews available.
* Added more parts to the #42 car. Discovered I had two left handed stickered parts instead of a matched set.
Next up is to refine those pit crews a bit, reshape the hood on the new #2 car, and finish another gas can. More parts inbound.
2 3 22 37 42 78 99
SEVEN CARS REMAIN
4/26/2021
CAR CONSTRUCTION
* Finished the #22 car. All I needed there was a purple helmet and trans-yellow visor for the driver.
* Finished the #37 car. All I needed there were two 2 x 6 curved wedge bricks.
* Reshaped the #37, #99 and #31 cars to better fit 2 x 3 wedge plates under the 2 x 6 wedge bricks that form the rear quarters of the car. This required moving the robot arms that hold the spoiler toward the center of the car, something I haven’t had to do on any other car design. It still looks okay.
* Reshaped the front of the #2 car.
CAR DESIGN
* I am now further cemented into “running” 36 cars. However, I have enough leftover parts to create a #28, so, if I can find the printed parts cheap and get the car a decent sponsor in red that I haven’t used before, this will be the 37th car.
* I am also considering a Brick Street Customs car as the 38th car, but it is in blue with no racing number to match it other than the distant but gratefully generic 34/52 numerals on that sticker sheet. I don’t have full sponsorship to match the available car numbers, but I do have a handful of unsponsored cars, so this remains possible but more unlikely.
* Much more accessible to me is the building of alternate race teams for the #4, #5, #6, #7, #8 and #18 numbers to go along with the older #2 and #3 designs that are about to be relegated to alternates. These car builds are actually underway, so I will have 8 cars that are complete, yet won’t race. I still plan on giving the alternate #2 through #8 and an alternate #18 away to other LUGnuts as gifts. I like how the alternate #8 is shaping up, as it’s sponsored by a Frankenstein branded series of soft drinks, and is colored in yellow (lemon?), lime and a strip of red.
This is mostly because during this long research into LEGO IP racing of all types, I started collecting sticker sheets for these numbers, then found better designs overall, and so, I have the parts on hand. Distantly, I can build alternates of the #14, #21, #23, #27, #29, #33, and #46, but, since I do not have any parts for them, I don’t have incentive to do that.
Next up is ordering the final part I need for the #42. The end of this stage is in sight!
2 3 42 78 99
FIVE CARS REMAIN (+28?)
5/11/2021:
HERE COMES THE FUZZ
Taking a creative break from the GT Grand Prix project, I built set 60044 which I won in a meeting raffle. After discussion with @willmcdine about City and Town emergency forces, I think I’m going to go for the 2014-2017 vibe for the Platesboro PD. I already have a police cruiser, a helicopter and a boat from that era, so it looks like I have land, air and water covered.
I might go with the South Slopes identity instead, but that assumes a large beachfront area and multiple baseplates of water. I kind of wanted to do that anyway with my “Nazca” Space faction idea. I have collected transparent tile and plate of varying blue shades for waves, wakes, gradated shore, and whitecaps, but that’s for experimentation purposes down the road. I am hardly All In on either City concept yet.
CAR DESIGN
I’m still debating on the “black jacket” look of the #2 and #3 car team, and will probably forego roof stickering to put the stickers on the 1 stud wide parts that suit the stickers better. This means removing the black roof and trunk areas for more orange and DBG respectively on roof and trunk areas, copying the center stud architecture of the hood onto each trunk. I am about to buy the final #3 sticker sheet for $7.50, as this is only one of two sticker sheets left worldwide. As soon as my PayPal funds become available, I plan to order all remaining parts for the final five cars and, if I’m lucky, parts for a #28. The end of the standard field is DEFINITELY in sight.
2 3 42 78 99
FIVE CARS REMAIN (+28?)
5/17/2021:
LICENSE PLATES
* I have ordered over 40 unique license plates. I have the bodies for about 20 street legal cars for myself. This means I will be able to pick and choose what I build, and have lots of *unique* license plates left over to distribute to other LUGnuts for City/Town vehicles of all kinds, along with the leftover vehicle parts I am bound to have after all this.
CAR CONSTRUCTION
* Parts are shipped to complete the ALL FIVE remaining scheduled cars in the field of 36.
* I have half of the printed parts necessary to build a #28 car, so this one will probably the grid. I am still on the fence on including this car, as the printed “28” slopes don’t look great.
* Since I have already spent $7.50 to complete the #3 car, I may buy another sticker set at similar price to build the #34 and #52 cars, especially since the sticker set adds stickers in dark green, a color I have not attempted to build a race car in yet. A dark green-black-green-yellow car would look boss. Since the 34 (in red) and 52 (in white) appear on the same sticker sheet, the other numeral set should appear on the Brick Street Customs blue car that I already have stickers for. All this depends on part research into Dark Green, which I’m doing now.
* These developments mean I will likely be building a 37th, 38th, and 39th race car. With juuuuust a little more digging (or cheating), I can create a NASCAR sized 43 car field. It would have some obvious field fillers that would likely start and park, “just happy to be there”. Just like real racing!2 3 42 78 99
FIVE CARS REMAIN (+28?, 34, 52, and maybe 30, 80, 84, 88 and 89, all as field fillers)
Time for another deep dive into BrickLink to try to discover unique numeral stickers I may have missed.5/18/2021:
Got a BL order in:
CAR CONSTRUCTION
* Added rear SNOT bumper connections to about a dozen street llegal cars.
* Organized the street legal cars a little better to match the parts I have on hand. I have about a dozen of these smaller 4 stud wide cars now.
* Reorganized the larger 6 stud wide cars to become the #20, #30, #84 and #88 cars in yellow, blue, black and green respectively. These should be faster because I don’t have to worry about sponsor stickers, as these are field filler cars, and the cars are already half built.
* Abandoned the #28 car for now.SPACE CONSTRUCTION
* Built more H-bars for the eventual Space Container SHIP. Ran out of 4L axles.
* Built the upper and lower sections of an M-Tron(?) 17 stud length container. Ran out of black 2×3 plate.Four more BL orders are on the way to further car building.
2 3 20 30 42 78 84 88 99
NINE CARS REMAIN
5/24/2021:
Got distracted from LEGO… by LEGO.
SPACE CONTAINERS
* Built the skeletons for about 8 more 8×8 cube Space Containers. I still need to work on the interior ceilings and floorings, and the detailing on the doors. I plan on having a full box of nothing but the cube containers and the longer 17 and 26 stud versions to plug into a massive 78 stud long mass of containers.
After I complete what cubes I can, I plan on converting the George House from SWR into compatible 8, 17, and 26 length compatibility, and plug those containers onto the eventual SHIP too. Added bonus of this is that I can stuff the rest of a Space display into the empty containers and carry this very swooshable SHIP to a show by hand, pull the relevant containers off and unpack and build the small stuff as needed. It will be easy with a manifest in place. It’ll be functional!
CAR CONSTRUCTION
* Finished a 4-wide street legal sporty hatchback.
* Finished the #42 car, but I may revise it from the Version 1 model I have now.Gotta get back into the race cars. Still waiting on the order to finish the #99 specifically.
2 3 20 28 30 78 84 88 99
NINE CARS REMAIN
5/25/2021:
PARTS SORTING
I got the last of the most recent wave of BL orders in, and so I spent most of last night sorting out the license plates, track signage, and parts for the street legal cars. A lot of the stickers on the license plate tiles are skewed to one side. That’s what you get I suppose. This recent order also includes more sponsorship tiles, so I can upgrade a range of cars at this point.
Keeping a journal this way both motivates me to stick with it and to make seemingly menial progress into a little sense of accomplishment.
I might work on the Space Containers tonight, or finish a race car. It’s nice to have more than one project open so I can choose between detail work or bulk building.
CAR DESIGN
The #28 is now definitely in play, as I found the numbered parts on the cheap.
2 3 20 28 30 78 84 88 99
NINE CARS REMAIN
PICTURE OF FULL PIT CREW!
No, I’m not just building cars. This is an example of a full pit crew and a team eligible for display in the paddock and pit line in the display.
So here is the new pit crew and driver of the revised #46 X-Treme / Smooth Racing Oil rave car team, with their crew chief and mechanic looking on as they practice.
Yes, the dump can plugs directly into the car as designed. The secret part? A harpoon!
MOAR PICS! STREET LEGAL!
And I’m not just building race cars. I’m building street legal sportscar versions of some of the race cars, baeed on the shaping I find to be cool. So, here is the good old #1 Octan race car with its street legal equivalent. Other than rhe spoiler, it’s pretty much an exact copy.
YET ANOTHER!
I did the same thing in building a street legal version of the shaping I used for the #14 car while I was building this #56 Expedite / Circuit Challenger car.
The #14 and #56 are most likely a two car team since they’re shaped the same way.
MORE RACE CAR PICS?!
Yep. Here, learning from the color blocking of the #46 car that orange and lime strike each other nicely with white, I thought: “Doesn’t black go with everything?”
Why yes. Yes it does. Yellow made the nice transition, and added a little blending action. So here is the #57 Fire Ghost / DarX race car.
WHY ALL THESE PICS NOW?!?!
There’s lots of ways to color block a race car. I figured, let’s split the car front and back, and this is how the #71 Octan / Nuty REZ car came about.
Octan sponsors a four car team: the #1, the #21, the #29 as an electric entry, and this #71. President Business would be proud.
I already root against this front running team. But the cars still look good, and probably win a lot.
OCTAN RACING SUCKS!
Make that five cars.
This color blocking started wuth the blue printed 1×4 tile that had yellow and green on it… and did NOT match the red printed torso. At all. The only commonality was the rainbow of colo…
Waaaaitaminute…
Rainbow Warrior WORKS on a race car! Boom! Roll with that! So here’s the #73 Octan / Team 1 race car.
SO MANY CARS…
Captain Stunt might be a little crazy, but it takes crazy to race this flying boat of a car.
I just had to go with an Evel Kneivel vibe here. The fire suit and associated parts demanded it. Here is the #77 GEAR / TV6+ race car.
RICH, SERIOUSLY…
I revised the #78 Expedite / Jr55 car to get rid of nearly all of tge white and add a second set of sponsorship stickers to break up the black. Very much a BlackTron look as was originally intended.
NOW the 78 feels dome.
2 3 20 28 30 84 88 99
EIGHT CARS REMAIN
YOU’RE OVERBUILDING THIS CAR PROJECT!
The #85 XU Transport / Zoom Box car started with the spoilers. I couldn’t figure out how to place them until I remembered what I did on the #4. I wish I had a third sticker set to put the stripes on the roof too, but that might be one brush stroke too many.
FRESH CARS TODAY!
Here’s a fresh one, finished today: the #88 unsponsored car. Even though it has some sponsors scattered around, it’s not enough to call this team a major racing force.
I had this green chassis lying around, planning to build a street legal car out of it, but the 88 printed part had green in it, so off I went.
2 3 20 28 30 84 99
SEVEN CARS REMAIN
#37 is my favorite car sticker-wise. Excellent job on the detailing there!
The pit crew is plenty cool – the plug in refueler is a nice touch.
I would want to drive a real version of the #1 street legal car.
Fire Ghost looks reallllyyyy good. Sweet color transition!
I think the Rainbow Warrior car may be my favorite just because of the bold colors!
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