alienwar9 Posted March 4, 2010 Posted March 4, 2010 (edited) Hi all, I wanted to get started with my large project and I thought the best way was to let you guys know exactly what I’m trying to do. It’s a bit long, but then again it’s a very big project. Hope you guys enjoy reading Note: City project is here Preface I've been a collector of LEGO for most of my life, but I've only ever done small and quick MOCs. My last big project after moving my collection to my basement was to put them all back together. Then I ran into issues...blah blah blah... and haven't gotten back to that since. But recently I've been thinking, what’s the thing I want to do most. I've watched all the different amazing MOCs here on Eurobricks that almost make me ashamed to call myself a LEGO fan. Through looking at all the MOCs however, I also found myself drooling over the idea of actually building something, anything, like what I've seen. The only problem was that I knew any one build for me would just seem tiny and leave me feeling like I'm missing something, some feature, etc. I know I could just build and build MOCs like everyone else, but there was another thing I could do… At the same time, I had an epiphany of sorts, and realized that although my life goal is to eventually help people for a living, I couldn’t wait until those days to actually start doing something. Though my actions would be small compared to anything I’d do in the future, they meant something none-the-less and as the saying goes, every little bit helps. So I had a Lego project in mind, and I had an urge to help. I realized how limited the time I had really was, so I decided, why not combine the two. Why not build the whole Lego project for charity? I could really do a lot of good with that much Lego and that much work! So off I went to plan and came up with the project. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Project I came up with 3 large dioramas of what I wanted the most to build: a miniature model city, a space fleet battle, and a castle siege. Each of these was to be scaled to mini-fig size roughly. But upon measuring etc, I figured that building a 40 story fig scale building was just out of the question (not just money wise, but...where would I place such a monster?). I scaled down. And then still ended up with 3 roughly 12x12 foot models . I wanted to do full detail inside and out. I figured the space scene would have to do away with mini-fig scale, as I wanted it to be massive in scale (as in, capital ships, frigates, fighters). The castle would be an entire castle, including its protected "city", mountain, harbor, and open fields (including the inside caves of the mountain). The city, would be based slightly on Chicago (close to where I live), and comprise of an 8x8 block area with skyscrapers, industrial district, smaller 2-3 story buildings based off the cafe corner and its friends, and a lakefront. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Community And since I love this community to death (and much wish that I could be more involved in it. I mean, I’ve been here for 5 years and had so few posts) I wanted to keep everyone up to date with the projects, and definitely get help from all of you (with all your expertise in LEGO). This was planned to be around a 10 year project for me, with a 5 year pre-planning. I wanted to get some research in with building techniques, studying other people's builds and styles and to gather up ideas for how to set everything up. I would go over sketches with you guys, eventually together with everyone get down a final base plan, and start building. From there, through pictures like everyone does here (if I could figure out how to take pictures with my terrible camera), I'd hope to collectively plan out the details in each model, with my over-arching plans being the default on which everyone could add to. Upon doing some research, I felt it necessary to start some preliminary work on a basic setup. This lead me to the city build which I will talk about later. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Finish Finally, I was hoping to auction off each of the models (I'd somehow have to either make instructions for everything, ouch, and/or glue some parts, icky). From what I can figure out, with the little research I've done, I calculated roughly a $10,000-$15,000 USD cost to each model. I based the $15,000 price point on the LDD file of the city layout. I figured since LDD is somewhat overpriced, and the model is about half way done there (piece wise) it would come out to about the same. (If anyone could tell me a better estimation, I would greatly appreciate it, because I don't have much firsthand experience with large scale MOCs). So the auctions would be for charity foundations, and/or go to extremely avid AFOLs, or some rich dude . P.S. of course I'd play with it for as long as I could, lol. But in seriousness, I really wanted the project to help people, and not just be a self serving fun time. And since I saw the need for help sooner rather than later (especially after Haiti), I decided that the project needed to move along faster, and the only way to do this was to make it donations based. That way I could collect the pieces and money for the projects to be built within a few years each and auction them off to help support the charity foundations. Any money that I could save over the time would also go into the project. I did some research later on and found the whole donations system to be a bit more complicated than I thought, and that lead me to the “donations post”. If anyone can help me on that, I would greatly appreciate it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Details At this point, I started planning. I wanted to get a basic size and setup for each MOC, figure out the type of lay-out, and where it could be placed. I wanted each model to be playable too. That means "action" features, opening buildings, etc. The second part of each model was that I wanted them to be 2 phased. One set was to be the "pre" phase, where everything was normal. The second would be the "action" phase, where everything is in motion, ala the many MOCs I've seen here, with figs running, rockets flying, buildings and ships falling apart, etc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Castle: My idea for the castle was for it to be a typical castle on a hill...but instead on a mountainside. Think lord of the rings (minas tirith for the fans), but much more asymmetrical. I've only ever been to a few castles, so I'm not an expert, but together with some of my favorite MOCs, I came up with a basic look. I also wanted a few ships to be docked in a harbor. The mountain would be cut in half (like the end of the MOC back wall), with the open slice showing the inside caves etc. The castle grounds would include the keep, the inner walls, the town buildings, church, etc, the harbor, and the outer walls. A few farms on the outside, and then a "rolling hill" open field stretching out the other half of the MOC, until a river, a couple hills, and a river overpass/guard tower would be placed. On the other side of the hills would be an enemy camp set up, with all the troops, weapons, etc. I still have not decided as to whether to make it with realistic aspects, or trolls and that sort of thing (it would be a mixed army still though). And yes, there would be a dragon in the caves. The second phase would be in the middle of the siege on the castle. Buildings would be on fire, giant rocks would be flying, roofs would be caved in, walls would be broken, the front gate would be penetrated, and the ships would be battling each other by the harbor. Basically some roof and wall pieces would be swappable, some ground pieces would be swappable with soldiers fighting, and the area around the front of the castle would be filled with the army in place. The whole piece would be around 9 feet wide by 12-13 feet long. I can make it this long easily because of the open fields stretching in front of the castle. The width is to accommodate a river, a harbor, a main area, and church. The mountain would be around 4 1/2 feet tall, with the highest point on the castle being around 3 1/2 feet tall. While it seems like a large footprint, there are a lot of “empty spaces” where water and fields sit, so the piece count will hopefully be more limited than the city. I will up-load hand drawn sketches soon. (maybe make a quick LDD of the layout if I can). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Space battle: This one would be the hardest and most fun for me (I love giant space ships). The idea was to have two capital ships with their respective fleet at either end of space, ready to do battle. The one fleet would be set up in front of a space station protecting it both with its firepower and physically blocking any attacks. Through some searching I found that I wanted the main capital ship to be 7 feet long, and the other one to be 5 feet long. The main fleet guarding the station with the 7 foot ship (from now on called the “good” fleet. Yeah I know, sooo creative), would also have a carrier ship, and then a bunch of smaller ships. And the same would go for the bad fleet. While doing some pre-planning work, I finally figured out the scale I wanted the ships to be at. The fighters (the easiest thing to set the scale to) would be roughly 7 studs x 4 studs. I based this off of how many ships I wanted to be able to fit in the hanger bays of the ships. I think I figured that scale to basically be 1:360. So the 7 foot ship would be almost half a mile long. I really wanted the fighters to have some detail so the scale isn’t that huge. Basically the big ship is half the length of the star destroyer. The carrier would be 3 ½ feet long. There would be a few 2 foot ships, a bunch of ships in smaller sizes. I think 27 ships total. There would be a few smaller craft, and then 90+ fighters / bombers / etc. And finally there would be the space station, of which I am far away from making any definite plans on. The second phase would simply be when they are mid-way through battle. Ships would be blown apart, lasers would be cutting, and missiles would be flying. My sketches so far are very basic, and while I have done some LDD work with the carrier and capital ships, those are simply for shape and form. I won’t be returning to this soon unless my mind gets blown from the city build and I need a different setting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- City: This would be the biggest model of the three. I have spent the most time on this one, and therefore it is the first one I am going to build. It is also a good place to start because of its complexity and ability to adjust to my skills while building. It went through many planning phases with different sizes and I finally came to a set layout with everything I wanted to put in it. The entire piece is 11 feet by 13 feet and the tallest building is 6 feet tall. There are about 52 buildings within a 6 x 6 block area. There is a highway of sorts, a river, a park, and a “lakefront”. The city is divided into 2 sections, and upper area, and a lower area; where the lower area is actually about 13 bricks lower than the rest of the city. There is an industrial district, a market district, and a business district. There are 5 towers, the largest of which has 19 floors. I want to fully fill each building and the streets with activity, so there are a lot of interior pieces to be used. The second phase of this one is under consideration. I really badly want to do it, but I also realize that along with donation issues, it increases the piece and price count from an already high amount. Basically it would be an alien invasion scene. This would include all kinds of creatures that the aliens have, including a 3 foot tall monster, and possibly some smaller space ships. There would be holes and fires in buildings, people running everywhere, and a fully deployed military trying to fight off the aliens. This would include tanks, jets, helicopters, and par-trooping figs from a plane. Also, since I had so many ideas for it, I wanted to build a secret military unit hidden inside the city, with the semi-futuristic vehicles and equipment that might come with that (including mechs of course). But like I said, this one is under consideration for obvious reasons. It would definitely shift potential auctioneers also. The City post with pictures is here! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusion Phew! So the first thing I’m doing now is starting the city build post, as I’ve already done the layout in LDD and I have enough content to finally post a “first post”. From there, I hope to figure out the whole donation situation, set that up, get some input into the overall layout of the city and see if there are any bigger changes that could be made, and then start the build with what money I have saved up so far. I’d probably have just enough for the base and the tiles. I’m hoping to fund at least a third of the city project on my own, and see where it goes from there. I also wanted to get other communities involved, at least in the donation aspect, so once I have a set system for the donations, I want to spread the word. Of course I would always come here first for any updates, comments, etc! I know all of this is a little long and dry, especially without any pictures, but those are in their respective model posts. The castle and space posts will probably come a little later on, but I will try to get them in as soon as I have the time. Thank you, and a special thanks to those that actually read through all of this (you guys have great patience!) I look forward to working on these projects with you guys and any comments you may have! -Alienwar9 P.S. Just to make sure, I am NOT asking for any donations or anything else yet. ________________________________________________________________________________ Update Without a restructuring of the project, I am not allowed to engage in any type of donation system or otherwise. According to the staff of EB, I would not be able to operate under the conditions that I planned. While I am a bit crushed, they are right in saying that this would barely work, if at all. The current plan is to hand the project over to someone with a history and expertise in large scale Lego model projects, and then recruit a team willing and able to help plan and build the model / models, allowing the project a much more stable and reliable backbone upon which to operate. This change means that I am looking for anyone in or around the Chicago area that is willing to head up a large charity based team build, along with people willing to help build and plan the model. The head of the project can also be an entire group, if there is a group willing. Also, if anyone knows of some people who would be interested in such a project, please either let them know, or let me know so that I may contact them. Along with finding a team, the time frame for building the model would be sped up to 1 year or less. The last change would have to be in planning. The design of the entire model, along with the style, would be decided upon by the team. I would hope to still have some control over the main design, but that would be completely up to the team and the lead. So my plans above may be slightly or completely changed. Also, the community would have a stronger input as to how the model would be built. Finally, the model would have to be partially built before any donations could be asked for. Please PM, leave a post, or contact me if you are interested in helping build or lead the project. Since this is still in pre-planning stages, I am just trying to see if there are any people out there willing to take up the project. If you have any suggestions or conditions before you would think about it, please let me know, or if you have any questions. This is only for discussion purposes. No plans are set in stone yet, and I still would need to run this through the EB staff before any final decision would be made as to whether this could happen. Edited March 5, 2010 by Shadows Split and updated. Don't get out of hand, we haven't approved this. Thanks! Quote
Peppermint_M Posted March 5, 2010 Posted March 5, 2010 You'll have to ask the moderators. One of them will deal with it accordingly. That is a collection of very large projects... They will certainly be hard to do. Good Luck with them Quote
Eilif Posted March 5, 2010 Posted March 5, 2010 At the same time, I had an epiphany of sorts, and realized that although my life goal is to eventually help people for a living, I couldn’t wait until those days to actually start doing something. Though my actions would be small compared to anything I’d do in the future, they meant something none-the-less and as the saying goes, every little bit helps... ...Without a restructuring of the project, I am not allowed to engage in any type of donation system or otherwise. According to the staff of EB, I would not be able to operate under the conditions that I planned. While I am a bit crushed, they are right in saying that this would barely work, if at all.... ...This change means that I am looking for anyone in or around the Chicago area that is willing to head up a large charity based team build, along with people willing to help build and plan the model. The head of the project can also be an entire group, if there is a group willing... ...Also, if anyone knows of some people who would be interested in such a project, please either let them know, or let me know so that I may contact them. Sounds like your heart is very much in the right place. If you'd like to get involved in LEGO community service, I have four posibilities for you. Admittedly the first two suggestions are somewhat self serving, as I am a member of NILTC, and the creator of BILd, but these are all ways to get involved and connected to the Chicago LEGO and AFOL community. 1) Join Northern Illinois LEGO Train Club (niltc.org). It's not a charity, but you'd get a chance to participate and contribute to massive group displays (layouts often measuring well in excess of 100 linear feet (average width 4 to 6 feet). The shows that they put on greatly increase the membership and community awareness (which helps with donations and grants) of the community centers and libraries that they display at, and you don't even have to hav any trains of your own. 2) Volunteer with the Building In Lawndale Program (BILd). Once a week for ten consecutive weeks a semester, we use LEGO to teach (mostly math and science) to third grade boys in the inner-city Chicago neighborhood of North Lawndale. We have had two semesters so far, and though we had to skip this smester we will be promoting at Brickworld and conducting a BILd class in the fall of this year. PM me if you'd like more info. 3) If you are near Deerfield, IL and have experience working with children on the autism spectrum, Beth Weis conducts LEGO classes for autistic children and their parents. I'm not sure if she is currently looking for help, but you can get in touch with her through http://www.bethweis.com/ 4) It's also not charity work persay, but the First LEGO League of Illinois (youth LEGO robotics competition) is an excellent non-profit, and can always use more help. Quote
alienwar9 Posted March 5, 2010 Author Posted March 5, 2010 Thanks for the help! I am near Deerfield, so I will look into that. (though I don't have any experience as you asked). And I'd definitely love to join the Northern Illinois LEGO Train Club! Oh, and thanks for the fix!! Quote
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