Since the talk I did at AFOLcon / The LEGO show, 5 or 6 weeks ago, I've had more Flickr and personal emails than usual asking for hints and tips with design and building. I started losing track of them all so decided it may be easier for me to create a Flickr folder purposely to run through my design / thought process from initial concept to finished model and try to address common questions I get asked within it.

I've been pretty much bombarding my photo stream with pics and running commentary on this for the last few weeks and today I've added the final finished pictures of the complete build so thought it may help any budding new builders here.

The link to the folder if of interest to any:

If it inspires only 1 person, thats all good as I've quite enjoyed doing it :)

Image added by TheBrickster

Fascinating, fun and fantastic, sir!

Thank you for that.

As a Steam fiend myself I am eager to start my own project and will be revisiting your project throughout.

Thanks for all of the hard work. I will certainly pay-it-forward by documenting my own, hopefully with equally amazing results.

Fantastic work!

very beautiful model

certainly with the 2sides streamlined.

Oh. My. God.

The A4 is almost unquestionably one of the most beautiful, most iconic locomotives in the history of railways, as well as holding the world record for being the fastest. And this is an amazing feat of building- to get the proportions and the wonderful curves right. Once again you have set the standard by which all other Lego model trains must be judged. And as somebody so cack-handed as to struggle to get a postage stamp on straight (literally) I always marvel at the accuracy of your stickering, both in application and design. Of course you chose the most beautiful (and most recognisable) colour for your A4- a rich, deep cobalt blue that works superbly with the sleek design of the loco.

Now that is AWESOME, so streamlined and beautiful - one of the finest trains I have seen in a long time !

Excellent designing 'Bricktrix' how about deeplinking an overall shot on your topic page here eh ?

Keep going and creating AWESOME trains......Brick On 'Bricktrix' !

I saw this over at TBB earlier, and I have to say it's brilliantly done. That's not surprising, of course, coming from you, but those curves are excellent. Well done!

Wow, what a brilliant model of the famous Mallard.

So many beautiful details rendered so nicely. The long curved wheel guard is very cleverly done and is a key feature that makes the whole build work so well.

Excellent job.

:classic:

Thank you all very much for the comments This build has fast become my favourite of all I have done so far.........I'm sure there will be more to come

It looks fantastic! Of course, the cab probably isn't as comfy as a true A4, but we do have to give up a few necessities in life.

Wow 'Bricktrix', very impressive way of incorporating old and new style into a steamer! Very well done

This is simply beautiful! It really needs to be front paged or at least blogged to Railbricks.

Amazing Bricktrix! You certainy put the "trix" in your design of the A4 Pacific. I'm loving the wheel assembly that just pops out at you and you did a fantastic job at creating the elegant curved design. I've added a picture to your initial post and I think this fantastic locomotive deserves some front page attention.

Great job!

Building the particularly difficult steam engines seems to be your thing! I've followe your Flickr stream for a few years now and I'm always blown away by your incredible builds. After you built the Scotsman, I thought you just have to build an A4, and I'm glad you went with the blue rather then dark green. This is pure class and I think you've nailed the shape as best as bricks will provide. I'm quite keen on building in the train theme my self, as living in the UK, there are so many quaint country scenes to recreate. I will definitely get a lot of inspiration from your builds. Great work, now build a dark red Coronation class :)

What a brilliant train. The curves and line are just amazing. Well done.

Nice shape and incredible building technique!

I like the huge dimension and the beautiful colors!

The piston rods are perfects with flex system and rigid hose.

The curves, the lines... What a beauty! Great work!

I know I've already commented on this, but congrats on getting on the EB frontpage- it was very well deserved!

I love it

It's my favourite locomotive, and you have made it very well.

Edited June 9, 201113 yr by Alibabo

Is it possible to get a video of this in motion? I would love to see how the valve gear works.

Simply brilliant!

I second the request for a video, would be great to see it in action

A couple of vids taken today

Not great quality as we had a few probs with sunlight, etc but hopefully good enough to show the movement running, not that its particulairly special.

Plus thank you all very much for the kind comments

Derfel I really look forward to seeing if you ever build a train themed scene as your buildings / landscaping are stuning and would go a treat on my display somewhere if there was space! I can picture now what you would do with a quaint station, etc.

Big thank you also to The Brickster for front paging this was unexpected.

Brilliantly build engine, hats off!

How did you build the curved black trim, or is that a secret?

Brilliantly build engine, hats off!

How did you build the curved black trim, or is that a secret?

Thank you

Its no secret, all you need to do is click the link at the start of this topic and look through the pictures! or if you try this link to my Brickshelf folder for even more pics:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=475128 ....if you then click Up on that which takes you back to my main page there, you may even see a familiar U-boat to you (now some 12+ years old I think?)

Edited June 11, 201113 yr by Bricktrix

Thanks for the video and it's a beautiful engine!