Shaun of the Dead / Winchester CUUSOO project - on Bricklink?

[Yatkuu]

Hello !

For those of you who have followed the story of the Winchester/Shaun of the Dead project on CUUSOO you may already know that this project was the second to ever reach the target of 10k supporters and also the first one to be refused by LEGO.

I am the owner of that project and together with my friend Pixel Fox we are about to release the building instructions of the Winchester as an “open source” project. These instructions will be available for free as LDD file, PDF/HTML instructions and we hope to also be able to generate an xml file of the part list for easy export into Bricklink. Note that although LEGO will never promote this project, we did got their authorization to distribute these instructions.

While FOLs interested the build might try to build it with their own collection and possibly order a few pieces to complete it, we think that many people who supported the "Win" on CUUSOO are not (yet) FOL and might very well not have any LEGO at their disposal. For these people, ordering the pieces individually may prove itself to be too tedious to be possible … so I am opening this thread today to see if there are Bricklink sellers who would be interested in trying to sell the parts of the Winchester as a “super lot”.

We are currently fine tuning the instructions so I can’t provide the list of parts yet but I can already tell you that the building is roughly made of 2500 bricks – there are no rare parts. You may check this picture library to get a sense of what parts are needed since the final build is going to be an exact match of what you see there.

Note that we have no financial interest in this deal – we are not trying to get a cut on the sales or anything like that. Our objective with the Winchester project was to promote the AFOL hobby and since LEGO decided to refuse the project we just think that Bricklink is the perfect (and only possible) alternative.

As mentioned above we are almost ready to release these instructions, if BL sellers are interested to give this a try I am willing to mention the URL of your store in the release announcement but note that it will be made very clear that we will not be associated in any way to your business and we will also expect you to be very clear on the fact that we are not “partners”.

– after the initial announcement you’ll be on your own to promote your sales.

The above message will also be posted on the Bricklink forums.

[Vindicare]

Well, while I'm not a BL seller...I'd totally be willing to buy the "super lot".

[Yatkuu]

Hi all!

Quick update on the project, about a dozen BrickLink stores have shown an interest in the project so far - see more details here.

The Win could possibly be sold as 1 super lot or in several sub lots per floor (just like official sets). Not sure yet how we could tackle the MF question.

The instructions are currently under beta review – I have asked a couple of AFOL friends to have a look at them in order to make sure the instructions are ok and easy to follow (anyone who has tried to make instructions from an LDD file will know that it’s not exactly a piece of cake, in particular with large models and non standard building techniques!)

Another objective of this review is to try to optimize the brick inventory in order to avoid using rare parts and lower the costs, for that aspect of the review we have a BL expert on board.

Stay tuned..

[Solscud007]

Right on Yatkuu!!! Im down for the Win as a super lot. While I have a couple bricklink transactions under my belt, I find that BL requires a steep learning curve. So the simpler you can make this the better.

Do you have a ball park figure of what the set will cost? $250? Less?

Thanks for your work and I support it whole heartedly.

[Sabrien Reed]

This is excellent news. Is there an existing set that it is most like? Would the Grand Emporium be a good starting point, for example?

[Miss Kyle]

Splendid idea! A bit late for a birthday present for the other half, but I'm sure I'll buy it anyway :D

[natesroom]

This is a cool idea and i would definitely look at buying the pieces in a super lot (what kind of pricing though?)

I don't even build modulars but yours was one i supported and it would be cool to build something that had so much thought and effort.

I would do it also to learn some the building techniques i'm not familiar with also..

I do like the floor by floor lots as i have probably 2/3 - 3/4 of those pieces already off the top of my mind.

Edited May 16, 2012 by natesroom

[Solscud007]

I dont know how difficult this would be. but would it be possible to have two versions of the Win? One just as designed and one that can fit into the Modular line? I suspect it would just be a matter of getting a large plate to build on and a bunch of smooth plates to make a sidewalk similar to the Modular buildings.

[Yatkuu]

I dont know how difficult this would be. but would it be possible to have two versions of the Win? One just as designed and one that can fit into the Modular line? I suspect it would just be a matter of getting a large plate to build on and a bunch of smooth plates to make a sidewalk similar to the Modular buildings.

Well, that's the idea of an open source project.. allow people to improve it and customize it to their needs along the way. But we will not issue the "modular compatible" version ourselves for 2 reasons:

• We want to release the build that people voted for on CUUSOO
  
• We have enough on our plate with 1 version ...
  

[Yatkuu]

Hello everyone,

Sorry for taking so long but it's finally here - the parts list of the Winchester Tavern!

So... what have we been up to for the past few weeks... well, together with a couple of AFOL friends we have thoroughly reviewed the Win from top to bottom in order to improve the stability and optimize the brick count and types. No wonder it takes a team of LEGO people to do this, designing a MOC and a set are very different matters.

If you have been following the Winchester story you might remember that the build posted on CUUSOO was featuring a brick-built base - very nice looking but not very realistic to sell as a set. As a consequence we have chosen to rebuild it on a standard base plate. Well.. not really standard actually because the base is now made of 1 32*32 and 2 8*16, making it an overall base of 32*40.

The reason for choosing a standard base was also to facilitate the compatibility with the existing modulars. Note that we are talking about a compatibility in size and look but not a 100% compatibility. The Win was never designed to be a "row" building or at least never meant to be placed right next to buildings of equal size. The build features an offset of 1 stud in every direction because of the roof design so it cannot be "connected" to the other modulars. That being said it is fairly easy to integrate it into a city layout, as illustrated in these pictures

Life isn't made of straight lines and square houses so we actually hope that this design can bring a touch of originality to the boring modular streets. I believe the recently unveiled Haunted House also shows that the modular standards can be tweaked when needed.

Now.. onto the files... here is the link to download them.

This zip file contains the following files:

.lxf of the build (Lego Digital Designer)

.bsx file of the parts (Brickstore parts list)

.bsx of the Minifigs

The bsx of the build gives a piece count of 2337 items, 303 lots.

The lxf on the other hand gives a total of 2329 items. The difference can be explained by the absence of decorated tiles in the lxf as well as a couple of other pieces that could not be included in the 3D model such as the rubber bands used in the juke-box design or the leaves that are placed in an "illegal fashion".

Transitioning an LDD file into Brickstore can be a painful experience in particular for such a large model... I hope we did not miss anything in the process.

We have also included the parts list of the minifigs but this is more for information only. I can appreciate that putting together this group of mix-matched figs would be quite a challenge for a BL store. I'm pretty sure that some people might be interested in buying these in a lot but this design in merely 1 interpretation of Shaun and his gang, everyone is of course free to make his own.

So... what are the next steps?

We will now work on creating the pdf instructions of the build. The idea is to release a 3 parts pdf instruction booklet, 1 per floor just like the official modulars. LDD can help generate instructions but anyone who has tried it will know that there is a lot of editing needed in order to make these instruction easy to follow. We will also "photoshop in" the missing details such as the decorated tiles.

Once ready, we will release these instructions - for free - everywhere the Win was featured. That includes LEGO forums (Eurobricks, Brickset, Brickpirate..), movies oriented forums (Peggster, Spaced out..) and Facebook (Official page of the Winchester project, LZA - Lego Zombie apocalypse)... overall that's a lot of eyes. With any luck, Simon Pegg or Edgar Wright might even pick-up the story but I can of course not guarantee that.

So, here is the deal:

We would like to release the instruction in 3 weeks from now - Saturday June 30.

Up until June 29, any BL store that wants to give a shot at selling the Winchester in a "super lot" can shoot us an email at this address: contact@makethewinchester.com

If you're up for this, we will include the link to the homepage of your BL store or any other page that you think is more appropriate into the instruction release announcement.

Just to be clear, our intention is to list the BL stores who wish to participate per country in the announcement - for instance:

Belgium

Store A - hyperlink to the BL store or any other web page you want. / Ships worldwide Yes/No.

Store B

France

Store A

Store B

USA

Store A

Store B

etc..

Note that how you intend to sell the set is your call.. 1 lot, lots per floor, new or used parts, with or without figs, immediate purchase or pre-order system... it's all good for us. We want to give this project a chance to succeed no matter how we get there.

As stated before, we have no financial interest in this project. We will include a "donation" link in the release for anyone who wants to help finance our future projects but we are not asking for a cut on the sets you might be selling. We will make very clear in the announcement that we have no interest in the deal and that we provide the links to the BL stores for purely information purpose. We ask of you to be equally clear in any communication with potential customers.

After the release of the instructions you will be on your own to promote your business and we will no longer communicate on the project.

Note that if you wish to start advertising the Win already now this is absolutely fine with us. As of today we consider the Win as open source and you can make whatever you like with it... we think that a coordinated effort will have a greater impact but that's just our opinion.

I hope a lot of you will be interested in giving this a shot.. if this works it will perhaps inspire more similar initiatives. A negative review by LEGO on CUUSOO should not mean the end of a project that managed to gather 10k supporters.

Now, if you have any questions please go ahead!

Yatkuu

[DrWeevil]

That - is very impressive. As a prospective purchaser, I just want to say - thank you - for what must obviously have taken many tens of hours of volunteer to put this together. I hope that enough BL sellers are able to participate in this venture in a way that isn't cost prohibitive!

[Larrynautik]

I really hope that it will be available on Bricklink shops as Super Lots !

[Yatkuu]

I really hope that it will be available on Bricklink shops as Super Lots !

Thanks! You can follow the discussion on BL forums here.

[roamingstop]

Thanks! You can follow the discussion on BL forums here.

First The Winchester @ Cuusoo... Then the Vampire Castle... next Haunted House... and now The Winchester on Bricklink. I really cant wait to be able to build this in the flesh; and let the zombies attack.

[mrklaw]

This is too cool. Definitely looking forward to the instructions and superlots, if the price isn't prohibitive I'm in :)

[chuckie8646]

I will be getting one too when I saw this go up on cuusoo I was so excited I followed it all the way through to review and was disappointed to see it was rejected by Lego but I am sooo happy you have done this I can't wait to display it and show all my friends.

Thank you for doing this I'm sure you have made a lot of people very happy

Charlie

[Solscud007]

Damn the costs. I will support this project. I wanted it before it became popular. I definitely want to support this since TLG failed to see what we see.

[The Blue Brick]

I thought I had my Lego budget all planned out for this year. I guess not as I really want this.

Now we can just hope the super lots come through and everything goes smoothly. I also thank everyone who has put time and effort into the redesigning and all of the extra work.

I just want to buy it.

Edit: Do you know an estimate of the cost on the super lot?

Edited June 25, 2012 by The Blue Brick

[MikeyB]

Can't wait to see the details.

[Yatkuu]

Glad to see you guys are still enthusiasts about this!

I confirm that the instructions are going to be released this Saturday, we're basically still fine tuning some details!

As for the BrickLink side, right now I did not get a firm confirmation from any BrickLink store that they will try the super lot option... but with the inventory parts list available in brickstore format you can easily export to your BL "wanted" lists and look for suitable sellers...

[Yatkuu]

Hello!

I just posted the building instructions of the Winchester in this other thread, enjoy!