I've been waiting for Lego to release a new Cloud City play set, but since it has not been forthcoming I decided to make my own. There have been a couple great MOCs over the last few years, notably some fine work by StoutFiles, darththeling, and Lobot.

My objective was to make something that would believably pass for a model that Lego would produce, as opposed to a diorama like most of the MOC attempts I've seen. As such, the emphasis is on play features and accessability, with an aesthetic that captures the overall feel of Cloud City without necessarily being totally movie accurate (e.g., the front facade is basically taken directly from the original Lego Cloud City, since I actually started this process trying to recreate that set).

I was aiming for something roughly half as large as the 10188 Death Star set, with the idea that the set would come in at roughly half the price. According to LDD this set has about 1500 pieces. That is fewer pieces than, for example, the Ewok Village set, although weight-wise this Cloud City is a bit heavier (roughly 5 pounds compared to 4.75).

Here it is:

The set has three main pieces: a landing platform, the body of the set, and a catwalk/dueling platform. These pieces separate:

The top level of the main body includes a hallway, a waiting room, and the dining room. The challenge with the hallway was to capture the feel of the movie scenes while also allowing enough space for hands to move figs around (i.e., it was not possible to put a roof on the set). In addition, there is an elevator that connects the top floor to the bottom.

If you take the stairs instead of the elevator you'll find the trash/ugnaught room. This room has a working conveyor belt, controlled with a knob on the other side of the wall:

Below the trash room, on the bottom floor, is a prison cell, with a door that slides open:

After going down the elevator, a doorway leads into the carbonite chamber/dueling room:

This room features a platform within the carbonite chamber that goes up and down, a string/winch that drops though the cone above the chamber (controlled with a knob on the side), and a light brick behind the chamber.

Opposite the chamber is the large window that blows out to lead to the catwalk/dueling platform. The window sits on a spring/shock absorber that is sprung by a lever on the side:

On the opposite side is the landing platform. This is much smaller than the one in the official Lego set, but I think it does the job.

I'm still waiting for Lego to put out a new Cloud City, but this should hold me over for the time being. I'd love any feedback or tips on how I might improve the model.

I love it - particularly the detailing on the white walls and the freezing chamber.

Very nice! I've been considering embarking on a similar project once I get my collection organized, and your model is a great inspiration.

I like how well you've miniaturized everything - the hallways and Ughnaught room in particular look great (I like the conveyor belt). The Carbonite chamber looks good too, but I'm wondering whether there's any way to swap Han for the carbonite piece, which seems like a key play feature to me. The space between the Carbonite mechanism and the blast-out window (really neat with the spring piece, btw) is also a little bare-looking. Why not add in some launchable junk for Vader to throw at Luke? While you're at it, adding a torture device build would really spruce up the torture room.

Still, though, those are just minor details. Overall this is really awesome.

With just a little bit of extension, your landing platform would be the perfect size for my 10188-style Millennium Falcon!

Edited April 17, 201410 yr by Tereglith

Great Job! This looks so much better than the official TLG version which I, except for the rare minifigs, find highly overrated,

This is a lovely set! You managed to include all important/iconic areas of the setting, and achieved that within a compact, very pleasing layout. I also like how it comes apart in sections, and how you detailed the interior - elegant and simple, imstead of going for fancy and making it look messy. Great work!

As for the Cloud Car, I'd prefer a bigger version in minifig-scale to go with this set if it were a set I could buy.

As for the set, as an idea, I would also build a roof that can be taken off the set which sports the domes and domed towers that define the sihouette of Cloud City. The domes or towertops could be extensions of the individual sections of the top level of the set you built.

Edited April 17, 201410 yr by DarthTwoShedsJackson

Really impressed ! Well done ;-)

You just need to add an orange mininifig scale twin pod

Edited April 17, 201410 yr by jee_ace_guy

Better than what Lego gave us! thanks this is great

really nice; would buy this (even though I already have the old one)

This looks fantastic! From the looks of it additional areas could be built in a modular fashion for additional playability as well.

This is arguably the best Cloud City I've seen, I love how you mixed in your MOC with the official set but still making it look very crisp and smooth and keeping it true to the old one! FANTASTIC work, marshall!

Very good as a playset in the style of an official set. I seriously doubt a new official set will be better than this.

Wow!!! the cloud city set really needed an update but your creation is everything the LEGO set should have been.

You know what? If you add one or two play features to the upper level, this would work as two separate sets - like the rancor pit and Jabba's palace. As someone who has tackled cloud city myself, I can appreciate the effort you have put in to get the 'look' whilst restricting the piece count.

I hope when Lego finally get around to revamping their Cloud City, they take a look at yours first!

K

Thanks for the comments everyone, and especially for the constructive feedback! This was my first attempt at a project like this (my previous MOC experience is mostly what I come up with while playing with my kids), and my first attempt photographing and posting a project on Eurobricks.

The Carbonite chamber looks good too, but I'm wondering whether there's any way to swap Han for the carbonite piece, which seems like a key play feature to me. The space between the Carbonite mechanism and the blast-out window (really neat with the spring piece, btw) is also a little bare-looking. Why not add in some launchable junk for Vader to throw at Luke? While you're at it, adding a torture device build would really spruce up the torture room.

With just a little bit of extension, your landing platform would be the perfect size for my 10188-style Millennium Falcon!

I tried a lot of different ways of tackling the freezing chamber (I spent forever trying to come up with a Technic mechanism to raise/lower the platform with a crank, but I was never satisfied with it, so I went with a much more simple solution). The difficulty is that I am really constrained by the height of the ceiling, so the freezing chamber itself has to be quite low (and actually built into the floor, in this case). If you (or anyone else) has any ideas for how to include a swap mechanism, I'd be very interested.

I agree the rest of the freezing room is a bit bare, but every attempt I made to add more stuff made the room feel too cluttered. It's hard to see in the pictures, but there are some crates and barrels, as well as a double-wide pipe next to the stairs that is only attached with a single stud on the wall for easy removability, ready to be force thrown at Luke.

I love all of your 10188-style ships (10188 is my all-time favorite set)! I'd love to see you do something similar with a cloud car and a Slave 1--along with the Millenium Falcon those would make perfect additions to my Cloud City. I'm going to have to order a couple pieces so I can make your MF.

Great Job! This looks so much better than the official TLG version which I, except for the rare minifigs, find highly overrated,

As I mentioned in my post, this project started with me trying to re-create the official version with my own pieces (e.g., without the huge gray plates). However, as I began to put the set together I became dissatisfied with the layout, and felt it left out too much, so I decided to build my own model. I guess that's the beauty of Lego.

As for the set, as an idea, I would also build a roof that can be taken off the set which sports the domes and domed towers that define the sihouette of Cloud City. The domes or towertops could be extensions of the individual sections of the top level of the set you built.

I could probably try to do a small, round roof of sorts just to go over the middle section (e.g., similar in design to the disc on top of Jabba's palace--do those pieces come in white?). If you'd like to take a stab at it, you're welcome to the LDD file as long as you share with me whatever you come up with!

This looks fantastic! From the looks of it additional areas could be built in a modular fashion for additional playability as well.

What additional rooms would you suggest? I suppose there is space across from the dining room (next to the elevator to add another room, but I'm not sure what would go there.

You know what? If you add one or two play features to the upper level, this would work as two separate sets - like the rancor pit and Jabba's palace. As someone who has tackled cloud city myself, I can appreciate the effort you have put in to get the 'look' whilst restricting the piece count.

I hope when Lego finally get around to revamping their Cloud City, they take a look at yours first!

This really means a lot coming from you, as your diorama from a couple years ago is one of the best Cloud City builds I've seen.

At one point I was thinking of splitting it out into two sets as you suggest, and it really wouldn't be hard to do, but the inclusion of the elevator made me decide against doing it that way (I've also now included a string/winch above the freezing chamber, which would also be a bit tricky under that configuration.

Excellent work! Marvelous job getting all of the main scenes into one playset. Everyone who gave feedback mirrored my own thoughts, and I have nothing to add. Great work, though.

Great work! Looks better than the official set!

Great job! I hope we see an updated Cloud City as big as this in the near future.

Great work. Makes me really want to see Episode V again.

I love how you recreated every area! My favourite is the junkyard with C-3PO pieces around, followed by the carbonite chamber!

What torso did you use for luke?

Great MOC! You've made it exacly the right size and shape!

I would not advice you to add more rooms, you've got exactly the right amount, everything important from movie is there.

Great work marshall, it's always great to find someone who's as equally obsessed with Cloud City as I am!

You've done a great job of expanding the original set whilst retaining the 'classic' look of it. If you're looking to improve it, I'd suggest making the landing platform a touch bigger and using the trans-neon green studs, rather than the orange. In addition, you could also replace some of the internal LBG upslopes in the duelling ‘corridor’ with dark red, and add some additional greebling to that section (black wall pipes etc?)

And, sorry for the delay...

Nice one!

I think some areas need some more detail (just to compete better with the detailed areas). For instance the prison cell, the space next to the carbonite freezing machine and the outside where the dueling platform is. Maybe, the underneath part is a little too big?

Big fan of the upper part, the ugnaught workshop, the platforms. If Lego is going to release something like this i will be a happy man! (but a set like this needs also ugnaughts, and some bespin guards. And a spin-off set with a decent twin-pod cloud car and two pilots of course).

Oh marshall, really solid props to this exciting new approach to Cloud City. Awesome planning and execution. I've been admiring this thread for days since you posted it, unable until now to form my own response to the awesomeness. For right now, the only thing I can truly think to say is that in the immortal words of the 1990s hip hop group Salt-n-Pepa, your Cloud City makes me wanna shoop!

Edited April 28, 201410 yr by darththeling

That's fantastic!

Bravo!