MIDI-Scale Venator Star Destroyer

Hello everyone,

Very soon, this project is getting it's forst official comment (horray!) - unfortunately, it will just announce project expiration.

712 supporters - not the tiniest number, yet not even reaching the tenth of our goal. If I had to pick several factors which most importantly lead to this failure, it would be insufficient promotion (my bad), faulty main picture (my bad) and the time of submition which wasn't the luckiest.

Still I'd like to say big thanks to everyone who supported this (and my other project), followed my updates and submited heartwarming comments. I really appreciate your interest and I hope it's lasting :)

Many of you have been asking whether I plan to re-submit my projects, mostly suggesting such thing in particular. To give you a honest answer, I have to say that I'm not sure at the very moment. The reason for my doubts is this cloud of uncertainty floating above every single Star Wars project - can it ever get approved in review? Or are all these projects doomed to the same destiny of getting 'not approved' tag?

The official word regarding this is rather unclear and that's what bothers be in the first place. Running a succesful project that reaches 10K requires a lot of effort and I want to be sure the chances are real. I hope to get more elaborated answer regarding these questions from Lego Ideas Staff - then I can decide whether to start over or not.

In the mean time, thanks again for all the support and good luck to all of the other projects here on Ideas!

Kris

Hello everyone!

I have been getting a lot of questions and suggestions regarding the scale/size of this model. Some people say that I should have done this Venator either bigger to fit UCS scale or smaller to be an affordable mini model. Also I have gooten some comments that it has to many parts for it's size. Some of these comments were comparing this project to LEGO 8039 Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser saying that it was bigger (and better) model with less parts (1501 vs. 1170).

At first, I appreciate all of these comments, it's the constructiove feedback I asked for. For those who were speculating about the size, I created a picture comparing my Venator with the #8039 one.

Now let me speak a bit about the differences, scale and general purpose of my 'MIDI-Scaled' models.

Looking at the picture, everyone can see that my Venator is smaller. Maybe you expected it to be even smaller, maybe you thought it was bigger or you figured out exactly how big would it be :) Anyway, there is an obstacle in question 'Why does the smaller model have significantly more parts?'

Sometimes Lego designers try to use as few parts as possible to create something quite big. Especially on playsets like 8039, there are big plates and bricks used to build the hull, there is no intention in covering gaps and making the design clean. I don't mean to say that lego designers have made a bad work - not at all. They just had a different goal. Their playsets has to be fairly easy to build, playable with minifig interior. Kids won't care about some design inaccuacy or missing greebling.

In contrary, my goal couldn't have been more different. Design and accuracy was my priority no. 1. The only other aspect with equal importance was rigidity. During whole desig process I was lead by these two factors. Part saving was far behind.

There is huge amount of small parts on my Venator. 1x1 plates, tiles, round plates, roof tiles, greebling elements... i guess that around 700 parts would are smaller than 2x2 brick. If you consider the overal volume of plastic, I believe that my Venator would have equal or less comapred to 8039.

These fact's should help to understand why there are so many parts in otherwise decent-sized model.

Regarding all the suggestions for resizing, either enlargment or shrinkage of my model, I am quite confident that I will not do that. I really like this scale and it has been chosen on purpose. UCS is to big and expensive (at least I can't afford it), smaller scale would set huge limmitation to the level of details. This scale is simply the golden ratio for me :)

Thanks for reading through, I hope some things have been elucidated. If you are like me and like the scale, as well as the model itself, please support and spread the word. Also any further comments, questions and suggestions are highly appreciated.

Kris

Hello!

I have created one more render showing the thursters. I couldn't resist sharing this piece :D

Do you like the creation? Please keep sharing and make this visible! Thanks.

Kris

Recently I have taken the Eurobricks' mini challenge called Dress my Exo Suit. This Exo-Homer is my entry and I have just created this image thinking it might ba funny :D 

If you want to check other cool challenge entries, check out this VOTING THREAD :)

Thank you for all the support and I hope you enjoy this (little bit off toppic) update :)

For more images please check my Flickr Photostream.

Happy building!

Kris

P:S. Exo-Homer is fully buidable! Stay tuned on my MOCpages, building instructions are comming soon!

Hello everyone!

Today I made my first attempt with more complex render showing battle of Coruscant showing my Venator and Invisible Hand in their epic fight! With the lack of photoshop skill I ended up using Gimp image editor. I know that the result is perhaps not the best picture ever made... well but after two hours of editing I'm quite satisfied :D

(I haven't found better image for the background so there is that Tri-fighter disturbing in the top right corner :D)

By the way the blaster shots are rendered lightsaber bars. It does't look so realistic as if I just included some efects but I really loved how these were used in The LEGO Movie and wanted to follow this pattern.

I hope you like this little update. If you do and if you want to give my project chance for becoming reality, please support, leave comments and share wherever you can. We suffer from lack of publicity and eventhough I'm doing everything within my power to atract attention for my projects, without Your help I'm short on this.

Thank you!

Kris

The Open Circle Fleet was a major space fleet of the Galactic Republic's navy during the days of the Clone Wars. This armada rose to prominence during the Outer Rim Sieges, when it was under the command of Jedi Generals Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. The elite pilots of the Open Circle Fleet won countless victories for the Republic Navy against the Separatists, including the Battle of Coruscant. (Wookiepedia)

The OCF emblem is well known among Star Wars fans and it's significant sign of Venator star destroyers belonging in this fleet. As a greenhorn in using photoshop-like programs, I made my fist attempt of including this emblem onto my Venator. It's way not perfect but I think it's good for start.

The emblem is printed on 2x2 light bluish gray tile. I believe this could be pretty easy to do for LEGO. 

I hope you like it as much as I do. Right now I'm working on Separatist emblem for my Invisible Hand which I bring in update cooming soon. Be sure to check it out, leave the comment and mainly SUPPORT both projects so we can have these ships on shelves :) Thank you for your time.

Kris

Hello, 

As you noticed for sure, I have chosen the classic red color for my Venator. The main reason was that new Dark Red seemd a bit to vine purple and to dark actually. Well but recently, I have started getting bricks to build my model in real and Dark Red appears as better choice. (Most of builders have chosen dark red either for their venator models) 

Regarding that, I have made one new rendering with this Dark Red. I personaly would like something between these two shades well but thats not the option :) I hope you like the new skin any by the way, I can start real build after 1-2 BrickLink orders, thus as soon as possible :)

Dont forget to support and follow, both Venator and my other project: The Invisible Hand if you like them and let me know in comments what do you think about recent update. 

Oh, and last but not least, have fun with LEGO :) !!

Thank you for stopping by!

Kris

Day 19; 200 Supports reached! Thank you! (1k+ views)

Kris

Are you on MOCpages? Do you have any MOC here on Ideas you would like to promote? Or are you just interested in seing and discussing other people Ideas? 

Then come and join the brand new LEGO® Ideas Group!

(Follow this link to join: http://mocpages.com/group.php/24440)

Share your ideas and get some publicity for it. Any MOCpages user is welcome. 

I'm looking forward to see your creations there :) !

Kris

Hello my dear followers.

Today, I'd like to share with you two building tips which I used on my Venator. Both of them are based on the Lego Angular Brick.

This lego element is pretty old and very well known among lego builders. Thanks to its dimensions, it has huge potential and various use in many construction techniques and tricks. By designing this Venator, I was using the benefits brought by this brick very often and thats why I decided to share two main solutions with you.

I. Narrowing of top hangar door

Top red hangar door is a hallmark of Venator class Star Destroyer. The important fact about it is, that its width is slightly but certainly increasing from front to back of the ship. This aspect, however, brings a difficult task for lego builders. The width ratio of front and back should be about 1:3. Bigger lego Venator models usually use wedge-step method (example: http://mocpages.com/moc.php/34195). In my oppinion, this only look good on really big models and for the scale I build my model in, it can't be applied at all - I would only have one step.

I was facing the decision: Either to leave hangar straight (2 studs wide) or to bring up some idea how to capture this narrowing. To be honest, I'm very happy that I've chosen the second option. Eventhough it took some time to figure out, I ended up with this design and no woder that Angular Brick plays a big role in it.

Sure, still we have visible steps. But these are only 1/2 of tile height and I think it looks acceptable. To reach this result, I used following method.

Putting these together, you get this cute wedge.

This pattern can be easily used repeatedly so you can go as wide as you need.

Hyperdrive generator stern slope

This part took me even more time to figure out. Lego bricks pallete offers various types of slopes. Unfortunately, none of them was matching my requirements in this scale. These are some unsatisfactory concept I was trying before I found the pleasing solution.

2x1x2 Roof tile used on first concept is fine, but it needs to be secured with tile at top and underneath plate. That ruins the overal slope. The second option has ugly big steps on it, while the third is like saw vice versa. Well, time for Angular brick again :)

Now, the same 1x1x2/3 Roof tiles create pretty smooth slope. There is also big scope for rigidity improvements I included in the final design.

Well, that's all I've prepared for this update. I hope that some of you may find it interesting and useful. Be sure to let me know in comments what do you think about it. If you have some other questions about this model, feel free to ask.

Thank you for your supports and sharing this project!

Kris