New Hope For Lego Design by me...

Space Patrol Ship Lego Design by me set - interior shot.

Well, it's not really Lego Design by me... In some respects it's something even cooler!

A chance to get your Lego set made into a full production set which gets full proper production and advertised and sold - and you get 1% commission on the sale of your design?

I'd love for this set to be made, if you want to see 'Space Patrol' in production and show me some support - go to this page:-

http://lego.cuusoo.com/ideas/view/5384

sign in with facebook - and click on the support button the like button and tweet it!

Maybe I should offer to buy a copy of the production set and offer it up in a prize draw?  I'll think about that one... I don't know how much the set would be as a production - I'm guessing about £60, I had to pay £90 for it as a Design by me....

Anyway, please, please do me a huge favor and earn eternal gratitude... And help get my Space Patrol set made production!

Thanks!

Some images to tempt you?  Remind you what the set I want made into production looks like?

The Space Patrol model with the Lego Design by me box

 

 

Lego Design by me : A Swan song...

Lego Design by is closing up shop on January 16th 2012.   Why is Lego Design by me closing shop on 16th Jan 2012?  Who knows...

They've cited cost reasons, frustrated children with models that fall apart... With the demise of Lego Universe I can only assume Lego Chief Executives have had a meeting and decided that to maximize profitability withdraw any products or services which aren't as profitable.

Personally I think Lego Universe is a great game - but the wrong game.  Lego Design by me is a great service though - the problem is it is too expensive.  There are better ways Lego Design by me could have addressed this than shutting up shop though! 

First of all, offer several levels of Lego Design by me service.  A basic where you get a bag of bits and print your own instructions and box cover off.  A Lego Design by me 'silver' where you get the bag of bits, the standard box and printed instructions and a gold Lego Design by me service which includes the glossy cover for the box with your custom lettering.

I just hope Lego Design be me is continued in some similar form once they've got their act together. The prices were supposed to come down once more people were buying and auto-picking robots could be used - but Lego Design by me never had enough customers to warrant the cost.  A vicious circle really...

My nephew was very impressed with my Space Patrol Set when he saw me building it a few weeks ago.  So because Lego Design by me is ending I decided to design and build him a Lego Design by me custom Lego Set for Christmas.  An expensive present - but it's my last chance to order a set and his last chance to own one.

I don't think he'll read this blog - so I think it's safe to show you an image of the model.  I called it the LCX1 Fighter (His initials are L.C.) and I just had room to make the box say Designed by MS for Luke.

Lego Design by me Custom Lego Set : LCX1 Fighter

All in all I'm very sad that Lego Design by me is ending, Lego Design by me was probably the best service or product that Lego was offering.  I can see the issue - designing models looks easy - but to make sure your Lego Design by me model will be solid and not fall apart needs an eye for detail, a lot of patience and a great deal of thought.

It's not easy - but it's enjoyable, whether I shall enjoy Lego Digital Designer as much now that you can't purchase your Lego Design by me model - I really don't know...

Lego Design by me : Plagiarism, in the gallery?

I've found increasingly a number of people have been copying and re-branding my Space Patrol set in the Lego Design by me Gallery!

They say imitation is the purest form of flattery, but taking my Lego Design by me set and renaming it - then implying it's YOUR Lego Design by me set isn't cool!  I may be over reacting to this - I'm not sure how it works - maybe people are downloading it and calling it something else because they want to name it something different or add a different crew... I don't know... It does annoy me!

If you want to help and vote for my model then you need to create a Lego Design by me account to access Lego Design by me, then go to the Lego Design by me Gallery Then do a search for :-

Space Patrol

Click on the one that looks like my model and the username should read martynstanley, I'd appreciate any votes incredibly!  Even if just to rank it higher than the copies!

Incidentally, if anyone likes Lego and would like to own my Lego Design by me Space Patrol set - then go ahead and buy it! - I would be really flattered, and would love to think there's a small fleet of 'Space Patrol' Lego Design by me ships around the world.

I don't promote myself to be the greatest Lego Design by me designer ever - I just like doing Lego Design by me and wanted to share.  It is a good Lego Design by me set - the guns fall off too easily - but apart from that it's great, and your 8 - 12 year old Lego Space fan will love it, even though it is a Lego Design by me set.

Lego Design by me packaging and box quality.

One thing I haven't talked about yet is the quality of the packaging and the print quality of the box you get when you buy a Lego Design by me set.  First things first, I'll explain what you get with a Lego Design by me set.  What you get is a large, standard Lego Design by me set box - with a glossy, printed wrap around cover to go over the top.

I presume this keeps the costs down for Lego Design by me, but the overall quality is excellent.  If anything the finished printed Lego Design by me box is better quality than it looks like it will be when you design it.

The Lego Design by me, box design interface is pretty easy to use - easier than the Lego Digital Designer you used to create the model anyway.  You can add a title and who designed it - I would say more characters to use in the title would have been nice.  On the Lego Design by me box interface you get a series of graphics and backgrounds you can add - and you can create a different picture for the front and the back of your custom box.

I was very pleased with my Lego Design by me set, from the model, to print quality of the box.  It isn't like a production set - you get all 500 bits in one bag and you take a while to sort them out.  The Lego Design by me auto generated instructions are not perfect - they are good!

Lego Design by me - Box & Model

Lego Design by me box - Front Cover

Lego Design by me - back of box

Lego Design by me - back of box with model.

Lego Design by me - Instructions and packing list.

Lego Design by me - Instructions and model

Lego Design by me - Later part of instructions

Lego Design by me - Final page of Instructions

Lego Design by me - Model with Box and glossy sleeve/cover.

Lego Design by me - Model and box

Lego Design by me - Model with removeable roof off.

Lego Design by me - Rear view showing gunner.

Lego Design by me - Crew comprising Pilot, Navigator, Captain and Gunner from left to right.

Lego Design by me - Pilots cockpit 

Lego Design by me - Front view - Pilot in foreground

I've included some pictures of the Lego Design by me box so you can see the quality.

The Finished Model!

Well I finished the model, and I really love the complete model. It's a really solid Lego Set the only real weak points are the guns which do break off really easily - but are easily fixed.

The roof section comes off really easily - it's great for accessing the interior and I really love the functional looking interior - it looks like it could work as a multi crew spacecraft.

Images below:-

My Space Patrol set with the vintage Lego Space Transporter craft shown for scale. (Set 918)

My Space Patrol set with a vintage space pilot shown for scale.

Rear view of the craft, the engines and the gunners viewscreen are shown.

This is how the roof section is removed, the large window at the front is easily removed too for better access to the pilot.

The interior of the craft, shown top to bottom are the gunner, captain and navigator.

Close up of the pilots cockpit, not the large amount of computers and controls compared to traditional Lego Space sets - realistic for a large space ship, at least in comparison to the vintage four dials and a steering wheel setup!

Another view of the interior of the ship, showing the pilot mainly, with the navigator in the foreground.

View of the gunners rear facing window and his two joy sticks.

Main interior shot, showing gunner, captain navigator and pilot, along with some of teh computer consoles.

View of the interior - not the fire extinguisher on the captains side of the ship.

Full interior view - not the ladder for the gunner to get into his seat.

Comparitive shot of the Set 918 Transporter and my 'Space Patrol' Lego Design by Me Set.

Front on view, here you can see the pilot, the navigator and the captain, their seats can be swivelled to face forwards.

Close up view of the gunners seat.

Side on view of the whole craft, there is a small window, going across for the captain and navigator and a large window on either side of the gunner so he can better orientate himself.

Rear 3/4 view, not the large amount of small booster rockets and similar in addition to the main engines.

The top mounted rear gun rotates through 360 and tilts up to 45 degrees.

Front 3/4 view - all guns forward facing, the ones at the front will tilt outwards by 45 degrees.

Main side on view - note the large window for the pilot and the impressive array guns.

Building the set.

Well I had some great fun with my 4 year old little girl at the static caravan building my 'Space Patrol' Lego Design by me set...

These images are actually pretty good quality, you can zoom in on any image by clicking on it - then again a second time for full size.

I thought it would be fun to make it look like the crew were building the ship - it was nearly finished at this stage, most of 530 pieces in place.

Here we see the incomplete cockpit - with the Captain and Gunner in their seats.

Here are the navigator and pilot finishing off the ship - fitting a wing section no less!

At the start of this build, the glass baking dish was 100% full to the brim - one problem with large design by me sets is the fact you don't get little numbered bags - you just get a massive bag and a packing list...

The instructions actually came in two books - there were so steps!  The instructions also - being automatically generated are not up to the standards of commercial Lego Sets - they were useful, helpful and generally pretty good - however, there were a few steps which weren't entirely easy to follow.  Of course you can always refer to the LD4 program to see exactly what goes where.

I'll be sharing the wonderful printed box next time and some more images of the complete ship - perhaps with some images of a vintage Lego Spaceship for comparison.

My set came!

I actually bit the bullet and went ahead and ordered my Design by Me 'Space Patrol' set.

It's the long ship with big guns on either side and on top, that you find my looking in the gallery for 'space patrol'.

I spent a long time checking and re-checking that it should produce a solid useable model, and I was making fine corrections up until the day I ordered it. 

530 pieces!  It's a big set, it cost me nearly £100, but I'm really, really pleased with it.  The quality of printing on the box is fantastic and looks better than you can appreciate from the design screen.

It actually only just fit into the box, so unless they do bigger boxes I would consider restricting sets to at least less than 700 pieces or they might have to ship it in two boxes. 

The pieces also come in one huge bag with a picking list.  So it's harder to build than a normal set, you have to spend some time sorting out the pieces. 

I had a great time building it, with my 4 year old daughter (She loves space ships) and the finished model was fantastic, my 11 year old nephew says HE wants to order it too!

What I might do - is get my nephew my smaller less expensive set for christmas.  The one I am documenting the build of here.

Overall, I am reallly pleased with the service, and the quality of the set.  I would say though - if you are ordering, spend lots of time checking and re-checking the set by going through the building instructions online and making sure it will fit together and form a solid model.  If you don't - you could end up with an expensive lego set that falls apart in your hands!

Thankfully, I hadn't made any errors and it formed a really solid, functional set - the only weak point being the guns falling off at the slightest knock, but I kind of expected that so...

A few more pictures of the smaller model that I might order my nephew for Christmas:-