Put Your Brick Where Your Mouth is TWO

[Nabii]

Hi all, following you'll find my feedback on every entry.
(And a note for those expecting a package for finishing before the original deadline - I haven't had a chance to get to the staff store yet - your package will be dispatched as soon as I have them - the store is now closed until the new year - apologies for the continuing wait!)

$7,99 - between 140 and 165grams - including 1 to 4 minifigures. (army builders with 4 figures your top weight should stop at 150g!)

Ted Andes - Sky Raiders (155g) – shocks me how much you got into the set at this weight. Maybe I made a mistake in my calculations! Fun design, clear differentiation between the two bikes, easy to see there may be some conflict here. Worried about the wings holding on just the t-bars, in our heat test they would probably droop quite a bit. Storm Hawks is a great cartoon so it was nice to see the reference, sometimes it's good to extrapolate an idea from a universe you like into your own version. Very nice first entry in to the competition!

_zenn – Aeronaut (140g) – This is more the size I was expecting at this price point, it's a very cool looking swooshable steampunkish flying surfboard, I like it. Then I saw how many custom elements you used! Wow. An average theme might get 6 or 7 new elements, you used them all on one model! Awesome though it is this many new elements all in the same colour is going to confuse kids. That said, the inclusion of the bag and compass accessories adds a lot of play value to this and we did tell you you can create your own elements without any restrictions. The coolness remains!

ForestFeller (4estFeller) – Habib and Tourist (70g) – I have to presume this is a steampunk/alternate history entry as I'm not seeing a lot of spaciness. Well photographed and very clean looking model with two nice characters and some well built scenery. The weight is actually very low so I'm not sure potential purchasers would see the value in the set compared with the other entries. It is however very realistically sized and well constructed. Heads in a basket always get an extra point!

eti – Galactic Cafe – (160g) – You're right eti, we were very generous with the weight for a $7.99 set, and your use of LEGO Games micro figures takes that to the extreme edge (the competition categories do specify mini-figures). Two factions (friendly ones), two ships, and a large building all in such a small set is amazing, it's a clever idea to bring the smaller figures in but technically it does mean this should be a game! Those figures cannot hold tools or sit down, be posed or anything reducing their playability without games rules. But, very iconic spaceships that look easy to build and good presentation too help make this a still very appealing idea.

pasukaru76 – CGU Scimitar – (108g) – Really? Only 108 grams? I'm presuming there is a mini-figure in the cockpit as that is part of the competition. It looks very swooshy, but building the entire main body upside-down with no clear way of placing it flat on a surface worries me a little on the buildabilty. The flick fires are also quite awkward to fire under these panels (learned that one myself in Space Police) Wow, it seems like I'm picking a lot of holes in this: it should be a trans windscreen so we can see the pilot, an extra colour to break up the grey and red, some LEGO identity (a visible stud or two) to show this is made of LEGO. But, lets be honest these are all pretty minor things, this is a very swooshable model for the weight, with a very nice size and shape which with just these (admittedly quite a lot) minor changes could be ready to go in a box.

S.B.P.D. - Sam – (146g) – Small Armoured Manned – is what I figure 'Sam' might be. I like the tan colour a lot and using black only for the weapons makes them stand out, very smart, good use of technic panels too (like pasukaru above) light in wieght but they add a lot of volume. I would have liked a rear shot to see the build better. I can see this is very swooshable and I can imagine how much fun this would be swooping down on enemy factions – pew-pew! I think I would have placed one of the figures on the ground as one of these enemies and boost playability or cut him completely to beef up the 'SAM' just a little more. This is still a very nice little space hover ship though, nice one.

Athalus – unnamed mining vehicle – (120g) – Great entry, I can see this as a set, and though you seem surprised it looks about right for a $7.99 to me. Buildability looks good, though I would be worried the roll cage would touch the wheels and stop them going around when it's pushed. The colours are fine, the two figures could be a team of miner or opposing factions, you've left it ambiguous which is good. It has a good industrial feel to it, like a modified futuristic forklift, you seem to have thought about it quite a bit. The enhanced crystals are only a small detail, but nice. Perhaps another colour to slightly break up the red and black would be nice to make building clearer. But that's a minor quible, it's a great vehicle for the weight.

S.B.P.D. - DF3J7 La Rouille Seau – (155g) – (the rust bucket). This is a micro space entry I think – I see no mini-figures, though the tools on the back of the flying vehicle suggest they might be around somewhere. Anyway figs were part of the competition, so you loose a few points in playability. This looks like an epic battle between a rusted old giant robot and a spacecraft with a huge engine. Nice idea, maybe it's a post-apocalyptic robot uprising MOC rather then steampunk? Not much back story and besides going pew-pew, not a lot of play features are obvious. But there are some interesting parts usage and I'm sure these cold be a lot of fun to do the pewing with! They look pretty stable too.

Ewok in Disguise – Space Aces: Meteor Interceptor Ambush (92g) – Cool little MOC, very swooshable, nice factions and loots of playability. By this point in the marking I'm fairly sure I made a mistake at this category and I've been very generous with the weight, though you've edited yourself in this case I kinda think you should have taken advantage and made this a little bigger.
It looks pretty stable and has some interesting but still buildable aspects to it, the flick shooter adds a lot of extra play and the weapon compartment is a nice touch.

S.B.P.D. - T18K1 Briquet puis l'air (155g) – (Lighter than Air) Okay, I know just how much it costs to put those wing elements and those click joints in a set, but wings and legs are quite a clever way to give a huge size impression with only a few elements, I congratulate you on a job well done! Looks very playable, though it's hard to tell if they are friends or enemies, they seem to be in conflict so colouring one faction a different colour would have been a good idea. (Check out how colourful real Victorian machines were – brown is doing them a disservice.) They look pretty buildable but I think your back legs are not fully looked and will be quite floppy.
A nice playable creations with cool appearance, great stuff.

[Nabii]

$14,99 - 220 to 260g - including 1 to 3 minifigures

Nolnet2 – Wadenbeisser – (258g) – I have to admit this was one of my favourite entries, it's just a bit crazy! This would need some budget behind it just to explain to kids how a spaceship with arms and a mouth makes sense, and yet it's just cool enough it's worth doing this. It has a cannon (kids love technic shooters) it seems totally legal, though perhaps has a few unorthodox, weak and too easily pulled apart connections then it has to have and some of it looks a bit hard to communicate its construction in pictures. It would also be nice if the second figure and the rocks instead represented an opposing force to introduce a little conflict. However that's really trying to find fault in a great entry and it's still way up there for me!

S.B.P.D. - Oruk – (163g) – I moved this one up a weight category as you have another one in the lower weight. A military-ish hover or walking tank with two minifigures (not identical so possibly of different factions) so good playability. The two eyes on the front give it a 'face' kinda looks like a giant armoured hamster – not a bad thing, cute can go a long way to making an appealing model. Hard to see how buildable it is without a rear shot (always include a rear three quarter photo like your front three quarter one). It's also a bit too grey, the black helps break it up a little, but a brighter highlight stripe or spot colour would have helped lift it. Nice entry.

t cory – Commando Heli – (214g) – You might be right saying this is more likely to be a $20 set because of the larger elements, but it fits quite comfortably in this category, just very slightly underweight but with these elements that is actually good judgment. Great colour scheme and a nice sized main vehicle. I can see there are quite a few connection points for the tail attachment but I question how easy it would be to build from pictures and if a part does fall off how easy it would be for young clumsy hands to replace. The rotor blade connection looks particularly weak. However it is incredibly swooshable and the small hover chair with a huge green flame is very well observed for how to include a bad guy on a vehicle at negligible extra cost (bonus points). Excellent entry.

workfromtheheart – XP-73S Angelica Raptor – (233g) – Very swooshable and nicely coloured MOC. However I see a two stud connection holding on the cockpit – I'm assuming the same for the tail – and the whole tail rotor section is held in place by elastic bands! Stability and buildability taking a bit of a blow from this! I like the compact cockpit, though again it's construction gives me a bit of a worry, however good job stabilizing the brick built wings with studs up wings it's a clever idea. Also the dark red wing tips help balance the red elastic bands, nice consistency. Cool little swoopable spaceship.

ezra – Space Racers Double Pack – (232g) – Great idea, and nice to see some old themes make a return. The design of the racer is very cool and looks fairly simple to explain on paper. I would be worried the tail fins might break off, but they look pretty simple to replace. My big problem with this is the virtually identical racers. Different racing teams should have different racing vehicles, yes they should look like they are in the same class, but a few cosmetic changes is not enough – look at the pod racers in Star Wars or the hover racers in the Wipeout games. You have not been dramatic enough! Damn shame as the idea and the pilots deserve more. That said racing is a great play offering and these have a lot of swooshability, you still have a few grams left, you might have been able to slip in a mechanic with a spanner – always try to use every last drop of budget you have! I really like these, thanks for entering them.

S.B.P.D. - A15C9 La chaud L'air Montgolfiere – (163g) – 'The hot air Montgolfiere', well you say it's steampunk, but it's another entry where I was having trouble seeing the sci-fi until I went to your MOCpages and saw the wideness of the car and the balloons propulsion. So I assume this is an alternate future, it's a nice car and interesting balloon basket, the balloon itself seems a bit basic in construction and inverted pyramids are actually very hard for younger kids to build because of the overlapping edges. Might have been better to put one of the guards in the car and make it clear they were not from the same side as the explorer, also to have avoided the 'all steampunk is brown' trap that a lot of builders fall into – most Victorian cast iron machinery was painted bright colours, reds, greens, yellow or blue and used in the right way this would have stopped this being so brown dominated. Still it has a lot of playability added with tools etc. and the car and balloon basket look very nice and yet buildable. A good entry.

Stardusty – FIX-N9 Starfighter – (230g) – This kinda reminds me of a Star Wars E-Wing from the expanded universe comics. Great colour scheme and a very funky very swooshable starfighter. The connections are legal but that cockpit box looks a bit fragile and the connections look a bit weak to give to a kid. Still the wings and the engines all look pretty builable so the cockpit angles would probably raise the age range a bit, but not too much to lift it out of the regular target range.
Good colour choices, nice opening cockpit, I really like the rear angle on this too.

[Nabii]

$29,99 - 350 to 385g - including 2 to 4 minifigures

Grandpappy – Barracuda's Revenge – (460g) – Sorry Nathan but it was part of the competition to fall in-between the weight guides, turning it back on us to fit it in somewhere is not putting your brick where your mouth is, as a LEGO Designer I often have to cut down a model I like, remove something to make it fit the inside price limit, it's by far the toughest part of the job. The idea is to give the entrants a taste of this. The Lancer mecha I would have kept the same – Barracuda's speeder I can see ways to keep a similar volume craft but with a lot less pieces, maybe just two (or even one) technic shooters) – the landing platform maybe just reduced to the ladder and a single robot. You've kind of failed to see the point of the competition!

Okay, harshness over, if we had a $40 category this would be perfect, it's a very, very nice entry, You have two very differentiated factions both in terms of vehicle colours and minifigures, lots of nice play features (more technic shooters then I expected) and it looks amazing. That Mecha is very clean with a central stripe of tan and lots of nice dark blue all with good colour blocking. The speeder is good for a named character, not too small and with a big punch, great playbility with the shooters too. The landing platform, technician and robots all add to this. (But because of your weight breaking I will not be including them in my score, sorry.)

S.B.P.D. - S6310 Trolls Tantrum – (360g) – Opening hatch and opening rear add good playabilty. The colour choices make it hard to see if the artillery crew are on the same side as the ship and the colour blocking on the ship itself kind of adds to it's boxy appearance rather then distracts from it. I can imagine kids having fun with the ship and the gun platform though, it lends itself to play scenarios and there are enough figures to keep it interesting.
Looks very buildable with a standard studs up construction, I'm a bit cautious about the stability of the wings and the guns under the wings but these are pretty minor points in what looks like an easy to handle model. Cool.

t cory – Gorilla MTTC and Barracuda APC – (386g) – Nice looking police vehicles, both vehicles are police vehicles so not as much playability as there could be with a bad guy vehicle. Interesting use of hero Factory elements on MTTC giving it some cool posing possibilities. Interesting use of parts throughout in fact leading to some interesting shaping, but perhaps creating some weaknesses during play? Hard to tell without handling it, so I'll give the benefit of the doubt. I really like the look if these too, they have a Japanese feel to me, kinda Manga inspired, or like Suzuki concept vehicles or something, I like them.


$59.99 - 800 to 900g - including 3 to 5 minifigures

legosammy – Space Scavengers (827g) – Nice looking six wheeler. Cool idea for a theme too. Lacking a bit of colour and more photographs would have been appreciated. On MOCPages you only have two pictures, both from the same front high angle – a rear angle and maybe a low dramatic shot would have helped. It is very grey, some highlights or accent colour would have helped lift it, though I admit it does make the aliens really stand out! Good playable function, a search and discover play feature and a chunky looking mining vehicle that fits the theme idea very well. Good MOCing!

lego-maniac – The Invasion Begins – (440g) – First, nice video. But like Nathan (Grandpappy) in the $29 dollar category you have missed the point of put your brick where your mouth is. You have a very nice set idea here, but it doesn't fit any of the price points you have available, so it needs to get much bigger, or it needs to come with another model included, or it needs to get smaller. That's why our weight limits had gaps between them. Instead you enter it as it is. Points lost! Sorry.
In fact I'm very sorry as this is an incredibly playable little set, the pop out holding pod and power core idea is great and the ship itself is an excellent shape with lots of nice opening sections. I'm not sure how well the hinges on the doors would hold up to a seven year old (clip joints would be a better choice) but that's a quick and minor rebuild. The base/science platform seem a bit or a waste of elements though, it could be smaller and you could include a ground vehicle or add the weight of those elements to an opposing forces model. So close to great, if only you'd fit the weight better.

Lego Monster guy – Art Bell, The Frantic Area51 Caller (691g) – You too missed the point. I like the radio station, the phone box and MIB car, but would you pay $60 for this? Maybe $30? So, you would have to get the weight below 385g... that was the challenge. This should have had either parts removed or parts added. I had no idea who Art Bell was either, I had to look it up. LEGO normally only go for internationally known licenses!
I think as it is a science fiction competition, you could have included a UFO or a top secret aircraft and still have come in under the weight limit. I do like what you have made, I see a lot of playability with the car, the head sucker, the cool radio station. Looks pretty easy to build too, all studs up but still with a lot of detail, probably a 5+ rather than the 8+ (or higher) that most MOCs are, and this is a compliment, to get this level of detail in an easy to build model is a skill of it's own, very well done.

Spacie – Dropship and Lifeform – (about 500g) – It's easy to build $40-ish dollar models, most of the sketch models we make at LEGO would probably fall into this range, and that's one reason I asked for a gap in this area, the aim of the competition is to give you a bit of a taste of what it's like to be a Designer, to have to either boost or shrink a model to fit the price point you are aiming for. It's weird so many people have ended up in this category by default.
I wish there were more pictures in your Flickr of this, I really like the lines of the ship I see in the video, it looks really swooshable. The playability, the functions, the colours and the details are excellent. The figures seem a little bit unpolished but they are interesting choices and the caterpillar creature is great. It all looks reasonably easy to build, stable and a lot of fun to play with. Good job.



$89,99 - 1100 to 1250g - including 5 to 9 minifigures

Grandpappy – Extended Range Recon Vehicle – (950g) – Okay, you're quite a way underweight, I could launch into another rant about missing the point, but these are pretty expensive tyres so it's much closer to realistic then not. But with the range we gave you, you could have added at least three more figs – maybe added some troops to the Tarantula's side, I just feel it's so damn close to perfect why not just take the time to push it to the rules limit! But these are minor things. This is en excellent entry, lovely looking MOCs with clear factions, massive amounts of playability, from extra vehicles (that then transform again), tools, robots and the ever popular technic shooter! The colour scheme is excellent, the background is just enough and the walker feels intimidating and slightly scary, like a potential bad guy should. Just wonderful, even if there were other entries in this category this would have scored very high and been tough to beat.

[Strange Animal]

Thanks for all your complements and constructive criticism. I total realize what you mean by the brown, brown, brown thing.Ill try to work on that when building steampunk in the future."This is a micro space entry I think – I see no mini-figures, though the tools on the back of the flying vehicle suggest they might be around somewhere. Anyway figs were part of the competition, so you loose a few points in playability." yeah like it says there is a minifig in the robot but its hard to see with out opening the front door piece thing, witch I did not give a picture of so my fault.But I do like your interpretation of it.

"Small Armoured Manned – is what I figure 'Sam' might be." Actual Its not I just could not name it so i called it Sam.But i thank you for make err what are those things called acra somethings.
"A military-ish hover or walking tank with two minifigures" it has wheels but my fault again for not get good photos of them."It's also a bit too grey, the black helps break it up a little, but a brighter highlight stripe or spot colour would have helped lift it." I see what you mean

[pasukaru76]

Congrats to the winners! Kudos to Mark for providing feedback on all the entries, makes a nice read and those holes you poked into my design were well deserved.

[lego_maniac]

congratulation to the winners !
Thanks a lot for this contest and moreover BIG Thanks to Mark for his feedback on our construction.
You're right for the com', I've missed something in categories and weight... too bad.
I'll even try to enhance the flying saucer as you preconise and take off the plateforme and replace with maybe an old farmer car as I've made in my dio :

First (physical) Contact between human and alien by LegoManiac - (LM), on Flickr

[Sir Michael Le Fanu]

Ooh, thats snazzy! It may get more attention in the MOC Announcements forum, so if you want some great feedback put it in there!

[Nolnet2]

Whoa, whoa, wait a minute! I'm late to my own (sort of) party?!
Haha, how awesome is that!

Thanks a lot for reviewing and responding to each and every entry. You guys are great!
And congrats to the lucky winners!

[Strange Animal]

Whoa, whoa, wait a minute! I'm late to my own (sort of) party?!
Haha, how awesome is that!

Thanks a lot for reviewing and responding to each and every entry. You guys are great!
And congrats to the lucky winners!

How is this your party

[Sir Michael Le Fanu]

Dont start something now, there's no need to turn CSF into a scum filled Tatooine Cantina.