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ANOTHER NEW CAR PIC TODAY
This, also finished today, is the #99 SuperFast / EZ race car.
Red-yellow-black happens a lot in this field. I had to become aware of unintentionally duplicating patterns. I think I avoided that. Heavily breaking away from standard shaping is helping and adding to the near future and experimental vibe of the cars.
2 3 20 28 30 84
SIX CARS REMAIN
6/1/2021:
CAR CONSTRUCTION
* Taking a break from the racing field, I started to fix the compact taxicab I rebuilt. While putting the gas cap on, I somehow locked up the back wheels and now have to rebuild the rear end.
* Finished the driver figs for the 28, 30, and 84 cars, except that I need the proper helmet for the 30.
* Cleared my building space of most of the cars that were clogging it up.
* I now have the bases, wheel wells, tires and rims done for the 20, 28, 30, and 84 cars. Beyond this, all cars are either alternate racing teams or street legal cars.I think I’ll fix this taxi and then attack the #2 and #3 two car team, rebuilding the roof and rear of both cars to copy the shaping and stickering of each hood. Building with a center stud along the hood and trunk within the 6-stud wide architecture will be a theme from here on out. I’ll also need some flat silver 1×2 plates with door rail for the running boards of the #84 car. Time to start gathering together another BL order.
I also realized that I may have duplicated heads among the drivers. While that’s okay among the pit crews, it won’t be okay among the drivers.
On some crews, I have extra figs for mechanics and crew chiefs that can go into the pit boxes (as seen in the #46 car photo above). I’ll set them amid computer banks and team VIPs atop the paddock (which will double as luxury car parking along my City’s main four lane boulevard.
This will be called River Boulevard, because I have the Xtra stickers for the street signs.
2 3 20 28 30 84
SIX CARS REMAIN
6/2/2021:
TAXI!
Finished improving the taxicab model I had. Expanded it to fit two figs (barely) as it made zero sense to have a taxi that only had the driver. I need the proper stckers for the second one, but if you have one cab, you need two.
Rich these cars are much better than I could have imagined … so much smoother than standard LEGO vehicles. Thanks for posting all the photos!
PACE CAR ANNOUNCED
This is the Pace Car for the V8 GT Grand Prix Series.
The Track Marshal hasn’t been decided yet, but one of our recently retired drivers is having a good time turning laps in slow cruise mode.
Rich these cars are much better than I could have imagined … so much smoother than standard LEGO vehicles. Thanks for posting all the photos!
Thanks for the steady support, @greg. Onve the field is complete, I’ll ask for favorites so I know who the hot racers are when I simulate a race. So, any favorites so far?
6/8/2021:
PARTS NEEDED
I tried building the #2 and #3 two car team, and quickly realized that neither of those cars have a driver yet. So I need DBG and orange monochrome torsos and helmets for these guys, and one 1×3 DBG curved slope.
Then I looked at attacking the #20. No driver. Similar problem. I can’t even design the #20’s driver yet because I need to add orange, white and black to this yellow car and figure out the color blocking first. #30? No helmet, and there is a specialized head from the original set that I want to get. #84?! No flat silver runner boards for the sides, and it too has a specialized driver fig out there.
Soooooooo…
Looks like I’m building yet another investment for this home stretch of cars. But I *can* build up and around the parts I need with the parts I do have, and maybe go so far as to build the #2 car, with sponsorship stickering, sans driver. And that’s the new plan.
2 3 20 30 84
FIVE CARS REMAIN
6/14/2021:
Rough week. Filling in for someone’s vacation at work. Lots of work grind. Met with @randomdan to look at our most recent builds and swap ideas and plans. I might buy some parts from him.
So I decided to start fooling around with MILSing a green baseplate as the base for a modular park. I haven’t seen many City/Town displays with a park, and this seems like a low stress way to start building modular City sections. I have collected things from smaller sets over time like a fountain, a picnic bench, a park bench, and one of those newsstand sheds from a LEGO Store build day, so, if I pop in some trees, bushes, and build LBG sidewalks amid the green, that would be a good start.
I want to use a depression onto the base of the green baseplate to save on brick, maybe with a circular dome in the middle. I already know that a two stud MILS thickness around the border of a MILS baseplate is typically all that’s needed for stability.
Not a serious attempt yet, but a decent way to parse bricks out for an easy project I plan to get into after.
While I’m waiting for the money to get after the race car finishing parts, I may decide to start building the next row of baseplates up with the paddock/luxury valet parking spaces. I have ordered some rolling garage door parts in LUGBULK, but none with handles.
I don’t know what I’m going to build this week, but I do have some low stress options at present that will make progress.
6/17/2021:
Needed a break from LEGO every day, so I took one.
Now I’m thinking about that green park again, but maybe now I want to race to the “finish line” and get these last 5 cars into the field. I think the next stage for the GT Grand Prix project is to buy heads and make the drivers a bit more distinctive, while increasing my minifig head library.
I also have a BL cart ready to purchase parts for 39 traffic lights. This is another one of Those Things that multiple builders may need, and I’ll need 10 right off the bat.
I’m also spitballing my Space Container SHIP, and I did some work on it a couple of weeks ago. The locking system works as designed, as least horizontally. This SHIP just might be swooshable once it’s done.
7/19/2021:
Over the weekend, I built two Creator sets:
31097 Creator Townhouse Pet Shop & Café
and
The first build of the Creator Townhouse Pet Shop & Café is basically a set of five 16 x 16 ish cube rooms that stack directly on top of each other with no connections between them. There are about 2-5 pieces of furniture per room above the marquee shops on the “first floor”, and basically one fig per feature.
I built a Space tower just like this a couple of years ago, and, with a little work, connected exterior stairwells are the best way to connect these cubes together. If I were to built them today, I think I would use Technic to pin and remove these brick built staircases from the sides for greater playability and the possibility to rearrange the floors, especially during expansion of the build.
The 16 x 16 cubes are minimal, as one expects from Town/City LEGO, with just enough features to indicate what the space is for. This is also a great size for a “seed” room and to expand this Creator style of building into a much more detailed modular level of build.
As for the Townhouse Toy Store, it’s basically a hobby shop for large RC vehicles, including very nice brick built microscale trains and trucks that seem interchangeable as signage with a little effort. I like the layout of this building, as it is more developed within.
I have decided that I’m going to go with the Creator style of building and then expand and polish these rooms during MOCing to bring them up to the standard of say the Brick Bank (and attached “money laundering” laundromat) that I have on hand.
The cityscape behind the boulevard / Start-Finish line is shaping up, and will be the third, most rearward row of baseplates. I think I’d like to add a luxury car showroom, maybe a gas station on the end, and redevelop the City Pizza custom modular building that’s sitting in blueprint form on my living room floor.
I also picked up 40516 Everyone Is Awesome. Look at this parts list! LOOK AT IT.
Monochrome figs! With different hair for crazy characters! Core parts in MANY colors. What’s not to like? This is a GREAT booster set for a beginner’s parts selection. I have yet to part this out, but I know I will smile at the flexibility it will give to my tile and fig collection, and will add interchangeable arches as a building option. Bonus points: the arches come in pairs.
7/19/2021:
Over the weekend, I built two Creator sets:
and
I bought these with my VIP points because I have some stickers that match these locations, and can easily enhance these sets as I rebuild and MOC them for my Town/City main straight of the Grand Prix build.
The first build of the Creator Townhouse Pet Shop & Café is basically a set of five 16 x 16-ish cube rooms that stack directly on top of each other with no connections between them. There are about 2-5 pieces of furniture per room above the marquee shops on the “first floor”, and basically one fig per feature.
I built a Space tower just like this a couple of years ago, and, with a little work, connected exterior stairwells are the best way to connect these cubes together. If I were to built them today, I think I would use Technic to pin and remove these brick built staircases from the sides for greater playability and the possibility to rearrange the floors, especially during expansion of the build.
The 16 x 16 cubes are minimal, as one expects from Town/City LEGO, with just enough features to indicate what the space is for. This is also a great size for a “seed” room and to expand this Creator style of building into a much more detailed modular level of build. It’ll be much more digestible and fun for me to do this with smaller 16 x 16 sections.
As for the Townhouse Toy Store, it’s basically a hobby shop for large RC vehicles, including very nice brick built microscale trains and trucks that seem interchangeable as signage with a little effort. I like the layout of this building, as it is more developed within.
I have decided that I’m going to go with the Creator style of building and then expand and polish these rooms during MOCing to bring them up to the standard of say the Brick Bank (and attached “money laundering” laundromat) that I have on hand.
The cityscape behind the boulevard / Start-Finish line is shaping up, and will be the third, most rearward row of baseplates. I think I’d like to add a luxury car showroom, maybe a gas station on the end, and redevelop the City Pizza custom modular building that’s sitting in blueprint form on my living room floor. Maybe a small convenience store sized grocery.
I also picked up 40516 Everyone Is Awesome. Look at this parts list! LOOK AT IT.
Monochrome figs! With different hair for crazy characters! Core parts in MANY colors. What’s not to like? This is a GREAT booster set for a beginner’s parts selection. I have yet to part this out, but I know I will smile at the flexibility it will give to my tile and fig collection, and will add interchangeable arches as a building option. Bonus points: the arches come in pairs.
7/19/2021:
Over the weekend, I built two Creator sets:
31097 Creator Townhouse Pet Shop & Café
and
31105 Townhouse Toy Store
I bought these with my VIP points because I have some stickers that match these locations, and can easily enhance these sets as I rebuild and MOC them for my Town/City main straight of the Grand Prix build.
The first build of the Creator Townhouse Pet Shop & Café is basically a set of five 16 x 16-ish cube rooms that stack directly on top of each other with no connections between them. There are about 2-5 pieces of furniture per room above the marquee shops on the “first floor”, and basically one fig per feature.
I built a Space tower just like this a couple of years ago, and, with a little work, connected exterior stairwells are the best way to connect these cubes together. If I were to built them today, I think I would use Technic to pin and remove these brick built staircases from the sides for greater playability and the possibility to rearrange the floors, especially during expansion of the build.
The 16 x 16 cubes are minimal, as one expects from Town/City LEGO, with just enough features to indicate what the space is for. This is also a great size for a “seed” room and to expand this Creator style of building into a much more detailed modular level of build. It’ll be much more digestible and fun for me to do this with smaller 16 x 16 sections.
As for the Townhouse Toy Store, it’s basically a hobby shop for large RC vehicles, including very nice brick built microscale trains and trucks that seem interchangeable as signage with a little effort. I like the layout of this building, as it is more developed within.
I have decided that I’m going to go with the Creator style of building and then expand and polish these rooms during MOCing to bring them up to the standard of say the Brick Bank (and attached “money laundering” laundromat) that I have on hand.
The cityscape behind the boulevard / Start-Finish line is shaping up, and will be the third, most rearward row of baseplates. I think I’d like to add a luxury car showroom, maybe a gas station on the end, and redevelop the City Pizza custom modular building that’s sitting in blueprint form on my living room floor. Maybe a small convenience store sized grocery.
I also picked up
40516 Everyone Is Awesome.
Look up this parts list! LOOK AT IT. Monochrome figs! With different hair for crazy characters! Core parts in MANY colors. What’s not to like? This is a GREAT booster set for a beginner’s parts selection. I have yet to part this out, but I know I will smile at the flexibility it will give to my tile and fig collection, and will add interchangeable arches as a building option. Bonus points: the arches come in pairs.
7/21/2021:
HOT BLACK METAL RACE CAR
Here is the unsponsored #84, in black, flat silver and red. Not all cars have support, and this guy so far is just happy to be here.
I wanted to do more cars with superchargers, as I had the parts, but sticker arrangements, the high presence of “Turbo” among them, and color blocking all contributed to a lot more turbo race cars than superchargers. That’s okay, as I’ll just use these parts on the street legal cars instead.
Next up is the #20 in yellow-orange-white-black. I need driver parts for the #30, and the #2 and #3 cars are twinned as a reverse color two car team, so I need to build them at the same time. I *could* build a #34, #52, and #89 cars still, and I already have the parts for the ancient #16, which was the first LEGO numbered race car made. Yet I reach 43 cars here, I think I’ll shift from cars to track and its Town background, starting with the Start-Finish line, paddock / valet parking stalls, and the winner’s podium.
So, leaving these three car possibilities OUT of “build every non-IP car number LEGO has ever made):
2 3 20 30
FOUR CARS REMAIN
7/27/2021:
CAR CONSTRUCTION
* Cars #2 and #3 are about 90% done. I am at the stickering and surface shaping phase. I had to make concessions on the driver fire suits, and decided to have them match since the colors of the two cars is basically reversing the palette. as for shaping, I also had to raise the cockpit by one plate since the side windows became too tight. I’ll probably go back a step and raise the front half of these cars by one plate to parallel this, with the bonus of giving me more color blocking and shaping options.
2 3 20 30
FOUR CARS REMAIN
7/30/2021:
CAR PICTURES
Here is the two car team of the NEW #2 and #3 cars. I call them Black Jacket Racing.
20 30
TWO CARS REMAIN8/11/2021:
CAR CONSTRUCTION
* Did a little work on the #20 and #30 cars, mostly on the front hood for the #30 and the rear of the #20. I might diverge from some of the standard template of shaping that I’ve been doing on the #84, and the new #2 and #3 cars, as this is my last chance to break from patterns that have made these cars easy to mutate over time. I did find a non-racing sticker sheet with multiple “20” stickers on it, but those are from an Arctic set, so I’m waffling between the printed #20 part and the Arctic sticker set.
* Did a little work on the “alternate” #2 car, as I found a non-numbered black and lime sticker sheet to use to fill out this car a little better. It’ll still be up for donation to a fellow LUGnut, or giveaway later.
CAR DESIGN
* I think I’ll move from racecars into City/Town cars, working on one “alternate” racecar and one street legal car at a time, and probably matching the shaping as I do so.
I already have significant construction done on these cars before I found superior racing sticker sheets for those numerals. The alternate #18 is already earmarked for @randomdan, much like the #3 Smell Zwell was earmarked for @philmatt24. I’ll give these out to LUGnuts who have supported this project in the past or shown interest I think. That’s fair!
After I run out of alternate racecars, I should then have about 5-8 sportscars for my City/Town displays, and will be able to fill the streets tightly with all sorts of vehicles and colors.
* I now have the #89 in mind as one last racecar beyond the 43 car grid, and #34 and #52 cars if I ever land the rare sticker sheet that has those small racer numeral stickers on it. But for now, this is it for the racecars, and street vehicles are creeping in. (SECRET ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED)
* I bought the Car Transporter set, and it turns out that the wheelbase and tire placement of my racecar fleet match this set exactly. Therefore, this will be the wheelbase for all cars that I build, as it seems to be an intended compatibility across LEGO sets.20 30
TWO CARS REMAIN2 4 5 6 7 8 18
ALTERNATES PROBABLE8/16/2021:
CAR CONSTRUCTION
* Did some work on the alternate #2 car, because I need to completely rework the color blocking to match the sticker set I have, which is from set 8154.
This means less lime, and a lot more black on the alternate #2.
Alongside the alternate #2, I’m working on mutating the car from the 60305, license plate LP60305. It’s an orange convertible. I decided to remove some of the black on it and give it an orange hood, and break up the bone straight lines from hood to rear wheel well with a little more curve.
That led to swapping out rims. Azure rims went onto the #29, which makes it look more like a toy, but it is an electric car, so taking off the flat silver for azure looks more technologically advanced. Black rims went onto the #31, and this car has come all the way from a throwaway idea to badassery over time.
CAR DESIGN
* It turns out that the Arctic sticker sheet I had was NOT for the #20, but has “69” markings instead.
* I may use the Brick Street Customs / SPEED stickers in blue to merge this sponsor onto a blue car, upgrading it with a much more complete sponsoring pattern.20 30
TWO CARS REMAIN2 4 5 6 7 8 18
ALTERNATES PROBABLE* It turns out that the Arctic sticker sheet I had was NOT for the #20, but has “69” markings instead.
* I may use the Brick Street Customs / SPEED stickers in blue to merge this sponsor onto a blue car, upgrading it with a much more complete sponsoring pattern.nice
8/18/2021:
CAR DESIGN
* My inventory of cars has gotten out of hand, and so I need to go through and make SURE of all the race cars that I have and what drivers, pit crew and extra figs I have, such as spotters. So, my next step, before I build anything new, is to build a database for my cars and try to organize them into race teams and start building lore. This means pulling the drivers out of the cars and trying to match their faces to the original LEGO sets that inspired the current car.
* I now definitely plan on a full NASCAR sized race field of 43. I KNOW I can do this now. The #64 car has completely fallen through the cracks to the level of the #34 and #52 cars, as these sticker sets are VERY expensive to acquire. This means I need to pull in the #80 and #89 cars and start those from scratch.
* Just like NASCAR, in a simulated race, some teams will be field fillers, and have “start and park” cars. They will not really be competitive, and will drop out early. Therefore, I am now ranking cars based on how they look and whether they have pit crews (detailed torsos) or not. Octan Racing will have 5 cars in the field, and are the front runners.
* I do still plan on building some alternate cars, but, during the ream organization, it looks like the alternate #46 car will soon become the MAIN #46 car, leaving a VERY good and refined looking #46 car to give away.
UNKNOWN NUMBER OF CARS REMAIN
8/19/2021:
CAR DESIGN
* My instincts were correct, but I felt the need to doublecheck. Yes, I *am* going to have a NASCAR-sized 43 cqr field, and here are the final two LEGO elements that will start the cars:
The #80 will give me an opportunity to work in medium blue, and I think I’m going to go off the board and try to do the #89 inn dark green. Neither color as a main color is in this fleet yet.
* I have also decided to rebuild the #46 in the same patterning as the successful #17 and #23, as the sticker sheets are related, thus transforming this into a three car team.
So…
20 30 46 80 89
FIVE CARS REMAIN8/19/2021:
CAR DESIGN
* My first instincts were correct. I *am* on track to build a NASCAR sized 43 car field, and the precise numbers I need are ones that I already have.
I already have the numbered parts for the #20 and #30, but there are no sponsors assigned for four of these five cars. This is the Rise of the Field Fillers!
This #46 is the one that may replace the completed #46 Smooth Racing Oil car that I already have, as this sticker sheet will closely parallel the #17 and #23 cars I already have, likely resulting in a three car team.
So, with larger ambition…
20 30 46 80 89
FIVE CARS REMAIN8/19/2021:
CAR DESIGN
* My first instincts were correct. I *am* on track to build a NASCAR sized 43 car field, and the precise numbers I need are ones that I already have.
I already have the numbered parts for the #20 and #30, but there are no sponsors assigned for four of these five cars. This is the Rise of the Field Fillers!
This #46 is the one that may replace the completed #46 Smooth Racing Oil car that I already have, as this sticker sheet will closely parallel the #17 and #23 cars I already have, likely resulting in a three car team.
So, with larger ambition…
20 30 46 80 89
FIVE CARS REMAIN8/19/2021:
CAR DESIGN
* I doublechecked my cars. Definitely expanding to 43 cars.
With the expanded ambition:
20 30 46 80 89
FIVE CARS REMAIN8/19/2021:
CAR DESIGN
Let’s talk about the new #46 for a minute. First, I thought about the EXISTING 46, with its full pit crew. Looks nice. But then I thought, “Hey. I have this cool sticker sheet, and I already have the #17 and #23 from similar sets transformed into cars already. Why am I not making a three car team out of this?”
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