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Good evening all, as you can tell I'm quite new to this forum business.... but wanted to see (apologies if its been done many times before) about the merits and acceptability of modifying a lego design.... For me almost every model I buy and build I think to myself well why didn't they use a ....... and having a decent amount of spares I quite often change the design, or just a colour. In some cases it may be to make it look more like the original (or larger version in the case of a lot of Star wars sets) others to make something that just seems to fit better. It almost certainly what some of the designers may be thinking (but they have piece counts or budgets to hit). So how many of you modify and to what extent.......
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9484-1: Red's Water Rescue
For whatever reason they decided on "Big Red" to use a LBG brick piece to attach the wing mirror. Again I know why.... that piece is not available in Red..... but it is available if you make the brick by using 3 plates..... and this way as I discovered you can use those plates in any order to raise or lower the wing mirror by one plate.... which is in fact where it should be to line up with the windscreen. Remove 2 pieces add 6 smaller pieces... job done.....AND its all in Red..... "Big Red"For example, I changed many things about the (infamous) Market Street, adding windows to the back, tweaking the facade, and changing the way the balconies were set up to more closely match the techniques used in Town Hall and to make it a more attractive building on the whole.
Also, every time a set has a spiral staircase that isn't anchored so that it stays in one place, I definitely change that to anchor it. ... this only seems to happen in Elves and Disney sets.
For me, I do modify some of my models at my own discretion, sometimes I also swap out certain parts that I need as long as they're out of view in the official model.
I really hope anything I just said made sense.
Do you know [email protected] i cant rememeber if i changed that bit... it was a long time ago... must have.....
And yes surely anyone (ive never driven / piloted/ rode a speedboat) would know you cant reach over a steering wheeel that high to press a button.
I have always considered LEGO sets as starter models, and have always modified them at least partially, most often fully. In fact, I read an interview recently where a LEGO designer mentioned that this is exactly their intent with official LEGO sets; they are meant to be seeds to inspire creativity.
Some of the adult-oriented large sets look quite complete (that's why we shell out the big money), but even those are not meant to be just kits that you put together and never touch again. You can always at least rearrange the furniture, add extra details, change some colors, add another floor, etc.
I find it sad whenever such a question comes up. Almost like some people feel guilty for modifying their LEGO sets. They are SUPPOSED TO BE modified. This is what The LEGO Movie was about. :D
Some older LEGO fans have been blaming the company for stopping to emphasize creativity, modification and free-building, which used to be a prominent feature of all LEGO sets (alternate instructions, inspirational pictures of alternate models, etc.). It seems that LEGO did take this criticism to heart, as they have been getting much better in the last couple of years at providing alternate instructions and encouraging people to free-build. I hope they will continue this trend, so such question never even arise in the first place.
However, although I think it looks nicer, I am fighting the urge to change it back!
Still need to recess the turbine though, but lost interest for the time being. XD My Falcon got a little more accurate, and I adopted a couple sections from the current versions...
Plus I sturdied-up the underside a bit so it wouldn't try to fall apart during every move.
A few other mods for accuracy and personal taste... Metal Beard is as screen-accurate as possible with the pieces I had on-hand as well as from a small PaB order, also took the hooks off of the Scooby-Doo plane, made Kanan's Speeder MUCH smaller while keeping the basic aesthetic, and added/rearranged a few pieces on the original AT-AT to make it even BETTER in my opinion. :D
Now my MF can play Holochess without pointing weapons at each other.
Internal space has been expanded so now there is a toilet in the partitioned living quarter, bigger sofa, racks for weapons, storage area, 3-seater cockpit, upgraded hyperdrive etc.
Luckily everything works out ok.
My police are driving around in something closer to a Merc AMG rather than their boxy saloon car.
The last little tweak I did was on #60113 (Rally Car) - I removed the overly large rear spoiler & lengthened the cockpit a touch. Now it looks like a very hot hatch
Well, this AFOLs GTG, KIT... LOL...
I think that's the term they use over on Eurobricks...
Oddly, I've had a small President Business period between DA and "recently" where I thought things should be exactly as they are (minus the Kragle), but I've luckily moved on :D
Calling it MOC doesn't sound right since it is created by someone else, maybe can call SEC - Someone Else's Creation?