for the lego fans amongst us

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during a trip to Auckland last weekend, we had stop in at a shop called Toyco. I met at the owner, martin, at a lego show last year, and had decided we needed to see his shop. I have ordered online from his team many times, so it was nice to see where things come from. as an extra incentive, he had not long revealed the new mega build for the shop floor... a life size, brick built britten motorcycle.

the britten was designed and built by a small team here in new Zealand and was named after the designer john britten. there are only a handful around, and due to the chch earthquakes destroying moulds all those years ago, they are no longer allowed to be raced, as an damaged parts can not be replaced, so they are demonstrator only.
[font]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Britten

a racer from Hamilton either owns or has access to one, so I suggested to martin to get both the lego and the real to the cemetery circuit bike races which take place in my home town on December 26 each year. would be a heck of a draw card.

the build team https://www.thebrickman.com/behind-build...tten-bike/[/font]

martin remembered me from the show, and happily removed the barriers so I could have close access for photos and get some clean shots. the number of pieces has not been revealed as yet to the best of my knowledge


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my website address has changed: https://sunscollections.weebly.com/
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I am always amazed at these life size Lego builds. Where do they start when an idea like this comes to mind. Is there some CAD computer program that converts drawings into Lego parts lists? Hard for me to fathom that they just start building from scratch.

BTW: How the heck is that bike standing up?

Thats a great idea to have the real one side by side with this.
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There are several programs that allow digital lego building to design large builds, and i am betting teams like this have something better again.
I dare say the wheels have metal rods that go up inside? I dont know.
my website address has changed: https://sunscollections.weebly.com/
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(03-28-2020, 05:21 AM)Super Wrote: I am always amazed at these life size LEGO builds. Where do they start when an idea like this comes to mind. Is there some CAD computer program that converts drawings into LEGO parts lists? Hard for me to fathom that they just start building from scratch.

BTW: How the heck is that bike standing up?

Thats a great idea to have the real one side by side with this.

Initially, the only such program I remembered was LSculpt, but it strictly converts triangle meshes into (assembled) brick built LDraw or MPD files. It doesn't generate instructions, though. However, I've just found BrickR and Brickify (which do generate instructions, check for stability and use different file formats) as well.
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Update: I've found an article about it on The LEGO Car Blog with some more information. The main designer is Ryan McNaught (a LEGO Certified Professional), and he chose the Britten V-1000 when his team was commissioned by an Aucklander to build a model for them. It took them "hundreds of hours to design and build" all by themselves, meaning there was no LSculpt or such in the process. Outstanding work. Toyco held a local contest to guess exactly how many bricks were used for it (which apparently still hasn't been revealed).

There's also a Flickr album with close ups, but Sun has all the detail covered.
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Thanks Da-lag

Amazing people.
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I tried the lego software where you can download from the official website.  I don't like the software at all.  I guess I am old school.  I used pencil and paper to make primary designs
My Trackmaster/Tomy/Plarail Photo Gallery Page (over 600+ photos and still under construction)
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(03-30-2020, 01:00 AM)leylandvictory2 Wrote: I tried the lego software where you can download from the official website.  I don't like the software at all.  I guess I am old school.  I used pencil and paper to make primary designs

LEGO Digital Designer hasn't been officially supported since around 2017. It ended with a few minor updates and bug fixes, but some of its functionality (like parts with components that can be coloured separately) was lost. Lots of its users (myself included) have moved on to Bricklink's Studio (or Stud.io), which is vastly superior but slightly less friendly to first time users. One big advantage to such programs is how they replicate the exact geometry and functions of the physical parts as closely as possible, allowing for less issues than when trying to draw something that looks like it's made of LEGO in hopes of building it for real.
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