Lucrehulk-Class Droid Control Ship (build by Paint0r)

[darththeling]

When I stumbled across Paint0r's Legos Ideas page for a Lucrehulk-Class Droid Control ship, I had to build it. So I did.

Please support Paint0r's build if you can. The Lucrehulk was a dream addition to my display for some time, and I don't think TLG will ever sell one. So when I saw this design I knew the wait was over - except for ordering the additional 1200 pieces I needed for the build. It took a few nights to figure out how many of the 1695 pieces I had already.

These photos were taken at a point where I'd color swapped enough of the ship for display purposes. I didn't follow the .LDD instructions perfectly because there were a few points where I'd gotten lost or simply didn't have the pieces. However, the approach to the build was repetitive, so I was able to 'fill in the blanks' when needed.

The Pick-a-Brick order was nearly perfect - but I'd ordered 96 of a slope 45 1x2 with plate and it came in white instead of light grey (a piece that PaB doesn't have available in light grey). I was pretty disappointed until I started building it anyway and thought a dash of white was okay. I also spashed a bit of Trade Federation blue in there, too. This now means, of course, this isn't the ship from The Phantom Menace, the Vutuun Palaa. Another ship of it's class, further along in The Clone Wars.

The build: it was a lot of similar wedges. Started with the core, of which I had enough grey laying about to assemble it. It does disconnect from the base model fairly easily.

I do hope that if Paint0r sees this model, they aren't disappointed with some of the many cosmetic deviations I made from the original model. I'd say I'm 90% accurate to the instructions, and the final build of the design which was shared here. Much of it was limitation of my patience and budget. It's very difficult to get the arms of the hangars to align perfectly (can see this in the top view photo below). It takes some doing to squeeze the wedges together to make a smooth curve... and sometimes results in buckling and the pieces go flying... argh. As a result, these initial photos will be updated once I can get the twin hangars more symmetrical. It takes patience. But having this beast on display is worth it... even if it isn't swooshable.

I really skimped out on the engine array. Too many pieces hard to find on Pick-a-Brick and it was just easier to stick the sub-engines to the side of the hull rather than build the intricate lattice that holds the three main engines and six sub-engines together. I am satisfied with the way it looks.

This build will be the centerpiece of my Trade Federation army someday. Will need a little micro-scale fleet of N1 fighters too, of course to bring it down.

Front view

Top view

Antenna array

Hangar detail

Core view

Engine array

Ready for display

Side view of the core and how it attaches to the main frame of the ship.

Wedges aplenty! Most of the build was creating ten of these very tightly packed, extremely well designed wedges that comprise each of the cargo bay/arms.

Edited November 19, 2015 by darththeling

[Schneeds]

That looks fantastic, especially for that scale. I really like the core interior details. It's a shame the Trade Federation was portrayed so incredibly awful in the prequels.

Edited November 18, 2015 by Schneeds

[Kristof]

Nice to see that someone built this great model which I'm a big fan of. Paint0r did great job here, I wish his project had more supports. Your build looks great, I like these dark blue bits here and there. The only thing I dhink is not accurate are these dark bluish gray areas on the 'sides' of the core ship. There is nothing like it in real, the ship was always vastly uniform gray. I believe it would look better if you swapped the color to LBG there.

One thing I woder is how rigid the model is. We had some discussion on that topic with Paint0r and I told him my concerns, yet he assured me the round 'spine' is sufficiently stiff. Is that the case? Or does it tend to bending or falling apart when lifted by hand?

[YellowCorvette]

Looks great, but the middle control room section looks kinda blocky and less round.

[darththeling]

That looks fantastic, especially for that scale. I really like the core interior details. It's a shame the Trade Federation was portrayed so incredibly awful in the prequels.

Cheers. I really enjoyed adding all the details the the inner core. Most of the build is giant wedges. I chose to build this over getting the MTT which looks great but I wanted something unique for the Trade Federation display.

Nice to see that someone built this great model which I'm a big fan of. Paint0r did great job here, I wish his project had more supports. Your build looks great, I like these dark blue bits here and there. The only thing I dhink is not accurate are these dark bluish gray areas on the 'sides' of the core ship. There is nothing like it in real, the ship was always vastly uniform gray. I believe it would look better if you swapped the color to LBG there.

One thing I woder is how rigid the model is. We had some discussion on that topic with Paint0r and I told him my concerns, yet he assured me the round 'spine' is sufficiently stiff. Is that the case? Or does it tend to bending or falling apart when lifted by hand?

Above I've included a screen capture from the LLD file of the spine. I didn't take a photo of it during the build, apparently. When I was studying the LLD file before the parts shipment came, I started to suspect that the spine may not hold the weight of the arms. Once I finished building one of the arms, I did notice that lifting it without both hands would cause it to fall apart.

Now... I certainly did not build this piece for piece. I drifted off-target here and there. So perhaps if I had put every single brick in its intended place - perhaps then it would not have buckled. But as it stands (and I haven't actually fastened the arms to the midsection for this reason) the ship needs to be moved about carefully and in three sections to keep it intact.

I have considered that if I glued the 1x2 pieces that connect the hooks and bars together on each wedge to the wedge itself, it may not solve the problem because the stress would move from that piece to some other pieces that weren't glued down. But I was wondering if glue would do the trick. But I'm not keen on gluing everything in place because I'd like to tweak it over time.

It is a very heavy ship all together. Luckily it never swooshes in the film so I'm very happy to just have it sit on the detachable shelf and look pretty.

Looks great, but the middle control room section looks kinda blocky and less round.

Paint0r actually had another build which was less blocky but ultimately decided to go another route. Trusting him as the final build being closest to the film, I chose the latter. But you can see his other attempt at a core in the initial posting to Lego Ideas here.

At certain angles, the core appears less blocky. Or... you just have to keep drinking and it looks rounder. ;)

Edited November 19, 2015 by darththeling

[Frazeur]

Really like the blend of blue parts mixed into the build

[Joe7218]

Great job! You captured the look of the ship perfectly

Do the front parts (dont know what they are called) bend under their own weight?

[samlr]

That is not the easiest ship to build in Lego. Great job !

[Gouniaf]

I've never seen this kind of ship in Lego before. I'm really impressed. I'm usually not fond of mid-scale figures, but I must admit your creation is near perfect.

[Brick Capone]

Absolutely beautiful! Great work!

[legondarybricks]

Greetings from Germany (and sorry for grammatical errors).

Sorry for rehashing this old topic but I felt the wish to thank @darththeling for this model. In a small german board i'm known as legondarybricks but my name on Lego Ideas is Paint0r. I designed the original concept on Ideas, failed with the support and forgot about this project. I loved the design but never had the pieces and money to build it. Now... one and a half year later I was watching randomly a 2017 Lego-video by MandRproductions on Youtube and saw a picture of a Lucrehulk-model that looked familiar to me. I just realised that someone built my project. By searching the internet for the builder I found this board.

I'm really happy about your model and feel honored that you made this model (The Idea was so insignificant but your model was worth the effort).

Thank you!

...I also remember the discussion with @krisandkris12 on Ideas about the early concept. It pushed me to improve the concept 

 

Edited May 11, 2017 by legondarybricks

[Kristof]

Hello and welcome to Eurobricks!

Glad to see you here. This model is great and both you and darththelling have my full awe :) I am positive that I will build this one day, there is no way I could resist :D

Any new designs from you anyway? Go ahead and make topics about them here!

[darththeling]

On 5/11/2017 at 4:18 PM, legondarybricks said:

Greetings from Germany (and sorry for grammatical errors).

Sorry for rehashing this old topic but I felt the wish to thank @darththeling for this model. In a small german board i'm known as legondarybricks but my name on Lego Ideas is Paint0r. I designed the original concept on Ideas, failed with the support and forgot about this project. I loved the design but never had the pieces and money to build it. Now... one and a half year later I was watching randomly a 2017 Lego-video by MandRproductions on Youtube and saw a picture of a Lucrehulk-model that looked familiar to me. I just realised that someone built my project. By searching the internet for the builder I found this board.

I'm really happy about your model and feel honored that you made this model (The Idea was so insignificant but your model was worth the effort).

Thank you!

...I also remember the discussion with @krisandkris12 on Ideas about the early concept. It pushed me to improve the concept 

Wow!! Greetings from Canada. I was hoping that you would one day track me down, @legondarybricks! Thanks for your post and tipping me off about the Lucrehulk build featured in the MandRproductions video. I am subscribed to their channel but missed that episode I Lego video.   It's very nice of you to join Eurobricks to reach out and - as @krisandkris12 says, please do share any new Star Wars Lego designs you have with us if you like. It's been almost two years exactly since I found your model and decided to build it. 

The build is brilliant. I particular I think the wedges that comprise the two arms were designed with excellence to provide that distinctive shape. The ship is still on a shelf of its own in my collection and is without a doubt the pride of the prequel display! I had a lot of fun building it over the span of a couple of months back in 2015.

Parts-wise it was a bit pricey - but the build is so dense. Official kits often have lots of empty space inside whereas this model is thick all the way through with almost no "air pockets." From what I can recall, I think the bulk of the parts cost around $250.00 CAD (maybe $200-ish USD?) but I made several mistakes when ordering so maybe it's not quite that much. So MandRproductions got the price estimate pretty close in their video (posted below, in case others missed it, Lucrehulk talk starts at 3:58). It was my first time ordering Pick-A-Brick from the official Lego website and if I had known how to use Bricklink's sorting/ordering feature I would have gone that route (which I did when I Bricklinked the SSD).

Do you think you will ever build the model, legondarybricks? Also, krisandkris12 should keep us in the loop if you do build it too - sounds like it's a matter of when and not if. I was tempted to use "the kragle" to glue some of the bits together but ultimately I couldn't bring myself to do it because I think there is value in having the chance to make changes in the future to this build. I wouldn't hold my breath for an official Lucrehulk - unless it's a Microfighter. 

Oh yeah, I absolutely love this ship.  Many thanks to you as well, legonarybricks for sharing the digital file allowing me to make this - it would have been completely impossible to build this without the file!! Incidentally - should I change my credit to your build from Paint0r to legonarybricks? 

Edited May 16, 2017 by darththeling

[ChiefPie]

Very nice!

[legondarybricks]

16 hours ago, darththeling said:

Do you think you will ever build the model, legondarybricks? [...]

should I change my credit to your build from Paint0r to legondarybricks? 

Just leave the name as it is. It's ok for me 

I think i would probably change the concept a little bit before building it. There are still possible improvements 

Someday i will build it, but there are currently other priorities.

[Dzenis]

Great model!