Hi all. Richard here! Although I am a long-term Bombay resident, I'm actually Northern Irish. I've joined this forum because I'm a huge WW1 aviation/aero-modelling fan but also because I need some support from like-minded souls.
I am currently on a mission to get Lego to launch some of my World War 1 aircraft designs as kits. The way it works is that you submit your designs to the Lego Ideas website. If the design is approved, it is put up and then has one year to gather 10,000 supporters. If this is achieved, the design is reviewed and hopefully launched as a product. 10,000 is a lot of support to achieve, so hence my post... I currently have designs of twenty of my favorite WW1 aircraft on the site.
For me, the real challenge of working in Lego is to capture the spirit of the specific aircraft while juggling the constraints imposed by the medium itself (you have to work with pre-existing parts which were not designed for this application), part availability (there is always at least one part you wish you had but don’t), structural integrity and aesthetic issues. Trying to create a scale model using Lego presents a lot of challenges, but it is the challenge that makes it so addictive and satisfying. There are, of course limits to what is possible, but I believe I have been able to explore the boundaries and get as close to scale accuracy as the medium allows.
I opted for a scale appropriate to my Lego pilot figures (approximately 1/22nd), because I feel that the addition of a figure is an important element and somehow this just seemed the natural scale to go for. With a smaller scale it is hard to achieve the modelling and detailing desired. A larger scale requires an inordinate number of parts, plus I think that some of the charm of the model’s compactness is lost. The entire series is to a standard scale, which makes them ideal as a set.
If you would like to add your support to this project then go to ideas.lego.com. You will need to create a personal Lego ID and then look for my WW1 aircraft projects (richie2537). Please support for the ones you like, or better still, just support all of them. Don’t forget to add some comments. All feedback is gratefully received.
