The Brothers Brick had an article about Alan Yap’s alternate build of Lego set 70842 aka Emmet’s Triple Decker Couch Mech. He used only the pieces in that set to make a transforming microscope robot. Alan Yap posted up free instructions on his blog. Alanyuppie's LEGO Transformers: Instructions for LEGO Transformer Microscope from set 70842: Emmet's Couch Mech!
I did not know about this set, and now I want it. Not for the cool transformers you can build with it and not for the fun, silly couch mech, but for that Angry Kitty.
Built the first of four 1:1 scale Lego custom lightsabers from Demonhunterbricks, this being the ESB Anakin/Luke Graflex saber hilt. Very clever design and I really enjoyed putting this together! Vader's is next of my list!
Unfortunately, no, each saber has all their parts in a simple ziplock baggy with a sticker denoting what the final build is, but no physical instructions or parts list. The instructions only come in PDF but there is no parts list included, just the step-by-step.
These outfits generally sell the instructions, so they're not going to make it easy to subvert their business by providing freely-available parts lists.
That seems, I dunno, uncool? Like it's their design, I get that, but it's not like they own either Lego or Star Wars. I dunno, seems iffy to me.
It's a little grey market, but I mostly see it kinda like selling recipe cards/books or craft instructions. Sure, you're piggybacking off of someone else's work, but showing people new ways to use their resources is a salable resource in and of itself.
It's been years since I have shown any of my Anton Furst Gotham City buildings, so here goes. Here is the Axis Chemical factory from the '89 motion picture. And here is the Cathedral, also from the movie.
I have to agree with this. It takes a lot of time and effort to design a MOC, even digitally with LDD software or what have you. That time and energy is certainly worth something if the final product is good, though people's opinions on what is good and worth the money will differ greatly from person to person. There was no way I personally could've figured out how to make the black grips go around the back/bottom part of the ESB Graflex saber hilt like it does, for example. There's a lot of neat use of jumper pieces. I mean, I suppose I could've figured it out it if I had enough time, and through persistent trial and error but I don't (have either the time or the will since I'm lazy ) so part of that is paying for convenience of having all the parts already gathered/included and the instructions spelled out for you.
It just seems kinda... cheap considering so many people post their MOC instructions online for free as part of the community. Lego is all about creativity, discovery and sharing a passion. Putting a pricetag on the mere concept alone feels not right. I know I’d never make anyone pay for my instructions if I ever built anything. It just seems like pure and simple greed.
I get where you're coming from, but it takes a lot of effort to produce some of the best MOCs floating around there today. It can take months, or even years to develop a design. Take raskolnikov's Star Destroyer - one of the best Star Wars MOCs on the internet (LEGO MOC-9018 Moderately Sized ISD with Full Interior (Star Wars 2017) | Rebrickable - Build with LEGO). I don't think it would be fair for him to release instructions for free considering its 15000+ piece count. On the other hand, Lego MOC sellers like Brickvault often abuse the monetary side of custom instructions, charging even $6 for their AT-RT instructions, when all you'd need is a few pictures to figure out the construction. So while I do wish everybody's instructions were free, I certainly understand why they'd charge money, considering the time and effort involved (particularly if builders come up with new building techniques, etc.)
Also consider the labour of putting together a proper instruction set in the first place. Sure, some people will do it for free. Some people will do it for money. I'll gladly write out recipe cards and hand them to my friends, but other people will type them out and collect them for sale in a book. That's just how people do.
In the end, the buyer has to decide if it's worth the money and if it fits their budget, like everything else. I don't see a problem with it personally. If it's too expensive, folks are free to pass on it. (I'm a huge Brickmania fan, for example, but even I have to admit that their stuff is hella expensive; I'd go broke if I bought every one of their more expensive offerings that I liked, so I have to pick and choose.) I could understand being against the idea of pay-for-MOCs if they were deliberately scalping super rare parts (like scalpers would do with whole action figures by buying up and withholding stock to create an artificial imbalance of supply vs. demand) but that doesn't seem to be the case. Paying for time, packaging, instructions, gathering the parts themselves, effort/labor to design/test the builds (especially if a third party company like Brickmania has overhead for logistics and paying the salaries/benefits of its employees), the inclusion of custom stickers or (3D) printed parts, it's all part of the R&D price tag. If people want to earn a bit of extra cash for their creativity and hard work (or even earn a decent living while they're at it by working at a third party company specializing in Lego builds), I won't begrudge them for it. Anecdotally, my wife has worked in advertising and graphic design since she was 16 years old. She has stories of people always trying to lowball and shortchange her for her hard work all the time. Some clients even unreasonably demanded that she provide them with artwork for free, which is just ridiculous. So I sympathize and side with the artist on this subject.
