I just finished the interior detail work on the second floor of the Daily Planet. I modeled it somewhat on the Planet from Smallville and leaned into the art deco facade inside. For a long time it just seemed like a big empty box made of LEGO no matter how I oriented desks and other furnishings, but I knew I wanted to have big news “monitors” that would be printed 2×4 tiles with printed graphics for “televised news feeds” from Metropolis, Gotham, Star City, and Central City. Then I had an idea to put a column in the middle of the room, which of course was unstable with the 3rd floor removed, so I played around with adding archways to support it, and it ended up not only being evocative of the Smallville version, but broke the interior up making it feel more like an official LEGO set.
The floor includes a shared desk for Lois and Clark, a desk for Jimmy, and a desk for Cat Grant, as well as a filing cabinet, water cooler and copy machine.
I decided to rework the wooden brown desks to be a more modern grey too, which I also thought looked pretty good. There’s a few more photos below because it’s a bit hard to see around the arches and columns, and I’d love to hear any feedback in the comments about the new interior.
I created a few more decorative tiles to use on the inside of the Planet, this time of the results of Lex Luthor’s election as mayor of Metropolis and the special DOOMSDAY! edition cover. There’s a gallery of the designs down below you can flip through,
Besides a newspaper gallery, I’m planning on having TV screen monitors in the newsroom bullpen with channels showing news from Metropolis, Gotham City, Central City, and Star City.
Hey, this update looks just like all your other updates! But it’s not, because there’s something under the hood that I want to show you.
I had always planned to make the globe at the top turn, but as I was designing the model, I didn’t really work the requirements to make it happen into upper floor, dome, and globe. This weekend, I circled back to finalize the dome instructions, and took the opportunity to make sure the model is ready to motorize.
Honestly, I figured it was going to be a nightmare (Knightmare?) but I managed to get it right in a few hours, meaning I accidentally did something right. To turn the dome, I’m using a small linear Powered Up motor, and about the only thing I didn’t count on was that the axle needed to be between studs, rather than on an even stud. At first I was perplexed about how to go about it, but then after tinkering with some real life bricks, and the prototype dome I built I figured out how to center it properly. I was also worried that the clock face on the upper story would be troublesome because it extends back into the model quite far to make it all look right from the outside.
Happily it turned out that the internal structure for the clock ends exactly where the motor needs to be mounted, so the only remaining thing is the hub to control it. I ordered a small Technic hub this week and in order to fit it inside with the motor it appears I’ll have to push back the rear wall of the clocktower by one stud. If I can make it work, I want to add a door to the back that you’ll be able to open to expose the USB charging port on the hub, which will be pretty cool. Below you can see successive parts of the top of the model being removed to finally expose the motor that controls the rotation.
To say I was happy with how everything worked out would be a huge understatement, I was practically vibrating with enthusiasm, and once I get the hub and figure out how much room I’ll need, I’ll actually build the upper floor and clock tower to test it all together.
I started working on the interior detailing for the Planet model including designing decorative tiles. I want to have 2×2 tile “newspapers” like the ones that official LEGO sets have, but with small (and I do mean small!) Easter eggs for fans of Superman. The first ones I designed are the ones from Superman Returns with Brandon Routh in the lead role. After Superman pushes the kryptonite laden island that Lex created and is badly injured, there’s a scene where the camera is looking over Perry’s shoulder in his office and he’s designed and had pre-production prints of newspaper headlines that cover his bases whether Superman lives or dies. You can see my versions below.
I do have plenty of experience doing graphical work, but for the first time I drew the little Superman using Procreate on my iPad and I have to admit that once I got it all set up, it was actually quite fun to sit and draw on it – I do tend to be a pencil and paper kinda guy, and then I scan and send it to my computer for inking and coloring.
Now that I’m getting the hang of doing it on the iPad, I think I’ll try the to do the remaining dozen or so with it, and then have them custom printed onto LEGO tiles. And of course I’m not going to use stickers, because it seems that they’re as hated but the entire LEGO community as much as they’re hated by me.
When I started designing a modular Daily Planet, there were a few aspects and elements I knew I wanted, and one of those was to retain the art deco influence of many of the comics that featured the Planet, and that included creating a sign that was evocative of the era. I also knew that for some of the decorative element I was going to have to have tiles printed where default LEGO tiles were not available, especially given that LEGO has never produce a Daily Planet model. Fortunately for brick nerds like me there’s a tool similar to the tool I use to create the models calle Bricklink PartDesigner. If you’re a little design savvy you can create your own decorative bricks, tiles and even minifigures and export them for use in Stud.io.
Since I’ve been trying to use only readily available LEGO pieces until now I haven’t played with PartDesigner but over the past weekend I decided to create a custom set of tiles to make the front of the sign (which has been a placeholder up until now), and along the way I ran into a hiccup that may have bitten a few other people trying to do something similar.
When you design a model, if you use a piece in a color that isn’t available in the real world, Stud.io warns you by placing a small exclamation mark next to the part in the model inventory list on the right of the tool. Here’s what it looks like:
Notice on the right side the highlighted tile is marked as I’ve described. When I create the custom tiles, no matter what I tried I could not get rid of the mark, even though I know the 1×6 tile is available in metallic gold. So what gives?
To answer we need to take a quick look at how I create the new tile with the logo and tagline on it.
The first thing you have to do to create a custom tile is to make artwork in the right size. I won’t go into a whole tone of detail about this, but basically I create a graphic with the text for each tile on it in a graphical editing tool and rendered out the image as a PNG file with transparency. I made sure that it was going to have a final resolution of 150 DPI and then save it on my computer. Next you go into PartDesigner, select the part to use (in my case “6636 Tile 1 x 6”), then import the graphic you made and saved in your computer, and place it on the tile. Once you have it placed correctly, you just export the new custom piece to Stud.io. You can find the new part by clicking on the catalog selector on the left above where you select parts to use in your models. By default “Master” is selected, so just click it and select “Custom Parts” (see below). If you did everything right the new parts should be shown for use in your designs.
The odd part is that when you use the custom part in a model, the exclamation point will appear saying you’ve used an illegal color, and I tried to figure out why and how to fix it, to no avail. Next I used the great oracle, Google and was rewarded with a link that said all you have to do is add the part number to the custom part before exporting to Stud.io and it will show the available colors for the part your custom part is derived from. I tried as many permutations as I could before i stumbled onto the correct answer. When you start the export you’ll see the dialog below, and all you have to do is put the part number in the “BL Item Number (Optional)” field. If you tab away before saving you’ll see the warning that the part number is already used shown below. Just ignore it and export and Voila! Your part should show the available colors for the base part.
I hope this will help some poor soul like me avoid spending an hour or more trying to figure it out.
Also, since you’re around and have read this far, below are a few renderings of the final version of the sign. Oh, and about that tagline under the door – I’m sure many Superman fans will recognize the little easter egg as part of this introduction to the film that first made people believe a man could fly:
“In the decade of the 1930s, even the great city of Metropolis was not spared the ravages of the world-wide depression. In the times of fear and confusion, the job of informing the public was the responsibility of the Daily Planet, a great metropolitan newspaper, whose reputation for clarity and truth had become a symbol of hope for the city of Metropolis.” Superman: The Movie (1978)
Since I like looking at it so much I created two Daily Planet wallpaper images (below) if anyone besides me is remotely interested in staring at it. One is 2880×1800 and the other is 3440×1440. If anyone would like a different size shoot me an email or leave a comment below and I’ll add it.
I ordered the bricks needed to build the dome of the Daily Planet model that I’ve been working on (and talking waaaaayyyy too much on here) and they arrived as you can see, and you can also see the result. It’s actually kind of strange to see it manifested in real bricks after looking at it for so long on the computer. Now I only have about 4,900 more real-life bricks until it’s done. Pray for me (any my bank account)!
Things of Little Importance 