So my famous procrastination kicked in, as I'm supposed to be working on LEGOFan, and for the last couple of nights I've been slaving away on a relatively simple MOC. I'm surprised nobody's done this one before.

Actually, I was surfing images on Google, looking for Stargate SG-1 replicators (which I'm gonna build one of these days), and ran across an image from an old movie that came out when I was 4 years old. The image is fairly iconic, so I'm thinking most people here should get it.

When you look close, this design isn't quite as simple as it may appear. I've always been really impressed with MOCs and official sets that use pieces together so seamlessly that it almost appears they were meant to go together like that... when you see it, you go, "Duh! Of course!" I've never created a MOC like that before, but I think this one comes close. The four black arches around the lens; the 6-wide lens inside four curved bricks; the grill plates... it all comes together in a deceptively simple construction. If LEGO made a trans-clear 8x8 radar dish, that'd be perfect. But I think it's good the way it is here.

And the lens itself is complex. There are actually three: a two-wide trans red, 4-wide trans red, and 6-wide trans blue (there's unfortunately no 6-wide clear trans disk or I'd use that). Snaking underneath is a flexible transparent hose that leads to a red light generator from an ExoForce set. When it's on, the red light looks exactly like the red light from the movie. Figuring that one out was one of those "OMG it's perfect!" giggle moments.

There are a couple things that still need to be done: the box at the top needs to have the name put in, and I need to rig a switch to turn the light on and off. As soon as I get those two things, I'll post this on MOCPages and link it here. But you guys get a sneak peek. Oh, and the more I look at it, the more I think the outside is a little too bold with the full-brick tile around it. I'll see about shrinking that.

Update: I changed some stuff and added a button to turn the light on, and uploaded pix on BrickShelf (after moderation).