Ralph_S Posted May 21, 2008 (edited) B-OM-5B A few months ago I built an English Curry House. I'm not normally much of a minifig scale builder, but I really enjoyed building that. Upon seeing it, several people suggested that I build a 'chippie' (a traditional English fish and chips shop) to go with it. I built all kinds of other things in the meantime, but now it's finally finished: link to photo on flickr The interior of the chip shop: link to photo on flickr the interior of the upstairs apartment link to photo on flickr More pictures can be found here. Finally, here are the Chippie and the Curry House together: link to photo on flickr I fully expect to build more English buildings in the future, such as an Off license/ Convenience store or a pub. Cheers, Ralph edit: it should be fish and chips shop obviously. Could a moderator please change the title. Sorry. Edited September 19, 2011 by Phred Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SalvoBrick Posted May 21, 2008 I love both buildings! :-) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Green Hair Posted May 21, 2008 Wow nice work Ralph, i really get that British feel! Your interiors look great as well, and the little street will look good in any town. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Holodoc Posted May 21, 2008 A wonderful creation, Ralph! It reminds me of a vacation 25 years ago in Brighton. I lived in a very small house then. The same counts for your buildings. The CC would be huge next to it. Do you have the CafeCorner or any other modular buildings? I´d love to see you buildings next to them. The interior of your house is great. At first I wondered why they were selling letters, but then I got it: It´s the display panel what they sell! Great! The 1st floor looks very cosy. It must have been hard to push all those details in it. Look at that nifty small stairway! The back is great, too. Nice airconditioning. And I like the way you didn't build the shop on a rectangular space. The corners add realism to it. The big letters on thew signs of all your buildings gives it a feel of Legoland. I like that. Very well done! There is just one little hint: I would replace the grey fish with a blue one. HighStreet ON! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Siegfried Posted May 21, 2008 Very nice; especially the interior! I love the little details; like the vent over the frier. edit: it should be fish and chips shop obviously. Could a moderator please change the title. Sorry. Fixed. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
brickbitz Posted May 21, 2008 Another wonderful work Ralph. I especially like the shop interior, nice detail which actually reminds me of our local chippy. Now I know what I'm going to have for tea later. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ralph_S Posted May 21, 2008 Thanks for the comments (and for fixing the title, Sinner). I moved to England two years ago and pass similar buildings on my way to work almost every day. So, they're not based on any particular building, but there are similar buildings all over England. LEGO's own modular buildings really stand out because of their great details, so I didn't want to be too skimpy when it came to details on mine. The vent for the fryer is sometimes very prominent on buildings like this, as is the smell emanating from it ;), so I had have one. Of course, building details are a major part of the fun. The fish is actually pearlescent grey. It's not really very visible in the pictures, but it glitters a bit and does look rather fish-like to the naked eye. Still, I'll rebuild it in light blue and see what that looks like. The modular building standard stipulates that the front and back of the buildings should be 7-9 studs from the edges of the baseplate. On a 32x16 baseplate that leaves only about 16x16 studs for the actual building. Stairs tend to take up a lot of room too, which leaves very little for the interior. That's why I like to add a little extension in the back. It also livens up the rear of the building a bit. I don't really want to have a blind or straight wall back there (like on Cafe Corner and Market Street) and many English buildings actually have little extensions. I was happy to see that the rear of the new Green Grocer set has more details as well. I have both Market Street and Cafe Corner, but I didn't put them next to these buildings in these pictures. Market Street looks very Dutch to me -not surprising considering that it was designed by a Dutchman :D. Cafe Corner currently is still in its box. I built the chips shop instead of putting it together last weekend . If I find the time to build it this weekend, I'll put them all next to each other and take a few pictures. You'll see that my buildings indeed are much lower than LEGO's modular buildings, but English houses tend to be fairly small. Cheers, Ralph Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xzanfr Posted May 21, 2008 Hi, Ralph, Thats a great looking chippie there, so many internal and external details, especially the burger sign outside!. The 2 buildings really work well together with the differences in ridge height giving the sort of jumbled up British high street feel. Due to some strange space-time-continuum-Lego-ESP, I'm building my own British street at the moment and coincidentally I uploaded my own chippie to brickshelf last night - I'm now going to have to alter it as it's not a patch on this, though!! I had some success by using the shark form the pirate sets with three yellow 4x1 flat tiles (as chips) to produce a sign - this may work well on your shop. Your street definatley seems the place to go after a night out, have you thought about a pub and a kebabulance (an old ambulance converted to a kebab shop)!!! I look forward to seeing more of your buildings, thanks for sharing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ralph_S Posted May 21, 2008 (edited) Hi, Ralph,Thats a great looking chippie there, so many internal and external details, especially the burger sign outside!. The 2 buildings really work well together with the differences in ridge height giving the sort of jumbled up British high street feel. Due to some strange space-time-continuum-Lego-ESP, I'm building my own British street at the moment and coincidentally I uploaded my own chippie to brickshelf last night - I'm now going to have to alter it as it's not a patch on this, though!! I had some success by using the shark form the pirate sets with three yellow 4x1 flat tiles (as chips) to produce a sign - this may work well on your shop. Your street definatley seems the place to go after a night out, have you thought about a pub and a kebabulance (an old ambulance converted to a kebab shop)!!! I look forward to seeing more of your buildings, thanks for sharing. That is uncanny. I just saw your new buildings this morning and was pleasantly surprised that somebody else had essentially the same idea. It's these ones, isn't it? http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=319759 That terraced house is very nice. I just love the multi-floor bay windows The idea of using a shark to represent the fish was inspired. Once you've added a few minifigs and perhaps the odd bit of greenery here and there, your street will look great. I was afraid that the burger sign would look a little silly, but apparently it seems to work. I do plan to add a pub sometime in the future, but I first need to think of a name for it that I can somehow represent in a LEGO sign above the door. Perhaps a pirate theme? It would probably go down well on this forum, but I'm not sure A kebabulance sounds like a great idea. I'll give that some thought. Cheers, Ralph Edited May 21, 2008 by Ralph_S Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
WhiteHexagon Posted May 21, 2008 Wow! I love the detail. Shame the modular dimensions are a bit tight for space, but you did really well cramming all that into such a small interior. The menus are my fav for some reason, it just works! But now I'm craving a bag of fish 'n' chips and won't be back in the UK for 2 months :( Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
xzanfr Posted May 21, 2008 Hi, Ralph. Yes, the link is my (now initial ) version of a chip shop... I'll start a seperate topic on mine once there amended to avoid my embarrisment!! As goes a pub...there have been several good pubs shown on here recently, Hinkleys' and highlandcattles' both spring to mind but there must be a quite a few for inspiration - all with (no doubt) whitty names! A pirate theme would be brilliant with barrels and tons of brown. On a similar note, a costume shop would be a fun thing to add to your street-you could display all of your minifigs with blank faces. Having seen your flickr properly, I'm really enjoying the detail- the kitchen is inspired with the sink and cooker! The raw and cooked burgers are great too and I hope you've colour coded your pies, chip shop style, yellow for chicken and red for mince (from what I remember!). As a further bit of weirdness... looks just like my local kebabulance driver/chef!! @ WhiteHexagon, I'm sure someone could post you some chips-I can't say what state they'll arrive in, though Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ralph_S Posted May 21, 2008 Hi, Ralph.Yes, the link is my (now initial ) version of a chip shop... I'll start a seperate topic on mine once there amended to avoid my embarrisment!! As goes a pub...there have been several good pubs shown on here recently, Hinkleys' and highlandcattles' both spring to mind but there must be a quite a few for inspiration - all with (no doubt) whitty names! A pirate theme would be brilliant with barrels and tons of brown. On a similar note, a costume shop would be a fun thing to add to your street-you could display all of your minifigs with blank faces. Having seen your flickr properly, I'm really enjoying the detail- the kitchen is inspired with the sink and cooker! The raw and cooked burgers are great too and I hope you've colour coded your pies, chip shop style, yellow for chicken and red for mince (from what I remember!). As a further bit of weirdness... looks just like my local kebabulance driver/chef!! @ WhiteHexagon, I'm sure someone could post you some chips-I can't say what state they'll arrive in, though HMM, chips that have been in the mail for a while. I can already imagine news reports about building being evacuated because of suspect packages Space in these Cafe-corner compatible buildings is a bit restricted, but there's still enough space to have some fun with the interior. Great that you've noticed the different burgers! I'm not a big chip or pie eater, to be frank, and in my two years in the UK I've only been to my local chippie perhaps once or twice. Much of the interior of this one is based on your typical Dutch 'Friture' and on what I've been able to see through the sometimes slightly greasy windows of various chips shops I pass on my way to work. A costume shop is a great idea. There are so many different movie characters made into minifigures that they can fill several stores. I can see it now. Batman standing next to Darth Vader. I've bought some new windows and a lot of brown bricks that I expect to arrive pretty soon, so I may build another addition to my street in a few weeks time. Anyway, I look forward to seeing your street progress further and I'll keep Eurobricks posted on how thing are going with mine. BTW, if your kebabulance driver looks like , I'm not so sure you ought to sample his merchandise. Actually, I'm not so sure I'd want to buy meat from the back of an ambulance in the first place Cheers, Ralph Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Asuka Posted May 21, 2008 Beautiful ... very beautiful. Both buildings´re simply excellent. Size, proportions, color scheme, facade, interior.... all´s very detailed and plain clever. Obliviously your floor plans´re incredible near to perfection and I stared quite some time at these pics just to find out how you´ve managed to put so much interior in such a small place. Then I just moved on to the method of abductive reasoning, just like that guy from Baker Street 221B, and it worked. The only logical explanation left: You´re likely using a magic satchel technique. Pretty smart I have to say.... but you surely can´t trick out someone who saw Ultraviolet.... Mmmm, Milla Jovovich.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ralph_S Posted May 21, 2008 Beautiful ... very beautiful. Both buildings´re simply excellent. Size, proportions, color scheme, facade, interior.... all´s very detailed and plain clever. Obliviously your floor plans´re incredible near to perfection and I stared quite some time at these pics just to find out how you´ve managed to put so much interior in such a small place. Then I just moved on to the method of abductive reasoning, just like that guy from Baker Street 221B, and it worked. The only logical explanation left: You´re likely using a magic satchel technique. Pretty smart I have to say.... but you surely can´t trick out someone who saw Ultraviolet.... Mmmm, Milla Jovovich.... Hey, I don't go by the name Mad Physicist without a reason Seriously, the figuring out where to put the stairs was the biggest deal with building the chip shop. A 14x14 stud square is big enough to fit quite a bit of interior, but if I would have put the stairs in the front parts of the shop, I'd have lost at least a quarter of the space. Moving the stairs to the back did the trick. Of course I still had to leave enough room on the baseplate to actually open the rear door to the shop and the door to the stairs and to still have a landing at the top of the stairs. That dictated the shape of the extension and where I could place the doors in it. The interior of the upstairs apartment was a bit more trial and error: build some furniture and see where it'll fit. If it doesn't, make it smaller! It's nothing that Japanese car makers don't do every time they come up with a new compact model Cheers, Ralph Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Minifig Lecturer Posted May 22, 2008 Wow that's fantastic. Love the menus and kitchen. Really real-life! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alex54 Posted May 22, 2008 Ralph_S, your two mocs are really great! I really like the feeling that come from this peice of street, it's really charming! And like Asuka said, the size and proportion of the two houses are really good! And all those nice details inside, ! Do you have more buildings to share? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zarkan Posted May 22, 2008 Um, are you sure you don't normally build in minifig scale? Because you already have surpassed half the forum with these two creations, including me. Man, these are amazing! Great detail, wonderful interior, and some wonderful SNOT signs. I love everything about these, and I hope you do more. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ralph_S Posted May 22, 2008 I'm not so sure they're all that great. I mean, there are a lot of people who do a lot of this, certainly here I normally don't build minifig scale. I build bigger cars and planes, mostly, but I do hang out with quite a few people who do mainly minifig scale building in the Brickish Association. I built the Curry house in November last year for a competition for the Brickish Christmas party. We were supposed to build Cafe-Corner compatible buildings with a Christmas theme. My restaurant had a traditional English Christmas party going on inside. Here is a picture of a tiny part of the resulting street: Loads more pictures taken by fellow Brickish member Andy Tymm can be seen in his flickr set. I think it's fair to say that compared to all the other buildings, my curry house isn't all that spectacular. The winner was my mate Lego Monster, with his Scrooge and Marley house, BTW (he did the letters on his after seeing mine, the thieving bastard ) The curry house was the first time in at least ten years that I built a minifig building, but I had a lot of fun doing it and I liked how it turned out. I decided back then that there would probably be more buildings to follow. Right now it's just the curry house and the chip shop, but there will undoubtedly be more. The brick-built letters aren't the easiest thing to do, but the result is worth all the trouble. Cheers, Ralph Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Darth_Legois Posted May 22, 2008 (edited) WOW! You've stunned us all AGAIN Ralph with more beautiful lego I like both of them Im amazed you can fit so much detail in while other people [including me ] Would never be able to do that! I love your Mini-fig scale mocs Also how on earth did you do the sign!? It looks so cool Edited May 22, 2008 by Darth_Legois_619 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
WhiteFang Posted May 23, 2008 Ralph_S, I never knew you will build a mini-fig scale MOCs. Most of your MOCs, I saw, are very much models cars and planes type. I am quite sure this is the first time I saw such MOC from you. The shops are superb impressive especially the signage. I am sure it's not easy to accomplish it especially by the length of the name such as "A Taste of India". Thanks for sharing with us. These are indeed very wonderful shops. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Brickadier General Posted May 23, 2008 It looks really nice, as does your Indian Restaurant. And the finished interior really brings this creation to life. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Klaus-Dieter Posted May 23, 2008 (edited) That's an awesome MOC, Ralph S! I really it because it's very well designed with all the nice interior ! I hope that TLG will give us some (food) shops and restaurants in the near future because they are really needed - but I presonally would only like some with an open backwall. But for a MOC it's of course more fetching when you build it as a complete house . Very, very well done! Klaus-Dieter Edited May 23, 2008 by Klaus-Dieter Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ralph_S Posted May 23, 2008 That's an awesome MOC, Ralph S! I really it because it's very well designed with all the nice interior ! I hope that TLG will give us some (food) shops and restaurants in the near future because they are really needed - but I presonally would only like some with an open backwall. But for a MOC it's of course more fetching when you build it as a complete house . Very, very well done! Klaus-Dieter Thanks. It's really great to get all these very nice reactions. I agree that more food-related stuff would be great. Market street was pretty good and the Green Grocer's set leaves very little to be desired, and there's nothing to keep you from building an interior for the bottom floor of Cafe corner and turning it into a trendy bar. I certainly plan to do that to mine. Still, a LEGO restaurant set with an actual interior could be great, albeit expensive. There is something to be said for buildings with an open back wall. I don't play with my models, but the interiors are really hard to see unless you take the roof or top floors off. It would be fun to be able to look into them more easily. I've finished a new city bus to go with my street, BTW: more photos on flickr Cheers, Ralph Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
legotrainfan Posted May 23, 2008 Wow, the fish and chips shop and the curry house really like fantastic. I love the colour combination of the tiles on the floor: red and yellow. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Klaus-Dieter Posted May 24, 2008 (edited) There is something to be said for buildings with an open back wall. I don't play with my models, but the interiors are really hard to see unless you take the roof or top floors off. It would be fun to be able to look into them more easily. I totally agree with you, Ralph_S! That's exactly what I meant: Of course houses with backwalls look more realistic. But you can play and look inside so badly - that's the reason why I don't like all these CC styled buildings and why I don't buy them. By the way: Your bus looks great ! Only the big window in the front is a bit . But despite from that it's very well done! Klaus-Dieter Edited May 24, 2008 by Klaus-Dieter Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
