mouseketeer

Protecting the presents of the Winter Village from Christmas crooks is this Winter Village Police Station! I've included a break area (with donuts of course!), a blue light Christmas Tree, mugshot board, computer desk, and jail cell - complete with a stocking filled with coal for being very naughty! A crank at the back spins the police light on top of the building, and accompanying it are an old-fashioned police car and police box. Winter Village Police Station by inklingbricks, on Flickr More photos are on my Flickr here

Here's a rendering of it alongside the official Fire Station :) Winter Village Police Station and Fire Station by inklingbricks, on Flickr

Inspired by the ornate architecture of New Orleans, this modular brings a touch of the Big Easy to the Modular street. At ground level is a gumbo restaurant with indoor fountain, a beignet bakery, a pirate statue (containing hidden treasure), and a wall fountain being sipped at by a bayou frog. Up the alley staircase, minifigures will find a voodoo emporium on one side, or head the other way into a bar complete with (minibuild) model riverboat. Out onto the balcony and up a second staircase, minifigures reach the jazz club itself, with complete jazz band. More images are on my Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/146006635@N03/albums LEGO Modular New Orleans Jazz Club by inklingbricks, on Flickr LEGO Modular New Orleans Jazz Club by inklingbricks, on Flickr

I've been doing a lot of custom Winter Village MOCs over the past year, and this is my ninth! I wanted to try something a bit different, so I took my inspiration from a Christmas classic - How The Grinch Stole Christmas. The model includes the Grinch's DIY sleigh with overstuffed sack of presents (with credit to Peter Aoun for the method of attaching the 'antler'!), a Whoville House (with wiggly wavy architecture and crazy colourscheme that gave me a lot of headaches trying to get it to look right, haha - square bricks can certainly make the shapes needed tricky!), and a late addition that I have to thank the Eurobricks Xmas Raffle for (that thread gave me the idea to add this extra!) - a crooked 'Grinchmas Tree'. More photos (and photos of all my Winter Village sets) can be found on my Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/146006635@N03/albums LEGO Winter Village Whoville & The Grinch by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr LEGO Winter Village Whoville & The Grinch by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr

Thank you everyone! :)

Two Christmases ago, I designed my first six custom cars for the Winter Holiday Train, and this year I doubled it in size with six brand new Christmas cars PLUS a rebuild of the locomotive itself to better fit the scale of the expanded train! My initial six cars were: - A Passenger Car - A Christmas Tree Car - A Hot Cocoa Tanker - A Gingerbread Car - A Present Car - A Reindeer Car Now I've added: - A Snow Globe Car with sugar plum fairy, that rotates as the train moves along! - A Christmas Dinner Dining Car with a full spread of food, hanging chandelier, and kitchen! - A Toy Machine Car with working conveyor belt that moves doohickeys from the machine to the packing crate as the train moves along! - A Sleigh Flatbed to transport Santa's sleigh when he's riding aboard his locomotive! - A Christmas Lights Car with reels of Christmas lights ready to decorate any station Santa pulls into! - A Mail Car to transport all of the letters to the North Pole! A full album for the first six cars can be found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/146006635@N03/albums/72157674354338110 And a full album for the six new cars (including a VIDEO of the full train in motion) can be found at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/146006635@N03/sets/72157703037145161

Here's a contribution from me :) With the Santa theme last year I made a Santa "Megafigure" - with the Snow theme this year, I thought I'd make a Snowman Megafigure! Snowman Megafigure by inklingbricks, on Flickr

Seen as the Winter Village goes in this forum, I figured a Halloween version would too! The Winter Village has had its train for a while, so I thought that now it's time for Autumn to have one. LEGO Halloween Village Train by inklingbricks, on Flickr Along with the locomotive (fully compatible with Power Functions), tender, and caBOOse, are five cars: - a Frankenstein Car, with SPINNING lightning rods to spark life into the monster on the slab. - a Man-Eating Plant Car, covered in vines and mushrooms with SNAPPING jaws as the train rattles along. - a Skeleton Stock Car, which two skeletal horses. - a Pumpkin Car, filled with varying sizes of pumpkins and watched over by a scarecrow. - a Toxic Tanker Car, with two SWIRLING cauldrons filled with acid. Close-up images are on my Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/146006635@N03/albums/72157710827146152/with/48727354816/

Here's my newest custom Modular design - a Modular Red Car Trolley Station! Inspired by the pueblo deco architecture of 1920s Los Angeles, this Red Car Trolley Station brings a new form of transportation to the LEGO Modulars! The first floor lobby includes a busy ticket office, luggage storage, telephones, and lockers, with an external staircase heading up to the platform. There, passengers can head through the glass doors to a waiting room, with a coffee bar and times board. The Red Car Trolley runs on LEGO train track, and includes opening double doors on each side. Back at ground level, there's also a street-accessible newsagents underneath the viaduct. More photos are available on my Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/146006635@N03/albums/72157709617526541 Modular Red Car Trolley Station by inklingbricks, on Flickr Modular Red Car Trolley Station by inklingbricks, on Flickr Modular Red Car Trolley Station by inklingbricks, on Flickr Modular Red Car Trolley Station by inklingbricks, on Flickr

I've just finished designing this new MOC - a Modular Baker Street of London! Based on the iconic home of the world's greatest detective, this modular comprises Sherlock Holmes's 221B Baker Street house and a mysterious Antiques Store next-door. Sherlock's home includes an ornate Victorian living room and bedroom, a rooftop terrace (with a greenhouse, telescope, and table for afternoon tea), and Sherlock's laboratory filled with equipment and apparatus for solving his latest whodunnit. The two-level Antiques Store contains all manner of antique minibuilds, along with an old-fashioned elevator, and Sherlock's biggest secret - a moving bookcase that creates a secret passageway into Holmes's house! Outside, the streets of London are iconified with a 'pillarbox' mailbox and classic red telephone box. :) The full album is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/146006635@N03/albums/72157708746456688/with/47926318176/ Baker Street 1 by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr Baker Street 2 by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr Baker Street 3 by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr Baker Street 5 by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr Baker Street 9 by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr

Nothing especially expensive now, haha. I'm a lot more aware of things like that since I first did my early sets! (Like going back over and redesigning my original six cars to be a lot cheaper while still keeping the same look). With the Chocolate Factory, I'd recommend switching those gold tanks out for black tanks, and just putting one 2x2 gold round plate as a 'stripe' on each. Much cheaper than all gold, but the look still works :)

I've been eager to keep expanding my Winter Village for this Christmas, and this is my latest model - a Winter Village Ski Slope! As with all my Winter Village models, I try to make them as accurate to what could be a genuine Lego Winter Village set as possible (both in terms of design style, and with a reasonable piece count - hence the use of 16x16 plates for the slope and BURPs to build up the mass of the mountain). It comprises a mountainside with working ski lift, a mountaintop cafe, a cliff-face for mountain climbing, a ski slope (with moguls, slalom flags, rail, and ski jump) and an equipment chalet and locker room at the foot of the slope with a ski rack and fire pit for marshmallows. The ski lift can be powered either by hand with a rear handle or connected up to Lego Power Functions to automate it. To see a video of the the ski lift in action please click https://www.flickr.com/photos/146006635@N03/44500514585/in/album-72157672480255207/ And to see the full album please go to https://www.flickr.com/photos/146006635@N03/albums/72157672480255207/with/30475179737/ Ski Slope 2 by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr Ski Slope 5 by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr Ski Slope 6 by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr

Thanks Klaus! I actually sell the instructions for my models, which disqualifies me from entering it on Lego Ideas unfortunately. I would like to do a model to submit specifically for Ideas one day though!

Well this gave me an excuse to do a model I've been wanting to do since last Christmas! This is my Santa Claus megafig / maxifig (?) - with Quidditch hoops I stole from my wife's Harry Potter set for his spectacles, haha. Thank you CopMike for doing this again! Santa Megafig / Maxifig by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr

My obsession with the Winter Village continues with my latest Winter Village MOC - a Gingerbread House! I've included gingerbread walls, icing borders, a candy cane roof-line, gumdrop roof tiles, hard candy windows, and licorice decorations. The interior is fully detailed as a candy shop, with a gumball machine, cotton candy maker, chocolate display stand, old fashioned cash register, display counter for cookies and pastries, a shelf filled with candy jars, and a model train running around the top of the room! Winter Village Gingerbread House 1 by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr Winter Village Gingerbread House 3 by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr Gingerbread House 6 by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr

I built this set to match with the official LEGO Simpsons sets 71006 The Simpsons House and 71016 Kwik-E-Mart. I've included the pool table, jukebox, Laramie cigarette machine, love tester, television, and fully stocked bar (with hidden shotgun!) - all with a detachable roof and opening back wall. I also did custom graphics which are printed onto genuine Lego pieces for the wall-mountain photos and advertisements (including The B Sharps, Playdude, Duff Beer, Mount Lushmore, and Flaming Moe's - look at the final image to see them all). Full gallery at https://www.flickr.com/photos/146006635@N03/albums/72157695243615170 Moe's Tavern by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr Moe's Tavern by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr Moe's Tavern by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr

Hi, I have a Hogwarts Express model I designed which sits on a base, and I'm wondering whether it would be possible to get something akin to smoke coming out of the chimney. I've done some googling for this already, but almost all of the advice I've seen is in relation to *moving* trains, not ones confined to a stationary base. Because of that, I think I might have some more leeway in how to achieve the effect, as I can hide whatever contraption I use for the steam behind or within the base, and then just put a pipe up through the model, without having to worry about it moving with the model. The options I've come across seem to be smoke machines and water vaporisers (I've even seen people suggest the vapour that comes from e-cigarettes) - real steam can't be used because it certainly damages the bricks. I was just wondering if anyone had any knowledge or experience they could share about using either of these methods (or if there's any other way of achieving this that I'm missing)? The main consideration is that I don't want to damage the Lego. Is there a way this can be done?

Hey everyone, I'm planning on doing quite a large scale MOC (though how big I'm not sure yet), and I've read before how people keep them modular etc. so that they can transport them to shows. I was just wondering if there were any resources, articles and things like that which people have written before I start planning it. I'm thinking things like reinforcing the base, deciding on the area and heights of the modular sections, things like that. If I can learn a bit now that saves a preventable headache later on down the road it would be really helpful!

Ohh, I get what you mean! So I redid it with the vertical section on three 1x4 plates (which were then on two 1x4 plates to secure them), and while the gap isn't as pronounced, it is still there, which then gets magnified because of the 1x1 column. It does seem to be a combination of bending 1x plates and the tolerances.

I'm doing these mosaic-y backdrops, but something is going really wonky! I thought I had my Lego geometry correct (2 studes wide = 5 plate edges), and while this is working for the above (forest) mosaic, it's not working for the lower (castle) mosaic even though the numbers are the same. As you'll see the brown support is leaning out quite a bit (to the point that it's messing up another part of my model). What am I doing wrong here? Here's a link to the images: https://imgur.com/a/QgFuqRK

Bit of trouble parsing that, haha - I mean that I've taken the sideways-studs section (with the crenellations) and placed it alongside the 7-plates-hide vertical-studs section (with the castle), to exclude both the 1x10 white plates and the 1x12 brown plates which can be subject to warping, but even without them the sideways-studs section is longer than the vertical-studs section. I'm going to put this down to something that works in theory, but in practice goes a bit wonky!

Hmm that's really interesting - I'm having trouble replicating it though with my pieces. I've taken off the brown border completely, stood the two sections on their edges against the table and the bricks are still overhanging.

I gave it a shot but no luck! The bricks still misalign even with the brown frame completely removed.

I'm glad I'm not missing some obvious error! I've definitely pushed all of the bricks as close together as possible, and laid them flat and pushed that way to make sure everything's fully aligned. Even though there is some colour discrepancy, they are all genuine Lego, new condition pieces. I swapped the brown plates around too to check if any had warped, but they seem fine. I think it must just be the tolerances building up with these pieces. I separated the two lines that are horizontal, and it's only the bottom line (the one with the crenellations) that pushes out the brown column once they're disconnected. I might have to Bricklink some more medium blue and dark bley 1x1 plates and see if a different combination of bricks amounts to a different length. I guess normally this variation would barely be noticed, but the surrounding pieces I'm using just magnify it further. Thanks for the help everyone! :)

01 Front by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr Hey everyone, this is my first attempt at a custom Modular! Based on the colorful architecture of Italian coastal towns, the model includes an Italian restaurant and pizzeria, along with a gelato shop, on the ground floor. Up the spiral staircase to the al fresco balcony, there's also a gentleman's tailors and small Roman museum complete with mosaic of an erupting Mount Vesuvius. Finally, up the rear staircase to the top floor, there's a artist's studio with half-sculpted statue, and a winemaker. More images (including the full interior) are on my Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/146006635@N03/sets/72157696630743215/ 02 Street by mouseketeer 111, on Flickr