LEGO Buildings and Skycrapers - How to Build?

[Zorglorfian]

I collect minifigs primarily, and over the years of buying sets to get them, I have amassed a collection of bricks. After seeing the LEGO Movie, I want to place all of my figures in a city (and I just got a new Spider-man so I want him to swing around) and I'm wondering how I should start to build a city full of skyscrapers and other buildings (instructions, specific pieces, etc.) Thanks to those who help!

[Xyver]

Start with the Modular series of buildings, the Pet Shop, Palace Cinema and Parisian Restaurant are all still readily available, the Detective's Office will be out next year. The Pet Shop is probably the best one of these to get multiples of to build towering sky scrapers as you can add extra floors from each set.

Once you get a feel for how TLG does it, then try to make some of your own.

If you don't want to buy them, at least download the instructions and use what pieces you have to build something similar, that is how I started. There are also numerous people who sell, or even freely distribute, the instructions for custom creations. Or even just take a look through all the wonderful MOCs on here and get inspiration that way.

[cgarison]

As Xyver said, a great place to start are the modular buildings to learn how to build architectural designs as a part of structures. The Lego Neighborhood Book also has some great instructions and tutorials on how tho build structures from a typical town or neighborhood. As far as building a "skyscraper" from Lego bricks and other tall buildings, I would look at photos of layouts that have larger, multistory structures. GFLUG/GFLTC has a very nice tall building layout that can be seen on their Flickr pool (https://www.flickr.com/groups/gflug/pool/). I have also seen several skyscrapers from I LUG NY, but I did not see any on their Flickr.

Best of luck with your building.