ARTICLE: Building a Classic Lego Town

[WesternOutlaw]

Building a Classic Lego Town: 7 Tips for a Terrific Tabletown

Upon reconstructing a number of my classic town sets ranging between the years of 1975 to 1982, I had trouble with a layout that worked well in a limited space. In addition I wanted a small classic town that looked as if the sets were made in the same era, yet combined sets spanning over seven years, an issue not uncommon to long-time Adult Fans of Lego (AFOL). To offer some advise on the subject, let me offer 7 helpful tips for building a classic town layout.

1) LOCATION

Pick your location first. Will your town layout be on a floor, a desk, or dining room table? There is nothing worse than building a large number of sets or MOCs and setting them up, only to find out that your space is too small, or you can't keep your layout on the floor. I prefer a table. The reason being is that I like to sit comfortably on a chair as I move my baseplates/roadplates around the table. Definately avoid places that get direct sunlight. You don't want to pre-maturely age your white bricks. Although not required, it's also nice to build near your location. Otherwise, you must lug your sets/MOCs to another room risking the chance of dropping your creation and/or those town vehicles rolling off your baseplate in transit. Pick a location that you can keep for a while unbothered (away from kids and pets) and not have to move anytime soon. This will assure that you can enjoy your town before having to destroy.

2) SIZE

How many roadplates should you use? As a general rule, figure a (1.2 to 1.6) to 1 ratio for roadplates to buildings you plan to add. Using a 1.5:1 ratio will result in a nice/moderate amount of roadplates to buildings. This gives your town driving space which helps the playability factor. There is nothing worse than a town/city so filled with buildings or structures that you can't swoosh or zoom your cars through. EXAMPLE: I'm planning a town with approx. 9 buildings. Multiplying 9 buildings by 1.5 is 12.6 (rounded to 13) roadplates. Lay out 13 blank roadplates on your table and see if this amount fits. Overhang is not good. Consider adjusting your number of buildings based on the 1.5:1 ratio. Only have space on your table for 10 roadplates? That's about 7 buildings. NOTE: I've based this ratio on standard town sets from the early 80s in which one building (like a police station as an example) generally takes up one roadplate. Adjust your ratio based on how full you like your town to look. Not a math wizard? You can always try the practical approach by laying out your roadplates on the tabletop until full. Start constructing your buildings one at a time placing them on your table with roadplates. Keep building until full. This I call the "shotgun approach".

3) FOCAL POINT

Create a focal point. Using your FAVORITE or LARGEST set in your collection, place the set near the middle of the town and build around it. This could be your Yellow Castle (ok, that was mine in past towns), Main Street, or a Train Station. Visually, creating a Town Center adds a visual appeal to your town that immediately catches you or the person looking upon your town. Keep in mind that your Town Center does not need to be a building, but could be a park with a green baseplate, or other interesting MOC/set. Here's an example of a Town Center:

_{Yellow Castle Serving as a Focal Point}

4) SCALE & STYLE

When combining buildings/sets from different eras, make sure to stay in scale. A little Octan Gas Station from 1985 will not look good placed next to Cafe Corner. This goes the same for mixing 4-stud wide cars with new City vehicles that are much larger. Style is also important to maintain when mixing a wide-variety of sets. For a more realistic Classic Town, don't mix Harry Potter or Batman with City. Combining these sets may look awkward. The exception is perhaps if you use a different themed set as your TOWN CENTER (see image above). Old Lego Idea Books and catalogues provide good examples of classic towns.

5) LESS IS BETTER

For Classic Town building, as mentioned in "Step 2: Size", "minimalist" style building works better than elaborately detailed MOCs and overcrowded streets. Too many vehicles take away the fun of "playing" in your town. As someone who has multiple sets of a similar theme (like three different fire stations), pick your favorite or the one that most goes with the style of your town, unless building a very large scale layout. A town that only has a few houses, doesn't need more than one fire station.

6) LAYOUT

Build one set/MOC at a time on a single road/baseplate each, then add them to your town. This allows you to place them in different locations to see what works the best for your town. You can always remove your base/roadplate from your creation to place it on another roadplate within your city. Sometimes you need to do so to make your roads connect well with one another. Avoid adding all the "little stuff" until you have finished placing all of your creations on your layout. This includes fences, figs, and other accessories.

7) FINISHING TOUCHES

Connect all of your roadplates with your favorite connection method(s). This could be trees, 2x2 gray plates, a bench, and/or other combinations of pieces. Be creative and try different things. Avoid using the same method throughout your town, which looks boring and uncreative. You might also consider adding some landcape or scenery. Patches of trees, a small park, fence area, or other additions add a nice visual and unique look to your town.

The great thing about Lego is that if you don't like what you've created, you can always rebuild it. I hope you find this article helpful for your town planning. My recent Classic Town, although I'm still adding to it:

_{Classic Town Restoration - June 2008}

Happy Building!

- TheBrickster, Classic Lego Town Fan

[The Bricksmith]

Great article, This has really helped me plan my city in progress. Silly question but how do you connect a building to a road plate?

[WesternOutlaw]

Great article, This has really helped me plan my city in progress. Silly question but how do you connect a building to a road plate?

Thank you. That's good to hear.

In regard to your question, there's a few ways you can go about connecting your buildings:

1) My preferred method is to remove the roadplate from your town after you've created your road layout. Then, build your structure on the roadplate and return it when you are done.

2) If this approach is not feasible due to having to take up a few baseplates, do a stud count of your studded area when the roadplates are together. For example, one of the road plates pictured in the article above has 9-studs of space between the road and the edge of the plate. Combining two gives you an area of 18-studs wide to work with. You can build on a separate baseplate, then remove and add to your town when complete. I also do this sometimes.

3) Build your structure directly on your road layout, one brick-at-a-time.

4) For larger buildings, it may not be feasible for you to build on one roadplate. You can use a standard green or grey plate to build your structure atop. When complete, place it in your town as either a "focal point" (town center), or "dead zone" (an area where your road plate ends). In the picture above of the "Classic Town Restoration - June 2008", look for the red town house with blue roof. You could call this a "dead zone", my term for an area where the road plate ends. The fires station to the right of the picture is another one.

Most importantly, try a few different methods to see what works best for you.

I hope this answers your question. Good luck with connecting those buildings.

[Doctor Sinister]

Insert gratuitous shot of Tabletown...

Dr. S.

[WesternOutlaw]

That would be an example of THRIVING MEGA-METROPOLIS as opposed to a slow-paced Classic Town. I wonder what your roadplate to building ratio is?

I think I can actually make out a FOCAL POINT in your City. The soccer field serves a a great Town City Square.

This is what my layout would look like if I were to build every set in my Town collection (minus the crane). I'd hate to have to dust it.

Thanks for sharing DS.

[WhiteFang]

Brickster, this is what I called a real quality for an article!

You have written very well, with that excellent 7 tips of yours, to start up a Classic LEGO Town. Of course, each of us has a different method of building one. Your tips are certainly most useful and able to provide an interesting insight in your conceptualize and planning. I am very impressed by it.

Thanks you so much for taking time to draft out this outstanding article.

[Eilif]

Well done. Not being a "classic" town collector, it's not a good set of guidelines for me. However for someone who wants to display their town sets in a manner similar to the catalog style's of the 80's and early 90's, you did a very good job and presented some very well-thought-out points.

[Fatespuppet]

I liked this article. It's a nice primer for someone wanting to build a well balanced table town. I especially like the tips for connecting baseplates. I never even thought about using trees and benches and random stuff like that to connect my plates. I've been trying to hide connections under walls and stuff.

[maiq the liar]

nice article! i'll definately follow this while i build the classic town of foggyville.

(albrickuerque is the big city, foggyville is a little town.)

[Doctor Sinister]

I think I can actually make out a FOCAL POINT in your City. The soccer field serves a a great Town City Square.

Sort of, there is a commercial-type city centre at the far end which I regard more as the focal point, but yes, the stadium is large enough to draw the eye.

Dr. S.

I liked this article. It's a nice primer for someone wanting to build a well balanced table town. I especially like the tips for connecting baseplates. I never even thought about using trees and benches and random stuff like that to connect my plates. I've been trying to hide connections under walls and stuff.

Lampposts are good too.

Dr. S.

[DB24]

First off, thanks for the awesome article! I found it great to read, and very informative.

The only CC i have is perhaps a lack of pictures/diagrams to go with the text. I found the picture in part 3 (focal point) to really help me visualise what you have to say. Putting some pics in could really make this a fantastic article.

Thanks again mate

[bullet8542]

Well as someone who is in the middle of rebuilding his town this article could not have come along at a better time, Thanks again to Brickster you information and reviews are a real help.

Of course I like looking at you classic town I use to have all of those sets and really wish I still did.

Edited August 5, 2008 by bullet8542

[rriggs]

Great article! I have just started putting together a Classic Town layout and there are some good tips in there. I definitely need to be more creative when joing road plates together and (currently) the layout is missing a focal point. It will be getting a focal point this afternoon!!

Really useful tips. Thanks for doing this!

Cheers

Rog

Edited August 21, 2008 by rriggs

[JopieK]

our newest strategy is to build houses etc. like the blacksmith shop. (so with a hinge and on two small plates). We are however still unsure about how to quickly build the roads (since we also use those small baseplates for that), Patrick from Belug has made some nice streets for the Mechelen museum, we might adopt some of his idea's about the streets.

(last winter at Frechen we had this as a layout: http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/JopieK/F...08/img_2552.jpg but we thought our buildings were too large (at least the Erdinger and Coca Cola)

[Marko]

Thank you for a good clear concise article. First seeing all the classic town sets that I carve for in a neat display is pure pleasure. I read your article in stage when I have done most of the planning and executed some of the purchases.

I would like to share my experience of starting the town. I started with advice from Lions Gate Models and I printed road plates from their site to create my town road plan layout on carton. Using real touchable plan has worked out for me very good. I have been changing there a lot. Then I used Bricklink and Brickset for making list of the sets I would like eventually have. Latter was good for the initial reviews. Later I switched to LDD and started designing there my buildings block by block that I did not find as sets or which were too expensive. Next back to BL for shopping list.

And now I am in a stage that is controlled by my wife - executing the purchases. Probably it will take me couple of years.

[lpool1983]

Great article with depth.

It's helpful for someone who have a scheme for 70~80's legoland style.

About 4 years ago, I made my own town diorama with combined 3 classical themes of legoland ; town,space,castle

I think that's similar to your context.

you can see more photos about this at my homepage below.

My link subcategory is "play 8 studs"

Because I am one of korea AFOL, all text is written by korean

so only photos...sorry

Edited April 17, 2011 by lpool1983

[Out of Sight]

Very nice article! I had just got back into Lego City/Town. Though I'm more interested in the vehicles, 6 wide trucks to be precise. I've always thought it would be nice indeed to incorporate them into a street scene/diorama layout. I'm planning to make a small rural town being passed by a huge, I mean huge heavy haulage transport, measuring around 70 studs long (MOC,almost done). It always amazes me to see actual heavy haulage transports to weave their way through tight traffics while pulling 250 tonnes of load.

[LEGO Guy Bri]

Great article 'Brickster'. I had followed many of these step as my town became a city. Unfortunately I don't have the space for my road plates (only have 10 or so out). Same goes for my modulars/modern city sets. Have a very narrow but, deep closet that has only one entrance/exit. Can't steppin' on my plates None the less, great advice.

Great city shots everyone

Edited April 19, 2011 by Leg Godt Gud