Is your town old school or new school?

[romdam]

Was interested to know how many still build towns with th old 80's look to it. You know, the Main Street/Public Works era. I see a lot of new on here. Granted, we live in modern times but me, I can't see myself building anything than what I liked when I first started. Would love to see some old school layouts.

And yes, when I move hopefully in October, my house has a finished basement that is all mine and will build and post pics of my wonderful 80's era city.

[Rijkvv]

I used to have a layout based on '90s sets. There were a few '80s sets (vehicles), but most of them were '90s. The only building of the '2000s was the airport, but that was a release of a 1994 set. My future layout (if I ever get the bricks and space) will be designed mostly by me, with maybe the exception of the Vestas windmill in other colours.

[lightningtiger]

I personally build modern with a classic feel in my town I'm creating. Though I will admit that the 80's is a cool medium for Lego.

I'm a conformist! !

[Rapseflaps]

A mix of late eighties/early nineties, City sets from 2007 and later and a few modulars thrown in.

Until I had to break it down, anyway (see here).

[wooootles]

I build modular style nowadays. Classic's for lil' kids

Just kidding. I was in a 11-year Hiatus with bricks until the Cafe Corner and Green Grocer gave me a one-two punch and harassed me back into collecting LEGO. If I never stopped collecting since my childhood days (as in, Town didn't get grossly terribad in the late 90s/early 00s) I'd probably have a big classic-style collection such that GG and CC won't make it into my ranks. Of course there are still super-detailed 'classic' style that is a cut above the normal town/CITY sets if you call it that: Town Square, Winter Shop, that Medieval market thing (in integrates well into a city theme) and I probably would have gotten those whether I'm a pure classic builder or big modular builder.

[XimenaPaulina]

I've just recently rekindled my love for classic town after reacquiring the town sets I lost during my childhood and I'm currently planning building a simple town based on late-80s/early-90s sets. I know the modern sets are really highly-detailed and great-looking, especially the modular buildings and the vehicles with the upgraded sleek looks. But for some reason I still like the simple beauty of the classic town - those simple buildings, 4-wide vehicles, road plates with grass on the sides, and the classic smiling lego faces.

[dr_spock]

I'm old school with 4 wide vehicles and such. Try to build that childhood dream. :)

[Joebot]

I'm old school with 4 wide vehicles and such. Try to build that childhood dream. :)

Well said! Classic town for me as well (you can find a bunch of pictures of my town here). I own all of the modular buildings, but the first thing I do after I finish building them is to rip out the back walls and the stairs. No back walls or stairs in my town! I also tend to downscale 6-wide vehicles into 4-wide. 6-wide vehicles just don't fit.

That being said, I do try to incorporate some more "modern" techniques into my town, such as tiled sidewalks.

[MdrnMrvls]

New school. I can't stand a building with only three walls.

[LegoSjaak]

Newschool....for 5 years ago i sold all my old Lego sets, especially 12 v trains. Last year i started buying new sets, and now i can't stop buying.. aha..

Search for LegoSjaak at Flickr.com (http://www.flickr.com/photos/legosjaak/)

I have probably the most sets per square inch but i think it is looking pretty nice !!

Have a look and maybe i will read your comments...the city encloses about 100 mainly new sets.

greetz !!

Sorry, forgot the link to my city on Flickr...

[Davey]

I generally build a mix of the two. Most (if not all) of my buildings have four walls, but many are new school takes on classic sets. Of course the main city center uses the "Modular Building Standard", but some of my outlying buildings have more of a "classic" feel to them. I still build all of my cars and trucks in 4-wide because I just love the look and it really works better with the Classic Town road plates that I use for my streets. My trains are 6-wide and my monorails...well...are a mix. I have one 4-wide and one 6-wide (the 6-wide is a Metroliner rip-off).

So while my heart still burns with nostalgia for the classics, I use a combination of old and new building standards.

-Davey

[Still Raindrop]

I'm not entirely sure--I use the modular scale, but I also try to give my town a classic look (You can see how successful I am by following the links in my sig).

Oh, and I also use Creator-style houses for suburban residences, and an approximation of the modular scale when doing some other work (the fish and chips stand, for example, isn't modular, but I think it's on the same kind of scale)

[lgorlando]

I never did give up my 80's classic style building skill set but I love the modern modular buildings.

Thus I mix the modular and classic style as well. You can achieve a realistic effect if you follow these guidelines:

Try to make the modular buildings look very refined and interesting. This can be expensive but worth the visual appeal. When setting up a city layout, place the more interesting buildings near the front and edges of your layout clustered together for a nice "market" effect. Because there are so many classic "playscale" models like Town Plan and City Corner, I try to build lots of 3 sided buildings with a modern feel so they don't impose on the detailed Modular buildings. You can typically make playscale buildings for cheap since you just need basic shaped bricks, plates and windows constructed, stacked in repeat patterns. I set the cheap buildings up in the background, staggered (offset from one another). I am particular on keeping playscale building colors in grey, brown, tan, or white. This is a visual "trick" so that the plain color buildings won't overwhelm the rest of your layout and you achieve a nice "big city" effect.

City Layout

City Layout with Vehicles (still waiting on bigger space before setting up the trains)

City Buildings Modular

City Buildings Classic "Playscale" style (open in the back)

Edited July 31, 2010 by lgorlando

[Artifex]

WOW! It looks really good! Amazing! I love your town - wait for me tomorrow afternoon to come by to play with you, ok? Can I sleepover? I swear I don't snore...

I'm a conformist!!

[vgsprites]

I love collecting new sets from my local shopping but nothing can match finding and rebuilding my old childhood sets. I guess I'm split on both styles. In my LDDs at home I have MOCs using the new wider 4- and 6-wide stud vehicles but I have 4-wide stud trucks that I love on how simple they look and build. Whenever i move into a bigger space where I can dedicate to my collection I think it will have a mix of the classic sets with the newer modular sets. I believe it will have that small town feel with the big modern city looks.

Like for example when the 3180 Tank Truck driver waves to the 4537 Twin Tank Truck driver passing by on a delivery run.

[marvinblue]

I build new school as it's alot easier to collect then old school stuff. You can see my layout following the links in my sig block. However, there's no school like old school!!

[romdam]

I love reading the replies! I so can't wait until I get my house. I've had the sets and ideas bagged up for about 10 years! It's awesome to have the sets I have as when I was a kid in the 80's, I only had vehicles. Gosh, I wanted Main Street so bad! Now I have it and built off of it, making about 6 more buildings in the same build as in the original. My Main Street will be nice! I can't wait so I can get building and post pics.

I'm not totally anti new school. I did pick up City Corner and Town Home. Hey, they fit in nice!

[Modulex Guy]

I build new school buildings, I'm not rally a huge fan of not having a back wall, plus I like to build with realistic style.

But most of the cars I have in my layout are mostly 4 wide cars, some built as classic style with variations of new and old. I build trucks in 6 wide.

[Ralph_S]

I don't really have a city as such. It's more like part of one street.

A competition involving building to the Cafe-corner standard is what got me back into building town, after a break of probably around 20 years. The result was 'A Taste of India', which you can see in the picture. I love the kind of detail I can put into buildings of that size, even if it does mean I can't build quite as many of them as I could if I'd leave out stairs and rear facades. The same goes for the cars. I can understand some of the nostalgia people feel for four-wides, but slightly larger cars and larger trucks offer more scope for detailing and look more realistic to me.

New school all the way

Cheers,

Ralph

Edited August 5, 2010 by Ralph_S

[The Yellow Brick]

I never did give up my 80's classic style building skill set but I love the modern modular buildings.

Thus I mix the modular and classic style as well. You can achieve a realistic effect if you follow these guidelines:

Try to make the modular buildings look very refined and interesting. This can be expensive but worth the visual appeal. When setting up a city layout, place the more interesting buildings near the front and edges of your layout clustered together for a nice "market" effect. Because there are so many classic "playscale" models like Town Plan and City Corner, I try to build lots of 3 sided buildings with a modern feel so they don't impose on the detailed Modular buildings. You can typically make playscale buildings for cheap since you just need basic shaped bricks, plates and windows constructed, stacked in repeat patterns. I set the cheap buildings up in the background, staggered (offset from one another). I am particular on keeping playscale building colors in grey, brown, tan, or white. This is a visual "trick" so that the plain color buildings won't overwhelm the rest of your layout and you achieve a nice "big city" effect.

City Layout

*Snip*

City Layout with Vehicles (still waiting on bigger space before setting up the trains)

*Snip*

City Buildings Modular

As soon as I saw you City, I thought of the Lego City adverts for some reason

Edited September 28, 2010 by The Red Brick

[romdam]

The house we are looking at buying is 75% ours. I can't wait as the fixed up basement I get to use for my layout is 16 x 25 feet!!!

[Magina]

Hey

Our New York is only from the New Sets at Time at 2004. Because the Cars of 6 weight (Trucks) Looks very good and the new citysets looks for more Details.

Rob

[04smallmj]

My layout is mostly new school:

Sorry about the mess LOL. I need to tidy it up and I'm building a harbour type thing. I'm not sure if the pizzeria counts as old school though, it doesn't have a back wall and comes with a 4 wide car.

Another old school thing is the baseplates. The baseplates shown in the first pic show all of my newer ones. I collected a lot of baseplates when I was younger and therefore have a lot of the light grey and green baseplates. The ones like these:

I have 11 of those in total. I'm not sure if I want to spend money collecting the newer ones .

[rriggs]

I have more old school sets than new school sets but most of my recent layouts have been new school. This is because new school sets are easier to come by and all of my trains are new school. That said, even my new school layouts have old school features. For example, the petrol station in my most recent layout was distinctly 1980s even though everything around was newer. Still worked though especially with the 2010 small car filling up! I still use old school roadplates quite a lot as well as they offer more room for buildings and 6-wide vehicles (just) fit.

Not sure if I answered the question? If I actually had to choose one or the other it would be new school as the vehicles are more realistic and have more features. Real world, it's going to be a mixture.

Cheers

Rog

[mawich]

Strictly old school for me. I grew up with those classic sets from the 1980's and I guess I've got a nostalgic attachment to them which I don't have with the newer sets. The only modern city sets I've purchased are the Mail Plane (7732) and the Chef (8398) as these fit perfectly into the Classic Town scale. I'm also planning to purchase the Winter Toy shop and the Bakery set as these also fit into the Classic scale.

For me the "Classic Town" scale is

- 4 stud wide vehicles (or vehicles where the drivers cab is 4 studs wide such as the Lego Truck 3442)

- Buildings where each room is no more than 10 studs wide, and 6 studs deep. The Lego Hospital 6380 is a classic example of this

- Transport vehicles (non train/monorail) carrying no more than 5 minifigs

- Each floor in a building is no more than 6 bricks high

One comment I've read time and again about the newer sets is their realism...i.e. the trucks for example have wing mirrors and other details not found in the older sets. However, in a strange way the added realism and size has come at the cost of ... realism. For instance, the old school airports came with runways...whereas the newer ones don't...same with the newer Police and Fire Stations.

I don't envy the "New School" City designers of today...I've yet to see a new school layout successfully incorporate the newer airport sets...simply because the passenger planes are so large.. They look cool but take up so much space...whereas the old school airports covered no more than 4 baseplates.

The other problem the City designers of today have is the variation in scale...For those like me who are picky about these things,there are various scales in use now not present (to any great extent) with the classic sets...

7213 - Fire Truck is 8 wide

7249 - Mobile Crane is 12 wide

7637 - Farm Tractor is 12 wide

7685 - Dozer must be at least 24 wide

These variations in scale lead me to believe that TLG have done away with the concept of a fully integrated and "to scale" City range. Instead, I suspect the TLG designers are no longer constrained by a certain scale (as the Classic Town designers were) and so long as there is a market for the finished product...are free to design ever larger and more elaborate City themed sets.

A final note: The Classic Town Designers did "drop the ball" with a few of sets that were out of scale such as 6440 - Jet Port fire squad and 6484 - F1 Hauler...both of which were 6 scale and would be more in keeping with the modern vehicle scale.