WIP City - Strike Town

[Strikeman]

After playing around too much with MLCAD and having finally finished my attic (where I have been banished to with this "weird hobby"), I was finally able to start work on my new city .

In the past few months I've assembled all the sets from my youth, bought too much bulk LEGO from people my age, bought way too much new stuff and discovered Bricklink ... needless to say, I'm really itching to start building now, as are the workers in my town .

I've finished sorting all the bulk LEGO (took me long enough as you might imagine when buying 10 cases full).

I've been fiddling around with Bluebrick for the past week now, and yesterday evening I started laying down baseplates. Here are the first pictures of my town which is under construction, as you'll soon discover.

I plan to update this thread as often as I can, and I welcome any and all comments, remarks and hints. I also already apologize for the image quality, these are my first real shots of anything LEGO and I don't know if these are good enough ...

click on a picture for a highres image, WARNING they are approx 3.5 megabytes each

Let's start with the Bluebrick layout I've come up with. I'm working small 55cm x 55cm tables (22" x 22") so I can change it on the fly pretty easily.

I've cheated a little bit with the old style tracks, can you tell where ?

And this is how it looks in real life.

workers everywhere, they're scrambling to get this city set up as fast as possible.

Luckily the fort survived so let's hope the bluecoats can get rid of those pesky pirates

The massive (it really is big, isn't it?) crane is going to build the harbour

an overview of the downtown area.

the cops have already established a presence Let's hope they don't write too many tickets while construction is ongoing.

a view from the left, as you can see I ran out of table a bit

And a view from the right, where you can see construction going on on the cargo land terminal. I don't know who allowed that small Technic crane to help out, but it's doing a very good job at blending in I think !

One thing I've noticed already while setting things up is that I'm afraid I have to get rid of the forts to make room for some actual buildings as it doesn't look like I have much space left. Or I can just buy some more tables, but I can't put that much more in the attic or I won't fit in anymore What do you think ?

That's it for now, I hope you guys like it.

[Vindicare]

If you're going for a modern day town, I'm not sure most of those sets will work. Now, the castle COULD work as a Medevial Times restaurant. And having those few racetrack plates look a little weird and out of place to me. I understand though, you have to make due with what you have, especially with those streets. Overall, I'd say you have a good start going and your layout looks pretty cool. I envy people who have a room for a city like this.

[Fuzzylegobricks]

I like it! The forts could go to me but your opinion is the one you should follow, do you really need them there or will it be fine without them?

[lightningtiger]

Interesting layout 'Strikeman', classic town/pirates/castle with recent construction machines....different, oh is the service station an old MOC of yours ?

Anyway, keep on going and always K.O.B. !

[XimenaPaulina]

Quite a nice layout you got there Strikeman, it's really good to see your MLCad design translating into reality. I would assume those castle and pirate sets are just 'temporary fillers' since you don't have the town/city buildings at the moment right? Also, seeing those construction vehicles 'at work' does convey that this town is a WIP. Looking forward how this one develops.

[henryhotspurs]

Awesome start! The castle and pirate stuff could be incorporated into some sort of theme resort ala Treasure Island in Las Vegas. Looking forward to the rest of your build.

[LEGO Guy Bri]

Geat work so far 'Strikeman' Your city is looking great!I'm sorry it's considered a "weird" hobby. This is a great hobby! Anyway, keep doing what you 're doing! Can't wait to see the finished product:classic:

[Strikeman]

If you're going for a modern day town, I'm not sure most of those sets will work. Now, the castle COULD work as a Medevial Times restaurant. And having those few racetrack plates look a little weird and out of place to me. I understand though, you have to make due with what you have, especially with those streets. Overall, I'd say you have a good start going and your layout looks pretty cool. I envy people who have a room for a city like this.

As the topic subtitle suggests, I'm going back to the 90's with my first city, as 90% of my sets are from that era. That doesn't mean I'm not going to use new sets/construction vehicles to build it This is also the reason I choose to work with the light grey baseplates I'm indeed not sure about the racetrack plate with the full setup (left one), but the one on the bottom right is going to be used as a "ramp-on" for the loading dock that's being built there. It's the place where trucks wait to go onto the loading dock. If I get by IKEA again I'm probably going to buy a few more tables and then I'm going to implement my racetrack, using those 2 gridplates. But first I need to get my hands on 4 matching old-style curve baseplates without sidewalks

I like it! The forts could go to me but your opinion is the one you should follow, do you really need them there or will it be fine without them?

Quite a nice layout you got there Strikeman, it's really good to see your MLCad design translating into reality. I would assume those castle and pirate sets are just 'temporary fillers' since you don't have the town/city buildings at the moment right? Also, seeing those construction vehicles 'at work' does convey that this town is a WIP. Looking forward how this one develops.

I don't know, I want to keep them as I find them very cool, but I'm thinking of moving the left one out of the city center a bit. The black one I'd like to keep actually. We do have quite a lot of old forts/castles in our city centers here, fully restored, so I don't think they're that out of place ;) And I actually have 2 Eldorada fortresses, those are going nowhere

Interesting layout 'Strikeman', classic town/pirates/castle with recent construction machines....different, oh is the service station an old MOC of yours ?

Anyway, keep on going and always K.O.B. !

Thanks tiger, the service station is actually the one from the book that came with set 720. I do reckon the towtruck is quite big compared to the one on the left from set 6674 ... It's kind of weird as my sets are from the 4-wide era, and this one is 6-wide ... I've always wondered about that

Awesome start! The castle and pirate stuff could be incorporated into some sort of theme resort ala Treasure Island in Las Vegas. Looking forward to the rest of your build.

that's an idea as well :)

Geat work so far 'Strikeman' Your city is looking great!I'm sorry it's considered a "weird" hobby. This is a great hobby! Anyway, keep doing what you 're doing! Can't wait to see the finished product:classic:

It IS a great hobby, isn't it

Thanks for all the kind words guys Don't worry I'm going to incorporate some MOCs (once I relearn to use my own imagination again) as well, but the first thing I'm going to do is set up all my old sets and I'm going to work from there !

[LAKAbricks]

Hi Strikeman

Nice town, you are building there. Plenty of space and great to see some of the good old sets being used

When you look at the layout at first, it looks a little weird with the castle, pirates and town sets mixed. I guess, it's mainly because, we are not used to see the different LEGO themes mixed that way. - But yeah, why not? There are plenty of reasons for mixing it. And it doesn't have to be theme parks or themed restaurants etc. As you write yourself, many towns and cities have medieval neighbourhoods or even castles. Just make it look harmonic, then I can't see it should be a problem. Actually, I'm thinking about that myself, when I once will have enough space for my town.

Build your town, go to IKEA, buy some more tables and build even more I'm looking forward to see the process (will we ever see the 'result'? )

[brickyrob]

It all looks very promising so far, keep cracking the mini whip on those mini-figure workers! WORK FASTER, WORK FASTER!