Space Police Layout

[spanks_4]

I have been a lego fan for years and also been a fan of HO scale electric trains. I have the entire space police collection *the new set* and wondering if anyone has every done a layout as I'm trying to figure out how it would be best to lay it all out...

I'm hoping to have enough space to throw in some of the city stuff also, but can't see how the space stuff will fit in unless I do an entirely seperate platform for that stuff.

[spanks_4]

Anyone do a space police layout yet? I'm thinking of doing a big layout with trains running threw/around it and trying to get some ideas if anyone has done it before.

[WesternOutlaw]

Spanks: I spotted this topic in Train Tech then noticed you asked a similar question in Sci-Fi. Being space-related, it probably belongs here. I've merged both your topics together. Good luck with your layout.

[Rocketbilly]

In my opinion, merging Space Police and Town/City sets (and, by extension, trains) shouldn't be too difficult at all. I myself did something similar wherein I built a city-stlye layout but gave everything a sort of futuristic/sci-fi twist. For example a landing pad for hover vehicles on a roof top, computer screens as part of the building facades, robots selling things from booths and lots of outlandish transparent colours, such as transparent neon green and transparent purple.

If you have the peEces, it would help to either convert your City vehicles into more futuristic counterparts - at the very least just remove the wheels and replace them with thrusters and fins, much like the Space Police sets frequently do - if you don't want to do that, you could do what I did and make the City sets look a little battered and worn out to show their age and to give them a sense of being obsolete compared to the more futuristic vehicles.

If you can, use the signage and scenery peices from the Space Police sets and spread it out a little - things like the "stop" sign from Freeze Ray Frenzy, the ATM from Smash N' Grab or the statue from the Galactic Enforcer would work very well as a centrepiece for a futuristic plaza - when populating such areas with minifgs, it's always good to mix ordinary humans with some more exotic minifgs like aliens and robots. The aliens aren't always crooks remember

If you're looking for inspiration for your building I fully recommend watching the film Blade Runner. When building pieces for my layout I frequently draw inspiration from it. It's a fantastic aesthetic in my opinion...and it's a great film too!

Ohh and if you're wanting a decent sense of scale whilst incorporating the official LEGO Space Police sets, you might want to build big...because a lot of those vehicles are considerably larger than their nearest city "equivalent" and can make buildings and the like look out of scale as a result - unless of course you want the futuristic vehicles to dwarf everything else to further contrast the old and new.

Regarding trains: I don't really know all that much about incorporating a train into a layout, I'm sure the Train Tech regulars would offer far better advice, but with regards to dressing a train to suit the Sci-Fi aesthetic, I would imagine giving it some futuristic cargo would help, especially if you're just using a standard LEGO train straight out of the box. Perhaps building a standard shipping crate with some futuristic greebles would work, or maybe having your train carry something like a rocket or small space vehicle. I myself have built a "hover train".

I'd also be apprehensive about using a train like the Emerald Night - beautiful as it is, I think the contrast would be a little too jarring for a general Sci-Fi scene.

Hope this helps!

Edited January 24, 2012 by Rocketbilly

[spanks_4]

Thanks for the info Rock... One of my biggest issue's with using the space police stuff is like you said it's big! I should have a pretty large area to work with, but trying to make buildings for some of those things is going to be hard!

Any pictures of your layout?

[Rocketbilly]

Thanks for the info Rock... One of my biggest issue's with using the space police stuff is like you said it's big! I should have a pretty large area to work with, but trying to make buildings for some of those things is going to be hard!

Any pictures of your layout?

No problem.

Sadly not, I've got a load of MOCs - mainly Sci-Fi, Star War and Hero Factory to take pictures of and post but sadly I am lacking in a camera. The layout is aslo a little bit scattered as of present.