[MOC] Record Store (Modular Building)

[ReplicaOfLife]

Hey there

it's finally time for me to present my second modular MOC, the Record Store:

If this building seems oddly familiar, it' no surprise - it takes a lot of inspiration from cimddwc's outstanding Chima Trikes Store. Back when I started designing this building in LDD I asked him wether it would be ok to use his creation as inspiration, and he gave his consent. Thanks again, cimddwc!

Some facts about this building:

~ 3550 pieces

~ 47cm height

Designed in LDD between December 16th and December 31st, 2014

Piece aquisition and building during January 2015, one final BL order for some minor changes arrived last week.

This is the second modular building I created. The first was my Hat Shop that I presented here roughly a year ago. During the last year, I built some more of the official modulars, including a bricklinked Blue Grocer and a customised Cafe Corner, both of which I enjoyed very much. Towards the end of the year, I got itchy to build something again. First I thought I'd get two copies of Detective's Office and mod them into something bigger, but in the end, I wanted to be more creative. I still don't have much of a collection of modern parts, so I gave LDD a try. Never having used LDD before, I decided to use an existing MOC as inspiration/starting point. Cimddwc's Chima Trikes Store was an obvious choice there, as for me it is one of the most memorable and iconic designs that were posted here in recent months. I also really liked the color scheme based around cool yellow, so I used that as well. You can find lots of buildings in similar colors in german cities.

I quickly got the hang of LDD, the only thing that was frustrating at first was getting the rounded tower to work. I designed the principal building in roughly two weeks. I took care to check parts availability on those parts I wasn't sure existed in my wanted color, but still had to do some minor changes when I ordered the parts from bricklink. I aquired about 2700parts in 8 BL orders, the rest came from my existing collection. Some of the cool yellow parts I had to order from France, the rest I managed to get from sellers in Germany.

But enough babble, let's take a closer look at the builing!

There are a few additional pictures at flickr, also you can view higher resolution versions there: https://www.flickr.c...57648369659184/

(That won't improve my mediocre photographing skills, though )

A back view. The building uses up almost the entire baseplate. The windows of the upper floors were one of two points where LDD fooled me. The original design that held up the 2x1 cheese slopes to either side of the windows was impossible to do in real life.

Originally I had planned a different design for the door, but though it worked in LDD, it didn't work in real life. I changed it around a few times, and I'm quite satisfied with the final result.

The ground floor features an old fashioned record store where you can buy vinyl LPs. You also can pre-listen to the albums in the store, something that was very common before the advent of the internet (there's still some shops that allow this, but there are much fewer record stores in general...).

The walls are decorated with some musical instruments. I really wanted to get one or two of the black Flying V guitars, but they were imposiible to find at reasonable prices .

Looking at the patron's and owner's haircuts makes me wonder if Al from Al's barber shop is a one trick pony...

There's a small back office behind the door. As the whole desk area is covered by the stairs, I took a picture of it during building.

The two upper floors contain an apartment each. Both feature an open floor design with a separate bathroom.

First floor:

The bathroom is pretty small, and in true Lego modular fashion, it misses a toilet:

Second floor:

The guy living on this floor propably is a customer of Al's aswell...

Again, only a very small bathroom. But, thank god, he has a toilet! I guess he can visit the couple downstairs if he needs a shower, while in return they don't have to venture to the brown townhouse next to the Pet Shop or the Detective's Office when nature calls...

The roof has a skylight above the kitchen/dining area.

Finally, some comparison shots with other modulars. The roof of my Record Store is just about the same height as the righthand part of Green Grocer.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my MOC! I sure had a lot of fun designing and building it!

Edited August 17, 2015 by RogerSmith

[lightningtiger]

COOL modular 'Roger Smith'.......the exterior and ground floor shop interior is just AWESOME !

Brick On 'Roger Smith' !

[Withacee]

"Designed in LDD between December 16th and December 31st, 2014"

Gordon Bennett! What are you, Superman?

A brilliant design. I especially love the ground floor facade.

The yellow works a lot better than I would have thought.

Keep clicking those bricks together!

Edited February 8, 2015 by Withacee

[cimddwc]

Well done! Nice interior and great roof windows!

For a direct comparison, here's my original Trikes Store:

Chima Trikes Store front1 by cimddwc, on Flickr

[Off the wall]

Wow! Everything about it works. Maybe your great creation will inspire the Lego design team.

[Captain Braunsfeld]

A record store and a home at the same time.

Excellent build, carefully equipped with furniture - well done

[ItsaBRICKS]

Love it! Very well done.

[Ex cinno]

Very interesting building with nice colors scheme. The exterior of the ground floor is the part I liked most.

[ReplicaOfLife]

Thanks to all of you for your kind words

lightningtiger, somehow I already suspected that the shop interior would be right up your alley

"Designed in LDD between December 16th and December 31st, 2014"

Gordon Bennett! What are you, Superman?

Not that I'm aware of

I had two weeks off from work starting on Dec. 19th, and apart from the usual Christmas and New Years Eve celebrations didn't have that much to do

Edited February 8, 2015 by RogerSmith

[tkatt]

Thanks for sharing this, it is great.

[paostmo]

Your record store and the original trike store are both amazing. cimddwc's MOC has been very inspiring to me as well!

[LegoSjaak]

That is one nice building! I like the color as well, even besides your Blue Grocer! Are you inspired by Cimddwc's building, or is it just a co-incidence?? Really great job!!

[streifen]

Nice building!

I like the round cosy corner (right word?). The façade looks brilliant!

One thing though...you may want to get some printed tiles for the front of each record stack. surely not all records are plain.

[Temet Nosce]

The insides are very well thought out, and work great! I'm loving the circular tower as well. Perhaps a sandwich board advertisement on the pavement might just be the cherry on the cake.

[ReplicaOfLife]

That is one nice building! I like the color as well, even besides your Blue Grocer! Are you inspired by Cimddwc's building, or is it just a co-incidence?? Really great job!!

As I wrote in the original post, it is inspired by cimdwcc's building. There's even a link to his original thread up there .

I actually contacted him when I started designing this building. I didn't want any hard feelings, and he gave his blessings.

One thing though...you may want to get some printed tiles for the front of each record stack. surely not all records are plain.

There are few tiles that I know of that would really work in such a context.

Haunted House had some Vinyl LP stickers that I considered getting, mainly for the record players on the counter.

Another option would've been customized stickers, which would be great to work in some of my favorite albums, but I actually don't like stickers much, and didn't want to waste time and effort on something I didn't know would really look good.

The insides are very well thought out, and work great! I'm loving the circular tower as well. Perhaps a sandwich board advertisement on the pavement might just be the cherry on the cake.

Good idea, thanks!

Edited February 9, 2015 by RogerSmith

[Kristel]

Nice! I like the changes you've made to make it you're own, and the interior is fantastic. My favourite part is the top floor apartment, especially the cosy corner and blue kitchen.

[AFOLguy1970]

That is an excellent modular MOC! I like the colors and Victorian appearance you have given it. I am impressed that it only took you half a month to design this. Probably quite a few of us would enjoy having one of these in our "town".

[ReplicaOfLife]

That is an excellent modular MOC! I like the colors and Victorian appearance you have given it. I am impressed that it only took you half a month to design this. Probably quite a few of us would enjoy having one of these in our "town".

Thanks

I think if I hadn't had cimwdwc's MOC as a guideline, designing would have taken a lot longer.

I plan to take the same approach (first designing it in LDD, then aquiring the pieces and building it) for my next MOC, but that will be entirely my own design, so I'm kinda curious how long it will take to get it just 'right'. I already have several general ideas in my head, but I'm sure it will have more of those moments where I go through several design iterations before getting to one that works for me. For instance on this MOC, the SNOT work around the windows got redesigned several times before I was fully satisfied with it.