[MOC] LEGO models of 3 NYC art-deco skyscrapers

[Deep Shen]

Hello,

It is my first time posting here on Eurobricks. I am relatively new to the world of LEGO and building MOCs. In fact I had never even touched a single piece of LEGO until a few years ago when my daughter started playing with them (in the time and place I grew up in, LEGO was unheard of and even if it was available I probably wouldn't have been able to afford it !). I stumbled into the creative possibilities that LEGO offers while helping my daughter build her sets. I would say that I am still not into 90% of what LEGO offers (Star Wars, Harry Potter, minifigs and such) but I have found myself a little niche in building scale models of skyscrapers with LEGO (and that is something this medium is particularly suited to).

I am an engineer by profession and approach this hobby with the same kind of rigor that I apply in my day job. I designed each of my LEGO models from scratch using Google Earth to study the buildings and make measurements. I then drew the floorplan (so to speak) of each section of the building on graph paper and that way when it was time to order parts from Bricklink I had a very good idea what parts and how many of them I needed. This somewhat manual approach was a refreshing change from my day job that involves working at a computer all day. But given the roughly 1/200 scale I am building at (my smallest MOC still needed upwards of 15K pieces !), it took me several months to design and build each of my MOCs. The three I have finished so far represent about a year's worth of work and I plan to keep going (I am currently working on a model of 40 Wall Street).

70pine_full by DeepShen, on Flickr

70pine_top by DeepShen, on Flickr

esb_full by DeepShen, on Flickr

chrysler_full by DeepShen, on Flickr

chrysler_top by DeepShen, on Flickr

I have not had a chance to display these in any LEGO conventions so far (I am in the northeastern US) but I hope to in the coming year.

Deep

[deraven]

Those are all great, but I'm particularly fond of the Chrysler building's top.  You did a great job capturing the look, and using the parrots there for the sculptures at each corner is just fantastic parts usage!  

[Deep Shen]

6 hours ago, deraven said:

Those are all great, but I'm particularly fond of the Chrysler building's top.  You did a great job capturing the look, and using the parrots there for the sculptures at each corner is just fantastic parts usage!  

Thanks ! While the spire of Chrysler was entirely original (I don't believe I have seen another version that uses curved slope SNOT like this one), the use of parrots for the eagles was borrowed from Sean Kenney's smaller version. It was his version of the Empire State Building that originally inspired me to start building my own versions of the ESB (I kept going after I finished that)

Edited October 29, 2018 by Deep Shen