HereWeGoAgain

Birth of a new Lego city [UPDATE #24 Overpass completed! ]

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Hello brick fans,

Finally completed (is it ever really complete?) another piece of my beach layout with the stairs to access the city above. Pretty happy with the result. I have taken some inspiration from the old fishing store as was already stated above, not only for the stairs, but also for the little surf shack I put in the corner.

Here's some pictures!

View from under the bridge:

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The surf shack as posted on Instagram the other day:

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A view separate from the layout on how this 32x32 baseplate turned out. It is shifted by 4 studs on purpose:

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Yes, there's a gap where the cliffs around the stairs and the main wall meet. I initially planned on just laying a bunch of bricks behind, but since it sits in a corner where it is dark behind, you can't see the gap, so to spare some bricks I'll leave it as is.

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Another view of the stairs:

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The shack itself placed where it is intended to go:

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And finally a view from the top!

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'Til next time!

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Really nice work on the beach and staircase! Congrats!

I was a little bit concerned how the stairs initially looked but it turned out really good.

Any picture of the beach placed in the layout?

Keep the good work and let us updated!

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1 hour ago, Chiaroscuro said:

Really nice work on the beach and staircase! Congrats!

I was a little bit concerned how the stairs initially looked but it turned out really good.

Any picture of the beach placed in the layout?

Keep the good work and let us updated!

Thanks for the comment!

I suppose you were talking about a picture that shows the rest of the city. The street is a bit too crowed with cars :-p:

IMG-20200610-192327.jpg

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Thanks for the comments guys, appreciated!

Not sure what I will tackle next. I think I'm going to be building a few official sets and start sorting parts to rebuild some of the 90s sets I recently acquired.

Probably just fill up the middle section of the ocean as it's relatively straight forward (a 32x32 with plates and tiles for the water depth variations). Next I might tackle cliffs on the opposite side where I'm planning to have a little dock for the old fishing store (for which the hidden side shrimp boat fits perfectly).

Soooo muuuuch tooo dooo....

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Hello Brick fans,

With the confinement being somewhat lifted over here, I must return to work which means I have less time to build. But I management to make some progress on my train station and around the diner. I've been wanting to do this for quite a while now and frankly, I needed a break from cliffs and rock work :-p

The first thing I did was tile the little plaza we had on top. I went with tan and sand blue, it's what I had the most of. I like it, although I'm not 100% sold on it, what do you think? The only other added detail are the 3 lamp post.

IMG-20200620-143435.jpg

No train station would be complete without some graffitis...some of you may have seen my IG post from a week ago. These are custom printed designs on actual lego bricks that I got from eclipsebricks.com. I have several more of these graffiti walls I'll put in my city as it gets build, plus a lot more I got from them. Quality is top notch!

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The rest of the station hasn't changed that much yet. I changed the stairs, added fences and guard rails and some flowers on the top. I also tiled the entire platform for a cleaner look:

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Not a huge update, but an update nonetheless :-). I need to figure out some sort of over-head on the platform to protect minifigs from the rain and stuff. No idea what I'll do there. Maybe I'll leave it like that. I need to tile and add details to the back of the Diner and the Pet Shop. Modulars are always cool on the front, but the back is usually left a bit bare. 

I'm waiting on some bricklink orders to continue on the ocean side as I was running out of some of the plates I use for depth as well as some parts to convert the Metroliner to powerfunctions. I thought about putting the 9V tracks in, but it would mean buying more tracks and I already have a ton of the regular non-electric ones.

That's it for now, 'til next time!

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Hello brickfans,

Wow, about a month without an update. Time has been scarce lately, not much time to build and I had a few other projects to attend to.

I finally started to work on the overpass in the back of the table, here's the current state of it. I'm waiting for a few bricklink orders to get here to finish this off. Basically we'll have a one way road, 8 studs wide above (AFOL Ave.), a small train station and a long "boardwalk" along the cliffs with plenty of sitting space for the minifigs to look at the beach and the ocean. It'll all be tiled with a pattern.

Not a whole lot of pictures, but progress is progress :-)

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IMG-20200713-154954.jpg

IMG-20200713-155005.jpg

'Til next time!

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Oh yes, updates! So you're planning to tile the road? Good thing it'll only be 8 wide, otherwise you'll have to spend a lot for the pricey dbgray tiles. The more I see, the more I like your rock formation!

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Thanks fellas!

Yes the road on the overpass will be tiled to blend in with the actual road plates, I feel like leaving it bare just wouldn't make sense. 2x2 tiles can be purchased in large quantities from pick a brick, all colors are the same price at 0.08 cents CHF, so to tile a 32x32 it would cost about 20CHF, so tiling isn't the most expensive thing to be honest :-). They can be found cheaper on bricklink of course but not always in the desired quantity or actually more expensive, but I try to keep orders within my country to avoid import tax hassles. I've actually just purchased a bunch of 1x8 tiles to tile that part of the road, made more sense than 2x2s.

Yeah I really figured out a quick, easy and good looking way to make rock-work as I have shown previously. It's basically a bunch of large plates snoted on the side of the overpass structure. Then I just randomly put in various slopes in, looks good and it's a fast way to do an entire cliff (about an hour I'd say).

Been working on the beach today a bit, I'll have some pictures up in the next few days probably. 

 

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11 hours ago, HereWeGoAgain said:

2x2 tiles can be purchased in large quantities from pick a brick, all colors are the same price at 0.08 cents CHF

Yup I think many people forget that rare / desirable colors are the same price on Replacement Bricks, and you can get it all in one shipping fee

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9 hours ago, Fenghuang0296 said:

Dude your city is gorgeous!

I’m curious where Thor’s going on the train . . :tongue:

Rumor has it the Bifrost ist under maintenance :laugh:

Thanks for the compliment!

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Hello brick fans,

Well, I finally completed my overpass! Quite the challenge to complete. All 3 sections are "modular", they have no brick or pin connections between them, easier to move out if I need to. Great opportunity to place my "AFOL" grafiti too :-)

I wanted to update this thread sooner, but I had to cut like 2mm off my table on the right or the 3 big structures making the overpass just wouldn't fit in correctly. Pretty happy with the result and a big step for my beach layout completion. Now we only have the old fishing store left to integrate along with 1 cliff and an "ocean" plate with a dock for the store and this part of the layout will be "complete" (it never really is, let's be honest).

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'Til next time!

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30 minutes ago, HereWeGoAgain said:

[snip]

and this part of the layout will be "complete" (it never really is, let's be honest)

[snip]

I think everyone with a city knows what "complete" means, as real cities, they always change over time. It looks really nice. That AFOL graffiti looks awesome. =D

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6 hours ago, Salix said:

I think everyone with a city knows what "complete" means, as real cities, they always change over time. It looks really nice. That AFOL graffiti looks awesome. =D

Yeah, building a Lego city is a bit like being a mayor of your own town with your own budget isn't it lol

Grafiti came from eclipsegraphx, got a couple more to set up around town :-D

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Thanks for the comments fellas! Appreciated, really.

I'm currently building the Parisian Restaurant, taking a little break from the custom stuff as I start to build for the second table. I think I'm not going to use road plates on this second table and rather 1 way tiled roads or alleys. Not entirely sure yet, but I need to maximise the space I have and I'd like to have like a little industrial area or something too.

After the PR is done, I'll probably tackle the placement of the Old Fishing store along with a little boat peer for the fishing boat and complete the cliffs so that part of the city will finally be complete. I'll then also be able to start working on the underwater area, super exited about that since I've always loved that theme.

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I love your  city... It has many awesome details ... I follow your steps with mine very far ... hehehe

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14 hours ago, APR5566 said:

I love your  city... It has many awesome details ... I follow your steps with mine very far ... hehehe

Thanks man, keep us updated with your progress :wink:

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I really like the small beach with the surf shack! It's also nice to see a main street with modular buildings. Looks like you have a sunny city! Do you already have a name for it?

So many parts you must have used to make all the rockwork and water tiling, wow! Keep bricking on, we're following! :excited:

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6 minutes ago, Wesley D said:

I really like the small beach with the surf shack! It's also nice to see a main street with modular buildings. Looks like you have a sunny city! Do you already have a name for it?

So many parts you must have used to make all the rockwork and water tiling, wow! Keep bricking on, we're following! :excited:

Thank you!

I haven't been able to come up with a name as weird as this may sound lol. I have to think of something though...Brickpoint? Brickport? St. Tilesville? New stud city?

With my "vertical technique", parts to do a one cliff is actually OK, although it needs quite a bunch of different slopes, it's pretty quick to to. It's basically a bunch of large plates mounted vertically and then I just slap slopes on randomly. Much more efficient than what I did at first with the cliffs that are right under the bridge where I stacked plenty of bricks/plates with studs on the side where you have to calculate more or less where a slope can and cannot go. Looks great but takes ages to complete.

Same for the water, instead of using 1x2 tiles, 1x4 are more efficient, although I need to buy more to finish.

I'm a bit stuck at what to take on next as I have other non-Lego related projects to do as well. I have already planned and expansion though, for a big train yard. Spent some time yesterday re-arranging my brick inventory boxes next to my desk :-). No clue when the next update will be though...

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