[MOD] Grand Emporium

[elleana]

I LOVE how this turned out! I'm going to be doing the same with my GE, But I'm going to add another floor. Did you use all of the pieces from the second GE, or did you have some leftovers?

I would imagine there would be some leftovers (you only need one revolving door for instance) but not a whole lot..

[mrpoindexter]

When upsizing you generally have some leftovers, but also are missing pieces when upsizing. Often times, you don't have enough plates to make the roof or floors because a 48x48 baseplate is 2.25 times the size of a 32x32 baseplate. The perimeter is not double however, so you might have extra bricks (not guaranteed if you don't double up doors, windows, etc). When I upsized my theater, I was short on plates and windows. When I upsized the pet shop, I was short windows and floor tiles.

[RedBaron4850]

When upsizing you generally have some leftovers, but also are missing pieces when upsizing. Often times, you don't have enough plates to make the roof or floors because a 48x48 baseplate is 2.25 times the size of a 32x32 baseplate. The perimeter is not double however, so you might have extra bricks (not guaranteed if you don't double up doors, windows, etc). When I upsized my theater, I was short on plates and windows. When I upsized the pet shop, I was short windows and floor tiles.

Mostly this. I still have to build the interior so all of those pieces are left over from both buildings. I also have the main door and the back door, some of the windows, dark gray sidewalk tiles, and enough pieces for 2 of the pillars. I used all of the wall pieces and the only thing I was short on was a few wall pieces and a lot of 1x high plates. It's not too noticeable in the pictures but the roof is over 50% light gray instead of dark and both the second and 3rd floors by the escalators are off colored. This could partially be because my open space next to the escalators was only 7 studs wide instead of the original 10 studs. I am very pleased with how much room I have to work with and just hope that the inside will look as good as the outside when this is finished.

Edited April 8, 2014 by RedBaron4850

[LegoSjaak]

I coudn't stand not following RedBarons example of his XL Grand Emporium, made out of two sets... i started last Friday, and this my progress so far... ordered some dark gray plates via bricklink, wich will be delivered tomorrow!! Then i can finish the roof!

[talos]

Fantastic, this is the way it should of been done, but size/cost would get in the way... Oh and finally an up AND down escalator...just great...Nice job.

[RedBaron4850]

I am glad to have inspired you. It looks great using only the parts from the GE for interior so far. It really just looks great in these proportions and fits in very well in the city. I am currently sorting all of my gallon bags of parts (12 milk crates full) so I can create some sort of presentable interior.

[Boettner Builds]

I picked up my second GE this past weekend. TIme to start tearing down the old one and build your version!

[LegoSjaak]

Fantastic, this is the way it should of been done, but size/cost would get in the way... Oh and finally an up AND down escalator...just great...Nice job.

Yeah, that up AND down escalator was also pretty obvious to do, as all the parts needed are available.. When i finished het second floor, i saw that RedBaron also chose the same positions of the escalator....But okay... In som shops they are besides eachother,that would also be nice!... I needed a lot of extra darkgrey plates....which surprised me a bit.. i thought i could do the whole building like this with only the two sets, but that did'nt work out.. It was also hard to finish the tan walls, because of lack of smaller 1 x 1 and 1 x 2 bricks.... But, it worked.. I'm not totally satisfied with the groundfloor.. the outer corners of the building, which fit to another modular building, are positioned one stud off the pavement....maybe i just put a few 1x2 bricks on top of eachother and use them to flatten-out the facade in comparison with its neighbour modular! The darkgrey plates for the roof will probably arrive today so i can finish the whole outer building tonight! The interior will be not too difficult, because i only use the buildings to put them in my layout...

I am glad to have inspired you. It looks great using only the parts from the GE for interior so far. It really just looks great in these proportions and fits in very well in the city. I am currently sorting all of my gallon bags of parts (12 milk crates full) so I can create some sort of presentable interior.

Yes, thanx again, Red Baron.. i was curious how it would look like, and as i saw your pictures, i new i had to make an XL version of the Grand Emporium! And now that is almost finished, i'm really happy with it.. It had that Majestic look that it needs to have.. Now i would like to have 'Harrods' above the door, instead of 'Shop' I think it could be done.. This shop needs tiling.....but that would be a rather expensive project.....all floors... tiling.. that is a lot of studs...!!!!!! Hope to see your pictures soon!!

I picked up my second GE this past weekend. TIme to start tearing down the old one and build your version!

Before you tear down the old one.... I split up the old on, to use the walls or facade.... i just made it longer, so i did not have to tear down the whole building.. It is also a way to find out woh much bricks you need and to see if some ideas are possible or not... Making an XL version of this building was harder than i thought... although, maybe it is not as hard as the Parisian Restaurant..... Have fun with your build!

[LegoSjaak]

Here is my finished XL Grand Emporium, made out of two sets...It is standing besides the XL Town Hall and the XL Parisian Restaurant.... Here i put one half of the Pet Shop in between the XL versions, to see the difference in size...

Edited April 18, 2014 by LegoSjaak

[elleana]

Next to XL Town Hall and Parisian Restaurant, it doesn't look quite so big..

[LegoSjaak]

Next to XL Town Hall and Parisian Restaurant, it doesn't look quite so big..

...no, it doesn't look so big..but on the second picture, compared to the relatively small brown PetShop-part......it looks a bit bigger....

[B Rick]

...no, it doesn't look so big..but on the second picture, compared to the relatively small brown PetShop-part......it looks a bit bigger....

Exactly! To really appreciate the size (and effort) you should see it next to an original set... Had the same 'problem' with my modified haunted house.

[LAKAbricks]

Next to XL Town Hall and Parisian Restaurant, it doesn't look quite so big..

Not when everything else is growing too...

But it surely looks good. It doesn't appear to be that tall anymore. I can't wait to see RedBaron's interior.

[Ajax]

Great Work! I have two GE's arriving soon and don't know wether to build the set normally before my MOD or just combine the two from the start. It makes me a little nervous looking at all the work gone into yours. I may end up building upwards instead of outwards there are just so many possibilities.....?? Are there any other GE mods worth looking at before starting mine?

[Boettner Builds]

Great Work! I have two GE's arriving soon and don't know wether to build the set normally before my MOD or just combine the two from the start. It makes me a little nervous looking at all the work gone into yours. I may end up building upwards instead of outwards there are just so many possibilities.....?? Are there any other GE mods worth looking at before starting mine?

I'm going to make mine as wide as this, but I also want to go one more floor taller. I don't know how close 2 GE's will get me to this "dream" But I have plenty of extra pieces to add to it

[LegoSjaak]

Great Work! I have two GE's arriving soon and don't know wether to build the set normally before my MOD or just combine the two from the start. It makes me a little nervous looking at all the work gone into yours. I may end up building upwards instead of outwards there are just so many possibilities.....?? Are there any other GE mods worth looking at before starting mine?

Hi Ajax, it is not so much work.. but i would advise you to build one set complete...and then expand it.. it is more easy to see what bricks are left than.. I added some darkgrey plates... and some other bricks...but that was mostly because i wanted the floors in the same colors as the original.. Building upwards would be cool, but maybe you need to go sideways as well, because else the tall GE would look a bit thin, i think...... Succes anyway and show us your results!!!

I'm going to make mine as wide as this, but I also want to go one more floor taller. I don't know how close 2 GE's will get me to this "dream" But I have plenty of extra pieces to add to it

Bwoah..one extra floor would be cool to...that would make it really big! I just ordered a second Palace Cinema to give it the same shape as the extra wide GE! I will widen my first Palace Cinema with 16 studs on both sides... see how that looks like... i also ordered a few extra 8 x 16 tan plates for the floors and some dark tan and light grey bricks, to be sure that i have enough bricks to build the walls.. now i need an extra 16 x 32 baseplate... i have only one left... see if there are any at bricklink...!! Succes with your GE-XL-MOD, and hope to see some pictures soon!!!

Edited April 23, 2014 by LegoSjaak

[RedBaron4850]

Looking really good. My progress on the interior has been a little slower than i would have liked but the first floor has come along. I'll try to get some pictures up here in the next day or two.

@AJAX Here is a list of all the GE mods I have seen. I decided to with the L shape as it looked the most natural.

http://s248.photobuc...tml?sort=3&o=16 This a 36 x 48 Build that is 4 Stories tall. Looks like 2 sets

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=68810 This is a 36 x 72 build that is also 4 stories tall. It gets a little fancy with the roof and looks great! It looks like 3 sets :(

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=76794 A Link to Xavier's build that I based my GE off of. 48 x 48 baseplate

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=70240 Here's a pretty interesting 36 x 72 build that has it's own unique look. And it's tiled!!!

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=39736 A few different builds showing differences in adding height or width.

Last but not least

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=90595 This is an interior mod that looks fantastic and adds a lot more life to the basic GE build. Really inspired me.

Edited April 24, 2014 by RedBaron4850

[Boettner Builds]

Thanks for that list of links!

So I have started my GE mod and reality has set in. I have two and that will build your version, but I am going to be like 68 windows and some bricks short for the 4th floor. I guess i'll be visiting Bricklink soon...

[LegoSjaak]

Looking really good. My progress on the interior has been a little slower than i would have liked but the first floor has come along. I'll try to get some pictures up here in the next day or two.

@AJAX Here is a list of all the GE mods I have seen. I decided to with the L shape as it looked the most natural.

http://s248.photobuc...tml?sort=3&o=16 This a 36 x 48 Build that is 4 Stories tall. Looks like 2 sets

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=68810 This is a 36 x 72 build that is also 4 stories tall. It gets a little fancy with the roof and looks great! It looks like 3 sets :(

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=76794 A Link to Xavier's build that I based my GE off of. 48 x 48 baseplate

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=70240 Here's a pretty interesting 36 x 72 build that has it's own unique look. And it's tiled!!!

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=39736 A few different builds showing differences in adding height or width.

Last but not least

http://www.eurobrick...showtopic=90595 This is an interior mod that looks fantastic and adds a lot more life to the basic GE build. Really inspired me.

Thats a nice list you put together there... it is fun to see what people can create... I tend to tile some of my modulars, but then again, i only see the outside of the modulars for 99,9% of the total time.. so i'm not sure if it is worth it to spend lots of money on the inside... i'd rather buy another modular set then..... It look great, although the GE you showed us in your list that was tiled, wasn't tiled very properly... there were missing a lot of brown 1 x 1 and 1 x 2 tiles..... I feel the need to pimp my modulars, but from tonight on, i can start with the palace cinema XL-MOD, as my second set arrives today....!!! I hope to see some nice things from Redtrooper soon!!!

[Ajax]

Thanks for the list, its a great help. Im starting tonight....pretty excited, I only have one set at the moment but the other should be here any day now.

[Boettner Builds]

I did a bunch of work on my GE today The bottom floor "shell" is finished. The second floor window facades are done, but not the back walls. I think I might have to take some pictures and stop clogging your thread!

- I still haven't figured out how I want to do my escalators, though.

- I have an idea for the window shortage.

- It's been really fun so far!

- I've been doing some additional digging and have found these:

http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/346988 Beautiful Tile floor!

http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/240809 Looks like 1.5 GE's

http://www.mocpages.com/image_zoom.php?mocid=197442&id=/user_images/7120/12710507411 5 story! , double wide, but too many flags.

Edited April 25, 2014 by redtrooper27

[RedBaron4850]

Oh wow that 5 story tall one is crazy. So many flags did you see the picture of it being 13 stories tall? Way too many flags but i guess it makes the floors easy to stack.

Without adding too much to the conversation at this point, I will say that I like how this has become more of a thread about modding the GE rather than my particular build.

[Boettner Builds]

It's pretty much turned into the GE MOD info thread!

[LegoSjaak]

There should be threads about every single modular....and then specific about Modding... ! I did some work on the upper floor with the parts that were left after widening my GE on both sides with 16 studs....

[melbs]

great mods, though i like the extra floor (making it a 4 story building) the best out of all.

seemed to be the perfect size to fit in my city layout