paupadros

Build a collection of birds from around the world! This project recreates the iconic look of three birds from around the world: the European Goldfinch, the Golden-Headed Quetzal from Central and South America and the Lilac-Breasted Roller from southern and eastern Africa. I've created this build for the Bricklink Designer Program Series 4. Go give it a VOTE if you want it to become a real set! European Goldfinch (Carduelis Carduelis) The European Goldfinch is a small bird (12–13 cm – 4.7–5.1 in – long with a wingspan of 21–25 cm (8.3–9.8 in), native to Europe, North Africa and western and central Asia, although it has been introduced to other parts of the globe such as America and Oceania. It has a pretty colour scheme consisting of white, black, red and yellow. Due to the thistle seeds it eats, it is symbolically associated with the crown of thorns. This is why goldfinches are often depicted in Italian Renaissance paintings of the Madonna and Child. I chose this bird because it is the main subject of the famous “The Goldfinch” by Carel Fabritus (1654). Depicted in the model is a male European Goldfinch sitting on a fallen branch in a forest with rocks, foliage, mushrooms and lichen, typical of autumn forests throughout Europe. Golden-Headed Quetzal (Pharomachrus Auriceps) The Golden-Headed Quetzal is a subspecies of the quetzal, a bird native to the forests of Central and South America. It is quite large and has a striking iridescent red, green, black and golden plumage. The Quetzal is very culturally significant for the ancient Maya and Aztecs. Their feathers were considered luxury goods to represent high status and are often seen in the headdresses of the emperors and other costume elements. One of the most significant Aztec gods, Quetzalcóatl, literally translates to “snake with quetzal feathers”. Kukulkan, the Maya equivalent of Quetzalcóatl, has a temple dedicated in its honour in Chichen Itza, which produces the sound of the quetzal with the echo of a clap. The model depicts a male Golden-Headed Quetzal sitting on a tree branch in the rainforest. The jungle floor has a lush green colour and features Amazon Lilies (Urceolina Amazonica). The bird doesn't actually have a golden head, but Lego pieces allow it, so the Golden-Headed Quetzal finally has a shiny head! Lilac-Breasted Roller (Coracias Caudatus) The Lilac-Breasted Roller is a bird that resides in southern and eastern Africa. It is famous for its unique mix of purple, green, blue and brown plumage. They reside in savannas and open woodlands. These birds are carnivores, and eat arthropods and small vertebrates. They are the unofficial national bird of Kenya. The model depicts a Lilac-Breasted Roller perching on a mound of dirt. Behind the model is a small skeleton of one of its victims. This build aims to be an update of the beautiful 21301 Birds, with more detail on the habitats (more in line with the newer 21. I chose culturally significant birds to their respective places of origin and. With this model, I tried to represent three very different birds from around the world, each with their unique history with local cultures, unique colours, sizes and diets. I think I was able to pack a lot with a small piece count and I hope you like this model!

Very interesting subject matter and absolutely excellent execution! I wonder how robust it is.

Thank you so much! I think I captured the essence of the city quite well. Thanks! I think the angle gives it the extra interest that would otherwise be missing. Thank you for all the comments! Sorry for responding close to 3 months late, but greatly appreciated!

"London Street" is my entry for Bricklink Designer Program Series 3. You can check it out there, but I was tremendously busy to post it here and voting is already over. The build depicts a typical street of the British capital. Inspired by the buildings of the neighbourhoods of Soho, Camden and Islington. The model consists of two brick terraced houses set on a fictional street. The ground floor of the buildings have brightly-coloured wooden shopfronts that are common throughout the UK. The buildings are placed at an angle to add interest to the composition of the model. The left building is home to Erling & Sons Flower Shop, boasting an enchanting Sand Green, Tan, and Dark Orange colour palette. It draws loose inspiration from the Golden Eagle tavern on 59 Marylebone Lane. The building on the right is home to Print and Map Shop. It uses a combination of Dark Red and Medium Nougat to replicate some of the more typical terraced homes found all throughout England. The ground floor design takes cues from the Print and Map Shop on Portobello Road. A few extra pics so you can judge it for yourselves:

Thank you so much! I'd been to London a week prior to designing this, so I had plenty of source material fresh in my mind, which definitely helped. Thanks! The gap is pretty accidental and a consequence of angling the façade of the Print Shop, but I think it adds something to the whole too ;) Thank you! Means a lot coming from you :)

Love it!! The façade that faces the platform is pretty cool but my favourite part is the platform and the elevated tracks. Reminds me of stations in Vancouver or Japan

7/10 for me. My favourite part is the mansard roof with the skylights and the dome. The row of white ingots just beneath it is alos very classy. The pediment also seems proportionate. There was an opportunity for nicer or cleverer NPU in the tympanum though i think. The streetscape with the little walled gardens look great and the tree breaks the monotony well. The colour is fine for me, I'm not too fond of the tan frames around the windows (perhaps in white they would have worked with the whole model better). I quite dislike the ares inside the pillars. As someone said earlier, a balcony breaking it up would have helped. Perhaps, the walls on this central section should have been a different colour, so that it stands out as the focal point of the building. I also would have added a white line on the edges of the building to frame it better. In the group pic of the back of the box, it "bleeds" into the Jazz Club. For that building it made less sense, but for a classis/neoclassic building such as this one, it does make sense. Overall quite decent, but seems small for the piece count.

Now it's going to be a disappointment when we finally see it! This looks larger than what I envisioned from the description but we'll see!

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you like it. It took a little while to get the colour scheme right. I wanted a building in Medium Nougat and another in Tan, as they are overwhelmingly the most predominant colours one tends to see around London. Green and red as the bases were chosen to complement without overwhelming, hence why I chose Sand Green (as opposed to a brigher green) and Dark Red. The angle was the first thing I knew I wanted in the build. It adds that interest that can only be achieved using interesting compostion. Having the maps in the front is a fair criticism. I have them there as it is inspired by the Portobello Map Shop, which has a large stand of old maps in front. I debated removing them, but kept them in the end. Thank you so much! Thanks! It was a bit unexpected, as it got frontpaged almost immediately! Thank you so much for voting, we'll see how it turns out. Absolutely agreed, from the first two series, it was a bit frustrating to see how many of the designs are just gigantic. The intention was always to have a 800-1500 piece model of a full street façade with that British charm. Thank you! Usually my buildings contain quite a lot of chopping and pasting to create a never before seen building. For this, I consciously kept it quite simple and authentic to the source material. Making them "stand out" therefore was quite difficult. So with pretty much every element of the building, there is a familiarity between buildings, but everything changes. Different windows (widths, heights, fences), different brick colour, different cornices...

That looks interesting! Finally another wide modular! I hope they nail the architecture. Surprised how many of you dislike Olive Green given how Parisian Restaurant is probably the most loved model in the entire series. For a Natural History Museum I would have expected a building like the one in Kensington, but excited to see how it will turn out.

Hello folks! I'm very proud to announce that I've submitted the Florentine Palazzo to the Bricklink Designer Program Series 1! Out of the 375 models submitted, 5 will be selected. Part of the decision will be based on which models get more votes. So, if you'd like to own the Florentine Palazzo, go give it some love! https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-1/229/Florentine-Palazzo

Fine dine and get some pictures taken at the Florentine Palazzo! How am I so bad at keeping myself promises. Last time out, with the release of Octan Avenue, I thought that a full year between modulars was long enough. Well... this one took two years . Anyway, I think it was worth the wait. The Florentine Palazzo is my twelfth modular building and my fourth corner modular. Free Instructions for this model available at Rebrickable! This model went through a gigantic number of changes. It started as two separate projects that I joined into one. On one side, I had project code name "Worcester" (yes, I give my projects code names ), a new modular building on two 16x32 baseplates (à la Pet Shop or Bookshop) with a distinctly English architecture. Base inspiration was this pair of building in the town of (you guessed it) Worcester. I still might pick up this idea sometime, but it wasn't quite working out then. The other project was a redesign of my second modular, the Italian Villa (my first EB topic I believe) to make instructions. My techniques then were not the most elaborate and the builds weren't exactly designed for stability. Upgrading the Italian Villa would have meant a whole lot of changes probably, so I scrapped that too. But then I thought about doing a brand new modular in a similar vein, which is the Florentine Palazzo! Since it was going to get instructions, I thought about what I really would like to have in modular town. A companion to the Parisian Restaurant came to mind immediately. None of the subsequent buildings match its elegance in shapes and overall refined look. In terms of overall size and details, I tried to get close to the restaurant's greatness. As of late, I prefer looking at drawings rather than real buildings for inspiration. They leave more to the imagination and make me feel less like a plageriser. Anyway, the main inspiration for the palazzo was a building in the Alsatian town of Colmar (drawing · real building). It is not really a building that through one of my usual Google Maps trips I would pick out as inspiration, but the drawing made the creative juices start flowing. Initially, I tried to recreate the building faithfully, but I soon found that joining the upper "towers" closer together made for a more cohesive and interesting façade, so I went down that route. These days I rarely do a full 32x32 baseplate as a single building and the space next to the staircase led perfectly to a completely different kind of architecture next door. One of the styles of architecture that I had been wanting to put in modular form for a while is the architecture of Malta. To me it just feels like the architecture one would find in Sicily but with delightfully colourful timber balconies dotted about to give it interest. As some of you may know, restrain in colour choices really isn't my thing ( *cough *cough Baseplate Alley anyone? ) so this was an interesting exercise in exactly that. Anyway, I had so much fun "carving" details in the plain tan façade to the point that I might prefer this bit over the entire model. I particularly like how the façade keeps sloping back as it goes up. The buuilding was inspired by the Palazzo Ferreria in Valetta. ================== Interiors: Interiors have never been my biggest strength and probably will never be at this rate. Still, I've tried my best to make them quite interesting. Have I succeeded? Hopefully 1. Ground floor: Initially, I wanted to build a post office, but before doing any of the interiors, I showed the building to a friend of mine and he told me something along the lines of "Are you crazy? You should definitely be building a restaurant there!". To be fair, it does look like a prime spot for a restaurant, plus it matches the Parisian Restaurant, so restaurant it was. On top of that, the alleyway I had built under the Maltese house could theoretically be used for bringing stock to the restaurant, so that too makes sense. I think it turned out rather nice honestly. 2. Middle floor: Part of the problem of doing the exterior before the interior is that sometimes one has to mould the interior concept to what is already there. Ideally, the restaurant would have taken up two floors, but the exterior stairs with the fountain underneath was way too cute to remove. And having waiters go up and down exterior stairs didn't quite feel right. That's when the idea of a photography studio came, mostly because there was a dark room on the attic which would be pretty much be perfect for a developing room. The middle floor includes the cameras on sale plus a studio for studio portraiture. 3. Attic: The developing room was fun to build. An enlarger, three trays for developer, stop and fixer mixtures, a cupboard full of chemicals and a sink. I also had a photo drying string, but, honestly, Studio (where I make the instructions) is so crap at dealing with flexible parts that I deleted it after much frustration ================== To see everything that I haven’t been able to explain in words, feel free to take a look at the model yourselves, many of the “how was this/that made” are visible! 3D MODEL And, of course, the free instructions that you can use to build this model for yourselves! FREE INSTRUCTIONS =================== Thanks for reading through and hope you like the model!

It's been interesting reading all of your comments and opinions. All in all, I think it's fine. My favourite bit is the 45-degree entrance assembly with the sign. The rest of the Jazz Club is decent, I quite like the window technique as well as the roof techniques. I do feel though that that techniques are more interesting than the result they produce. The blue ground floor is fine for me, sure it would have looked better in another colour, but I don't despise it. The Pizzeria is a big no-no. It looks like the Friends pizzeria but larger. I mean, it's fine for a more fantasy-oriented theme such as Friends, but not for this. Yellow can be well implemented but this isn't it. I like the overhanging plants though :) Overall, a 7 maybe.

Hi! I recently got the chance to write an article for Brickset about desinging custom modular buildings. In the article, I talk about the whole design process of this model. It encompasses from inspirational images, moodboards, to rouch digital sketches, to failed attempts, to a look into what my digital workflow usually looks like. I hope you will find it interesting and that you can go "oh I don't do this!" or "how come he doesn't do this? It's so useful!". Here's the article! About 2 years ago I also did another article for Brickset about the composition of modular buildings wihich might be of interest to you too ;) Pau

Congrats to the winners! Really great entries and deserved winners. So happy my entry Mission: Lazarus got 5th position (or 4th if you count the joint 2nd place), thank you so much!!

Love your entry! It was rather tough to select my votes, but gave one to you. I'm sure that a detective theme is one of those things that has probably been discussed (and dismissed) internally, but I'm convinced that this would be a massive hit. Who doesn't like detectives? And the sets would be full of easter eggs to the brim, with so many self-references. The posibilites are endless here! The builds are very nice too. The manor is the eye-catcher for sure but I'm most impressed with the idea of the bridge set. Instantly recognisable as a setting for a crime and uses just the right amount of pieces. Congrats!

Thank you so much! I really didn't want to do the usual space theme with spaceships and whatnot. I would even say that whilst it's technically a space theme, it really is a fantasy theme that happens to take place in space. Thanks you so so much!! I know that if the theme was to be real, the techniques for the Gates of Ashtar would probably need to be simplified (the sensory overload from bricks going in all directions could be too much!), but heck, I was having fun. I saw the real gates right before the pandemic and my instant thought was "Wow! Imagine being an alien and seeing this!". Whilst brainstorming ideas that moment came to mind, but I decided to reverse it to "Wow! Imagine being a human and seeing this on an alien planet!". I feel like sometimes space is seen as rather bleak or pessimistic. I'm thinking of the movie Interstellar for instance, where there is a similar plot with the exploratory missions. All the planets they encounter are grey, soulless and mildly depressing. Why should the concepts of exploring and finding lost civilisations be confined to Earth? I don't know, just wanted to create a fun space adventure on this fictitious moon of Ashtar. I think it turned out pretty cool :) Honestly, for the Naggyy, I was just picking the most random pieces that I could find. That's part of the fun of designing aliens too. They can be whatever you imagine. It just needs to be a bit wacky, otherwise it doesn't really come across as an alien. Their name is a complete joke too. I basically closed my eyes and typed randomly. Naggyy is the refined version of the gibberish I typed!

Upon the inevitability of an uninhabitable Earth, many years ago Mission: Lazarus was given the green light. Lazarus were a series of missions which were sent to planets similar to the Earth to set a base and examine the conditions for future humans to inhabit. The heroic humans were given the name of “lazarites”, to mark their titanic effort to save humanity. In this first wave, we see the adventures of mission Lazarus 1. Lazarus 1 was a mission to the distant desert moon of Ashtar. Whilst not a paradise, Ashtar showed much promise as it seemed to have structures built by intelligent species…. The two sets I've designed for the contest are... __________ The Gates of Ashtar City 845 pieces $89.99 / 64.99€ What had seemed like abandoned ruins from observations before the launch of Lazarus 1, turned out to be an almost-intact walled city. With one eerie twist: it was completely empty, as if it had been abandoned recently and hastily. Not long after inhabiting the city, the lazarites hear a distant noise. Someone seems to want Ashtar back… This model pictures the stunning ancient entrance of Ashtar City and the walls built by lazarites to defend in case of invasion. The moon of Ashtar is packed with purple gemstones. These are highly explosive and are being used as ammunition by the lazarites. The moment here represented is key to the history of Ashtar, as it marks the first encounter with the native Naggyy and their trusty cyborgs. Minifigures: 2x Lazarite Astronauts · 1x Dr. Antonoff · 1x Naggyy Official (with Ashtar horse) · 1x Cyborg As for the build itself, it is heavily inspired by the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, currently preserved in Berlin. In fact, "Ashtar" is another name that goddess "Ishtar" received. The proportions are exaggerated to achieve more vertical presence and the details are tweaked here and there to make a better Lego model. The side walls employ a neat triangular footprint that gives some extra dyamism to the build. _________ Dr. Antonoff’s Secret 65 pieces + 3 minifigures (+1 horse) $12.99 12.99€ When Dr. Antonoff, head of mission, goes missing, the legitimacy of the mission is put in question. In fact, Ashtar was not the most promising of planets out of the ones in contention, but Dr. Antonoff’s persuasion convinced officials that it was the right call to send the first Lazarus mission there. Analysis of the planet led Dr. Antonoff to believe that there was a strong source of energy found on this planet. He was surprised to discover that the source of energy was hidden within the purple crystals.The crystals are highly volatile, but under controlled processes, Dr. Antonoff deemed them a possible infinite source of power. The native Naggyy realised that their new inhabitants were tinkering with the mythical crystals and decided to intervene. To avoid certain death and the failure of the mission, Dr. Antonoff showed them how to solidify the liquid gold that runs under Ashtar. Gold is the thing that the Naggyy lose their minds for. They spend their days bathing in liquid golden rivers and waterfalls. Antonoff to them was a magician. Antonoff is taken hostage every so often to make more of the solid gold. This way, Antonoff can buy time to examine the crystals in further detail. In the set, Dr. Antonoff shows a Naggyy official the location of the solid gold, under the wrecks of one of the ships that the lazarites used to reach Ashtar. Minifigures: 1x Dr. Antonoff · 1x Naggyy Official (with Ashtar horse) · 1x Cyborg This being such a small set, I had to get creative for a little hideout for the solid gold. I decided upon using the wreck of a spaceship and convert it into a hidden spot. One of the unique parts of the theme is that whilst the story of Lazarus 1 is in the moon of Ashtar, Wave 2 could center, for example, on the adventures of Lazarus 2 on a rainforest planet, Lazarus 3 on a swampy planet, Lazarus 4 on an icy planet and so on. Each time with new heroes, villains and strange alien species to explore!

3 - 1 point 12 - 1 point 15 - 1 point

There's not many of us in the modular MOC frenzie so it's kind of inevitable that we take a peek at what the others are doing! Honestly, I think that it's easy to overintellectualise one's intentions with a model when, most often, things happen organically. Raising my hands and just saying "I stumbled upon that on accident" is just as valid I'd say. I agree that the windows are definitely chunky, that said, as you may well know, interiors have never been my biggest strength, so losing interior space isn't a big deal at all. The techniques get a bit wacky (and maybe even sketchy) in a few areas of the model, the windows being one of those areas. Anyway, I think it's worth it for the grand façade that results from it. Great to see you are getting some commissions. Admittedly it's not something I've ever done or I think I'd be too keen to do, but you never know. After a while of not having designed a modular don't you get a million ideas of things you'd like to do with your next? It happens to me all the time! Thank you so much! I'm really glad you like the model and the presentation!

Thank you! Some really neat SNOT and upside-down building went into making the gate have the right shape. I'm really pleased with how it turned out :) Exactly, subsequent waves could be based on entirely different planets with completely different villains and challenges, which gives that "where are they going next year?". I've also been thinking that after a while, you could have the crew from Lazarus 1 joining the crew of Lazarus, say, 7 in a new setting, thus giving a sense of progression to the overarching story of the theme

Mission: Lazarus

Thank you for the detailled response @ExeSandbox! To be honest, the composition being similar to the Parisian Restaurant but on a corner was a bit of an accident. On the one hand, I had the stair + fountain combo in tan which I had really wanted to incorporate into a corner modular for a while. It's pretty much lifted from @Giacinto Consiglio. Back in 2017 or 2018, we started doing a collab modular which never really got past a few bricks laid. In that model, he wanted to incorporate a sort of arched gallery with a walkway on top, accessible from a few steps located on the corner, with a fountain beneath. He has used that idea/motif prenty of times before and I just wanted to do it myself in a modular too. And on the other hand, the Parisian Restaurant shapes I was working on. It was definitely not planned ;) The windows were a bit challenging to fit and do take up quite a bit of room and make the piece count and price rise. In fact, I began the model from the top with the whole upside down bits at the top. It was so SNOT heavy up there that it was easier to make larger assemblies that also included the windows rather than fitting one of the window moulds, as counterintuitive as that may sound. So then, at the rest of the building, I had to design windows in a similar vein, which do indeed end up being quite chunky. Honestlhy, though, I'm more than fine with that because usually interiors really aren't my thing and having less space for them isn't an issue. The thing you say about vibrancy and colourfulness is a very interesting point. I really hadn't thought about it that way, but it certainly is easier to picture drawings as Lego models over pictures of real life. Funnily though, I already had plenty of drawings on the backlog to use for inspiration in the design, but only truly embraced the drawing as a "legitimate" source of inspiration when I saw that your latest model (Corner Bakery I think it was called) was inspired by a drawing. Just curious what are you working on?

Thank you so much Bartu! Getting two buildings to work together can be a bit of a challenge. This time, the colours don't really clash that much, so it was more a matter of making them seem proportionate with one another and that they had a similar level of detail so neither would look out of place. In the past, I've been told a few times that my builds can look a bit too overly clean and not lived-in. Vegetation is a great way to tie the various elements together and to give that extra colour that might otherwise be missing. Thanks for the comment

Might have a go at this! Not something I have really ever tried to build. Thanks for the contest! I think you've already answered clearly enough but minifigs for the sets can be completely digital (custom prints and everything but no custom moulds I'm guessing)