LeeMcG

I was on the first tour, and have just posted a review to www.newelementary.com In terms of the 80, I now think there are 80 made per tour, and there were four tours this year. The rest of the sets go to Lego employees etc.

Hi Everyone I haven't had a lot of time for building recently so I decided to try my hand at some microscale building - I thought it would be quicker, or at least allow me to finish individual models. I wanted to do real small microscale, fitting real landmarks on to 4x6 (ish) plates and seeing if I could still make them recognisable. I live in London, and there are some world-recognised buildings here, so it seemed the obvious place to start. Here is The London Eye: Nelson's column: the White Tower at the Tower of London: and Tower Bridge: There are more landmarks on my flickr set including Big Ben, Tower 42, the Imperial War Museum and City Hall. Despite just doing this so that I could have small models that I could complete, I was convinced that I should put them on display in my local LEGO store. This meant building a setting for them, as well as some typically London decorations (taxis, buses, phone and post boxes), so I ended up spending a lot of time anyway: Thanks for taking a look and, fingers crossed, I'll have some more time to build and post soon.

Thanks very much everyone for all the comments... I think I'll answer some directly. @rriggs. Indeed I have turned CIty Hall round - good spot. This was because I wanted people to be able to see the slope from the side. There are a few other things changed for artistic licence - the Tate Modern is also rotated because the familiar view is from St. Paul's, and the location of the Imperial War Museum and BT tower have been adjusted somewhat to allow them to even be on this map. I will look again at the height of the White Tower. It may have creeped wider, without gaining the respective height. However I am pretty sure Tower Bridge is right (or as right as it can be), as I've done a super-imposed picture. Moreover, these are all odd scales, and I decided the scale by choosing one element - usually the size of a pillar, etc. (which has really got to be one brick wide or two). In the case of Tower Bridge, I scaled everything else from the towers being 1 stud wide - so you might argue that all other parts are too big but the tower width is correct by definition :-) A few requests for a tube. Believe me, it was considered. In the end though I left it out because I ran out of time and justified it as I thought it would be either a step too far in scale inconsistency, or too small to get any kind of detail. Given the vast difference in scale between CIty Hall, Imperial War Museum, a postbox and a bone maybe I'm just kidding myself. I left out the Cenotaph for scale reasons too, and Elephant and Castle because none of the bricks for my brick-built elephant seemed to be available in pink :-) Thanks again for the comments. If anyone is local and wants to see it, it'll be in the Stratford Lego store for the next 6 weeks or so. Lee

B-OV-38B Hi. I've just finished a MOC which I've been working on for a few months. It's a smaller-than-minifig scale (not sure of the right way to describe the scale, it's much larger than normal microscale stuff) model of the church in London where I had my wedding reception last year. It was built in the late 1700's and designed by Hawksmoor, a contemporary of Christopher Wren. Here's photo of the church in real life (not mine, thanks to the photographer) And here is it on Streetview: A couple more views (There are more including WIP on my Flickr pages): Comments are appreciated. I have just over a week, and then I'm going to give it to my wife (she doesn't know what I've been working on), so I'd like to make it as good as possible. I'm particularly troubled with the spire, which goes from 4x4 studs and is 14 or so studs high. Plates don't seem to be made with enough of a sharp angle, so I've gone with the current design, which does have holes from certain views. Thanks for looking. Lee

I did drop the spire by a couple of plates for the final solution. But it involved a few more changes: the original corner slopes meant too much splaying so I got ride of then and put a 'rocket' piece inside instead: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=4591 to facilitate the right amount of splaying!

Thanks for the kind words. Yes that's twin boys. One told a random customer that their "daddy made that".

Just a little update. I'm pleased to say that this MOC is now on display in the Stratford (UK) Lego store. Thanks for all the help and guidance here. This is only my 2nd real MOC so I really appreciate the help. My 5 year old boys now think I'm famous!

Thanks. I think I agree. The only downside is that there is a bit of a shape to the spire, where the corners stick out a bit at the bottom and you lose that - it becomes a plain pyramid. But I think at this scale, I can't have that shape. I've taken both your suggestions on board. It involved losing the bottom slopes entirely, and then a different arrangement to keep the wedge plates 'splayed'. I don't have a white 2x2x2 cone, but I do have the pyramid version, which is good enough for now (I think the cone will be better because there's a little overhang with the pyramid) - I'll make the change after I've given it to my wife. If you're interested I'll post a new picture when the light is better tomorrow morning.

Sorry to reply so much to my own topic! I've made a different spire as suggested by Vincent, and I thought I'd solicit opinions. These angles definitely show the existing spire at its worst! That's (obviously) the actual church, then the existing spire, and then the new one based on Vincent's idea. (If your screen is wide enough, they are all on one row for comparison.) Which do you think is best? Any other adjustment ideas? Thanks in advance. Edit: added links to flickr pages.

@Hoexbroe - Of course there are always a mixture of scales in anything in Lego, the railings at the front and the plants at the side are much too large for any sensible scale (and the less said about the scale of the details the better). But it's actually quite a bit bigger than you've judged. The main church is more like 1:144. Here is one of the photos I took, which shows some people sitting on the top steps - you can see how large the bottom of those pillars are. So that maybe answers why there is no bride and groom. People would be be about 4-5 plates high. And thanks to Vincent. I actually have those plates (but only considered trying them as pairs) I'm going to give them a whirl using just one side. Reason for Edit: Photo didn't need to be as large as it was. Inserted smaller version.

Thanks for all the comments. I am pretty sure my wife doesn't frequent EB! So should be okay with the surprise. She's more likely to wander into my study and that is pretty unlikely. I did try mocking up the spire a bit as Kristel suggested, but it just looked a bit too chunky. It's really thin and elegant in real life.

1. mordatre - 2 4. Kristel - 2 5. gurusql - 1

4. cdaimers - 3 3. TAFOL - 1 5. ZCerberus - 1

3. Praiter Yed - 3 6. Oky - 2

1. George G. - 3 2. lisqr - 1 12. moctown - 1

16. Sid Sidious - 5

19. Sorensen - 2 21. domino39 - 1 35. DarthNick - 1 39. l@go - 1

I'm sure you have your plans for voting, but I think, with so many high quality entries (particularly category 3) that there's a case for having two rounds - one to select the 10 (say) finalists, and another in the normal way for those finalists. I say that as it feels that so many excellent entries deserve plenty of people voting, but it's going to be quite some work to look through 40 (that's my guess of the number) entries in detail. In any case, I'd suggest a relatively long period to vote - it was a relatively long period to build. And apologies if I'm speaking out of turn. Many thanks to the mods for setting the contest up. Lee

This looks amazing. I have to say thanks for entering at the last minute, or else there might not have been so many entries! I am a little confused though - how would it connect to other modular buildings, it doesn't seem to have the technic holes and there is a plant on one side?

B-OM-27A (I have copied the original version of this post at the end of the thread so that the first set of comments will not be so mysterious - I think it's right to edit the first post). Welcome to the London Joint City and Midland Bank, a grand building built in central London in the early 1920's. In building this entry, I wanted to see what variety of textures I could achieve using predominantly one colour. The facade of the building is largely unchanged since its construction: (Note a security guard from the Associated Deposit Union taking the cash away). But the interior has been recently renovated in a very contemporary way, the only remaining period feature being the internal column on the ground floor, which is structural. The ground floor houses the main walk-in areas of the bank, cashiers, ATMs, that most traditional of British things - a queue and in the recent renovation, low tables and trendy seating designed to keep clients calm. The man taking cash out of the ATM is actually a mini-fig version of me designed by my 5-year old. He puzzled for some time as to the right hairpiece to use, and was delighted when he realised that none was best. You can see a businessman paying in some cash, the janitor from the Town Hall waiting to pay in his wages and a Mondrian painting in grand scale. You might think this is the bank flaunting its wealth, but you'd be wrong, this painting is an obvious fake... ... the original sits in the managers office on the first floor. You'll recognise the manager, no doubt, as he's also the Town Mayor. The power of his political office and wealth of the bank has somewhat gone to his head, as he sits in a throne-like chair, and, as well as the painting, has a valuable antique rug in his generously-sized office. The rest of the first floor is taken up with meeting rooms, and a spectacular floral display. The loft space is taken up with storage boxes, containing who-knows-what kind of wealth that the bank has accumlated over the years. Check out my flickr stream for photos of this area and some other views. Thanks for taking a look, and thanks for the positive comments on my draft that encouraged me to continue.

(original post - I have edited the first post with final pictures) This is very much a WIP, as you'll see because at the moment it's only a facade. I wanted to do a building that was pretty much one colour (light bley), and use various textures etc. to make it still look interesting. I based this model on a real building: 69-70 Pall Mall in London, which was built for the London Joint City and Midland Bank in 1922-27. It's now a branch of HSBC. There's just the one photo at present because it's only the front view that exists. The source building, for comparison (this isn't my photo, thanks to the photographer): This is my first 'real' MOC, and definitely the first time I've entered a contest, so please go a bit gentle but I am genuinely interested in feedback. The left wing is the correct look, and will be copied to the right once I get the pieces. My plan is to have a very modern bank inside, to contrast with the old facade. The rear will be pretty plain, and the first floor will have offices for business managers. I've not decided what to do with the top floor - it was living accommodation when the building was completed. I've realised that I need a better amount of base Lego, because ordering just the pieces you need from BrickLink as you go means that building is quite slow. I hope to get finished before the deadline! Thanks for looking, Lee

This is very nice indeed. I'm very glad you posted it near the end of the contest or it might have discouraged me from finishing my own entry! Is there an interior to the upstairs floors? Lee

Sorry, that made it look like I hadn't read the instructions. I understood that WIPs were allowed to be posted, but I was wondering if there was likely to be any impact on doing so and collecting feedback (from a tradition or etiquette perspective) - would people hold back on feedback, or would entries which had been altered due to feedback be marked down, kind of thing. Regards Lee

What is the situation (or maybe etiquette) regarding posting WIPs and getting feedback? Is it to be avoided, or is it regarded as perfectly fine to improve your entry with feedback from other users? I've built my facade only at this point and wouldn't mind some input but I didn't want to somehow void my entry if I took the feedback on board. Regards Lee

Hi - I'm new here, and I thought I'd start posting MOCs and try image linking etc. with a couple of things my son has done. He's 4, and loves LEGO, but has no interest in bricks or following instructions. What he loves is building mini-figs and putting all sorts of greeble parts (that's probably a bit of a stretch considering some of the amazing greebling the master space builders achieve) such as wings, boosters, grilles to create various 'swooshing' 'vehicles'. 'Vehicles' becuase they invaribly change from being boats to planes to submarines to spaceships as bits get added and taken away. I just build the base for him, and he adds everything else. Here is the first: And the second: I think they look good together: There are a few more pictures on my Flickr stream and some WIPs of the main MOC I'm working on which is a mini-fig scale of my own house. Thanks for looking Lee