badbob001

I entertained the idea that LEGO will come out with a LEGO store modular building since they are currently seeding the populace with the free LEGO employee minifig, but I kind of doubt it will happen. The LEGO store doesn't fit the 'era' of the current modular buildings and a standalone product will have less market potential. Certainly the arms will need to be re-designed since the current implementation has single-stud connections that will come apart if you try to pose it.

It's rather annoying that LEGO doesn't provide any direct reason why the projects were rejected. That said, the exo-suit looks rather cool. But after looking at all the grey from the BTTF set, I wish the exo-suit had a bit more color. I can imagine colorful armor pieces being attached to the suit like a merging of the minifig+bionicle universe. Since this is not a licensed set, I wonder if they will use a non-flesh colored minifigure (my preference).

I recently came out of my dark ages and wanted to start off slowly and concisely by just collecting minifigures. I always admired the modular building sets and thought they were too big of a jump for me at this point. But then news of this beautiful Parisian Restaurant comes out and even before I can even get the set, I already own much of the previous modular sets. Damn you LEGO, damn you.

For the promotional LEGO Movie poster sticker, do they provide you with one sticker or two? I believe for the in-box posters, two are provided so you can stick them to both sides of the window. If they only give you one, do they expect you to stick it over one side of an existing sticker? And regarding the 'unfinished' backsides of the roof, do you think this was just laziness / cost-cutting or was the roof designed to be a facade? I don't believe the Hollywood Chinese Theatre has a facade roof but perhaps there are other real-world examples that do. Are they any examples of someone trying to 'finish' the roof?

When I played with LEGO sets in my youth during the 80s, I remember every box coming with a little catalog of the currently available sets and I would spend so much time studying these tiny tiny photos, most likely imagining half of the details. To me, it was like an extra treat included in the box. But sets these days doesn't seem to have the catalog anymore, though I may have seen a tiny duplo-specific catalog in a duplo set a few years back. Just curious, but does anyone know when LEGO stopped including the catalogs (I know you can request a catalog book from LEGO)? I suppose with LEGO being so readily available in retailers and LEGO-branded stores and of course the availability of information from the Internet, catalogs are really not needed. I suspect this is another cost saving decision coupled with there being too many LEGO sets to fit into a little catalog. But I think it's rather nice to browse a catalog, especially when they include a diorama of all related sets together.

How common is it for people to try to source new parts to recreate a set that is no longer in production as an alternative from buying used but expensive originals? Is it even a practical (and non-suicidal) process? I'm thinking about this for out of production sets such as the Cafe Corner or Green Grocer since used originals seem rather expensive. To get an idea of how much it would cost to source the parts individually, I load up a set's inventory into the BrickStore app (note that shipping and extra charges are not factored in). If I set the part prices to their 6-month average, the total price is close to some of the current market prices. If I set the prices to their minimum, then the total price is much better at about 3 times lower, but I'm extremely skeptical this unicorn can be captured. If I were to attempt this, should I expect prices to be closer to the Average? If that is the case, I may just look to purchase whole sets than stress myself managing thousands of parts from many many vendors. Unless someone can lend me some time on a supercomputer farm running the Bricklink cost minimizer program.

After putting the inventory of some sets into my wanted list, viewing the first local shop with the most unique lots, and putting only the first page (of 5) of items into my cart: over $600. Yeah, this method is not going to work without a fight.

Thanks for the link! It looks like it will either be quick and expensive (assuming you can avoid the scams, secret re-builds with substituted parts, and sun-bleached sets) or be a laborious multi-month/year scavenger hunt.

This may be something that may never happen, but it would be sad if one day they no longer included the printed manuals but have you access the manual electronically.

54. Neko No Basu by Jamesn (3 votes) 101. TMNT Party Van by Oky (3 votes) 105. Mystery Machine by sparkart (3 votes)

I'm considering collecting the modular sets and thought I could store them on my bookcase, which allows about 13 inches of vertical space. Now I see that many of the current sets are too tall and only the Pet Shop and the Parisian Restaurant would fit. So they do look deceptively small when viewed from photos or video. Maybe if I take off the roofs from some of the buildings... I'm glad the rear of this building has some attention to details and is not so bland. I keep thinking to myself that once I have enough of these modular buildings put together, I can create a lively character-filled central courtyard like in the movie 'Rear Window'.

And when I was done with the catalogs, I would look through the LEGO Idea books, which were like the catalog dioramas in that current sets are displayed, but then they are also expanded greatly. I never had the parts to build most of the stuff in the books but it sure was fun to look through them. But I would imagine that many of the ideas were designed to be possible to be built if one bought ALL the sets or multiple copies of some sets. I know there are similar third-party books these days, but I think it may be even harder to build those ideas since they are not directly tied to existing sets. Of course as adults, we can order parts from multiple places, but that seems more expensive than simply buying current sets. I wish LEGO would produce dioramas in their current catalogs. They have physical ones in some retailers so why not in the catalog? I would think it would make you want to buy multiple sets.

I remember looking looking long and hard at a tiny 1-inch catalog photo of the Main Street set, then drawing a larger version on paper, and taping it up next to my parent's bed. You know, just to put the idea out there. Never got it.

No matter how many times you clone the 2nd floor, you'll realistically still only have two apartments: one apartment on the 2nd floor and all the 3+ floors are for the other apartment. This is because floors 3+ requires one go through the interior to get to the next stairs.

I'm pretty sure this solution is by design. The placement of that false balcony in the back is too obvious to be a coincidence. Given the size of these sets, there is a compromise between realism, aesthetics, and functionality. I think all the modular sets so far support the cloning of the 2nd floor up. People that care about the outside look will appreciate this feature. Also note that the design also takes into account that cloned floors still maintain a way to travel between floors. People that care about the interior design will appreciate this. As for realism, that usually gets the most compromised. Missing bathrooms. No stairs in the Town Hall. A possible solution is to make the stairs crisscross, but they may then look dis-proportionally large. Maybe adhering to this floor-cloning tradition can be a hindrance to the design at times such as the roof-stairs in the Palace Cinema that takes up so much space. Would we trade this cloning feature for attention in other areas, such as more detailed interiors?

Does this set still follow the tradition where the second floor can be cloned and used for the 3+ floor? Having the roof-stairs right over the 1st-floor stairs seems to support this. Has anyone tried this? I've seen mods that move or remove the roof-stairs, which obviously breaks the ability to clone the floors up. Stairs do take up a lot of interior space. Would you trade the floor-cloning design for more detailed interiors?

I agree about the computer. They should have replaced it with a typewriter. Has anyone built a good 2x2 typewriter?

I tried to scan the parts list in the photo but it's too small for me to make out.

I agree that the greater frequency that LEGO releases new sets easily makes any catalog obsolete. There use to be a mom-and-pa toy store near me and you can easily find new and old sets. Of course they didn't carry all the sets so the catalogs were very much needed. These days with big chain stores, old sets are quickly retired and taken off the shelves.

http://www.flickr.co...s/58252782@N06/ Stylistically, they seem quite different. Certain combination of ideas do match: french something (cafe vs restaurant), apartment on 2nd, hinged top floor, and dumpster+rat, but some of those ideas seem rather general and some have even been used in previous official Modulars. The reasoning behind the hinged top seems different between the two builds. At least in your build, we can find the damn seagull.

I suppose the only wrinkle with a four story version is that the only way to get to the fourth floor is to go in one 3rd floor door and out the other 3rd floor door to access the up-going stairs. Not an issue if the fourth floor is used by the same tenant as the 3rd floor.

Actually, see how there are two doors on the second floor, one of which only leads to an almost-not-even-there balcony? Just remove that tiny balcony and the door behind it will line up with the top of the stairs. Brilliant! I've never owned a modular so can someone explain this expansion concept? Do you mean to duplicate the second floor and use the copy as the third floor?

Is this the narrative that the photos is telling us? Propose to your girlfriend. Give her some alcohol. Get the bed ready...

I can't find any info on the anti-piracy features of this ship other than something about a NATO escort. Perhaps the secret is in plain sight in the LEGO model: the life boat cranes are really guns. Update: I found a different link to the WSJ video that actually worked and it does mention that pirates will need a 20 meter ladder to board the ship. I still think having guns would be safer, even if they are just water guns. Imagine automated water gun torrents that can pressurize water into a laser-like beam.