finnbricker

When the Maze passed the Lego Ideas review, I was not very interested. While familiar with such mazes from my childhood, they were never my favourite toys and I couldn’t see myself buying and building a Lego version. But the baseplate changed it all. Well, sort of. I’m still not interested in the Maze as a maze, but my interest of the set as a parts pack is growing all the time. The set has 769 pieces, one of which is a dark stone grey 32x32 baseplate, which is something you very rarely see in sets nowadays, and in a useful colour, too. What’s more, the 768 remaining pieces seem to include a whole lot of 1x basic bricks in good colours (tan, medium stone grey, black) and lots of tiles and big plates. The set retails for $70 in the US, probably €70 in Europe. The PPP is 9,1 cents, which is not too bad, and it gets even better if you value the baseplate at $/€8 – the PPP for the remaining parts is only 8,07 cents. So what I’m thinking now is to challenge myself, and hopefully others too: Let’s convert 21305 Maze into a modular building! We’ve got the baseplate, we’ve got a whole lot of tan bricks plus other colours for details, we’ve got tiles to top off the floors and we’ve got plates to build ceilings/floors. What we miss are windows, doors and, partially, some small details around the windows. What do you think? We don’t have a parts list yet, but based on the images released, do you think 21305 would be a valuable parts pack for a modular MOC?

This is amazing and very impressive! Usually modern modular attempts end up looking boring, but this really isn't an average modern box of a house! I especially like the idea of a completely round building. I think the top floor should definitely house a restaurant (and if it were physically possible, a revolving one). How sturdy is the building? It's a pity modulars don't get approved in Lego Ideas. I would definitely get this if it were to become a set.

I definitely would. And sort of did – I bought the set a couple of days ago and am now building. Since I've never even seen the movie and couldn't care less about it, I bought the set to complement my modular city. It will serve as a fire station and I'll try to fit a City fire engine on the ground floor. Preferably a 60002 if it fits through the doors. Moreover, I will try to sell the GB related minifigs and ghosts online, keeping only the generic-looking minifigs. Since the set should be part of my modular layout, I intend to add a 16x32 baseplate and a 8-wide narrow building behind the GBHQ, thus concealing the back wall and making it sit nicely in a modular city. This way it will fit nicely in a 64x32 area.

Very nice! The interior additions are great. I have a WIP that I'll show you when it's ready some day. Fully enclosed, modular Corner Deli.

Great work! I really like this. The sand green walls and reddish brown windows work well together and the laundry part looks nice too. My favourite is the bottle cabinet of the bar, though! I'll try and copy that one day.

Flsikorski, I sent you an email!

I will be happy to share the LXF file. It's not 100 % accurate, but I believe the photos here and the file, when used together, will give you a pretty good idea how to modularize the 31036. Please send me a PM with your email address and I'll send you the file per email.

They do have the mark.

I completed this months ago and took the photos, but was too lazy to post them. Now is a good time to get this sorted before I start working on the BB. My Double Detective's Office includes the original modular and a mirrored version of it, both built together as one building and the mirror DO part using dark red bricks. Unfortunately, I don't have enough dark red brick-bricks, but maybe one day I'll substitute. (I do have a whole bunch of dark red 1x2s so this was a good way of using a part of them). No POOL sign on the dark red building, but the ground floor remains in its original form (save for it being a mirror image). The second newspaper machine is substituted by a soda machine from 31036. The Al's sign is in the middle of the enlarged barber shop. Two alleys, two water cisterns on the roof. The back side is as boring as in the original. Let's start from the top floor. The cookie kitchen is where it originally was. The rest of this floor is empty. There's only one staircase, so the mirrored room is larger than the original one. It might be a good idea to furnish it as a bedroom/livingroom, thus creating a real apartment on the top floor. This is my favourite floor. The lobby is double its original size, and with only one staircase there's ample room for a dark and dingy hallway where you don't want to wander all alone. There are now two toilet stalls and I was lucky to find out that the refrigerator door in Olivia's house 3315 is a mirror version of the DO toilet door, so by building the fridge as a mirror image, I could switch the doors and create a perfect mirrored toilet stall for the DO. The Detective's Office is in its original condition, nothing special here. The hallway is the scene of some very unpleasant action. A methhead is coming out of the stall, still holding his syringe in his hand. His mates are out in the hallway drinking and guarding the stolen ghettoblasters. But why did they choose this particular building to hang out in? Well, is it that hard to guess what's going on behing that closed door? Seems to me there's a meth lab. :laugh: The interior comes from DO and Research Institute 21110, including the minifig. She might be a little overdressed but maybe she got fired from her previous job as a chemist, yet still wants to maintain a professional look and feel in her new line of work. Would you like to get to know her customers a little better? The ground floor includes two pool halls. I should probably convert one of them into something else but I was just too lazy to do anything about it. The barber shop is twice its old size, which is a really good thing because the original is really cramped! Here's room for a cashier stand now, and two barber chairs. The secret passageway is still there, too. I hope you like it, and I hope you're not offended by my strange humour regarding the meth lab.

Thanks! I'll try building the version on the left in real bricks. However, two sets isn't even close to enough, so it's going to require a whole lot of bricklinking. We'll see. I'll be sure to post the result here sooner, or probably later. I thought about it, but since it's called "Corner Deli", I wanted to keep it a corner building. Moreover, I converted the 31036 Toy & Grocery shop into a 16-wide and I think this one would resemble it too closely if it were of similar size.

Well, there sure are a lot of them. Here's some of mine: MOC/MOD 7498ish Police Station http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=97296 MOD 31026 Bike shop & Café http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=97151 MOD 31036 Toy & Grocery shop http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=106475

Thanks, Klaus-Dieter, for the review and pics of all sides of the building. There definitely is some modularizing potential out there, but it really is a pity that the building is so small and that the ground floor lacks so much in taste. Here's what I tried. I wanted to be as true to the original as possible. Creating the upper floors was easy, and they ended up looking rather good IMO. The window design comes from the original, as does the roof design. Just fill it up with enough windows and consider it done. But the ground floor was a trickier matter. The original just doesn't look good, and playing around with the original features got me to what you can see on the right hand side. Now it's really a corner deli, with two service windows on the outside and one on the inside. There's room for a wc, some seating and a kitchen area. The yellow door leads to the upper floors via staircase. But it still doesn't look nice. It lookes like one of those old buildings where the ground floor façade has been completely rebuilt and the rest of the building remains more or less intact. Such buildings seldom look good. So I came up with another idea, which you can see on the left. I borrowed the upper floor window design and altered it to fit the larger windows, added a door on the façade and another one in the back for upper floor access. I think it looks a lot better even if it might be a little boring, bearing so much resemblance to the upper floors. Whether it could still be a deli or something completely different, I don't know. I'd love to hear your opinions. The set is not available in any stores here in Finland yet but I ordered two online and they should be here next week.

It's about time to finally complete this so I can start concentrating on how to modularize the Corner Deli 31050... The façade now has flowers by the top floor windows, as suggested by Kristel and Mdgas, plus a Bags sign (which prevents flowers on the 2nd floor). There's still one lonely tan cheese missing. The Tourist Kiosk 41098 is situated next door (actually two of them, to make a complete kiosk without a missing back wall), but this is only temporary. I don't have a place for my layout, so everything is just stacked away in cardboard boxes. Once I can actually build a layout the kiosk will be in a 4-baseplate park and the empty lot here will be used for another 16-wide building. The bag shop is also fully furnished with lots of Friends bags and backpacks in different colours, as well as some bows on the wall. The register is an original from 31036. There's a toilet hidden below the stairs and a sink in the little hallway leading from the shop to the backyard.

Thanks for the comments! I'm glad you like it. I'll start working on the interior of the hair salon and will post pics here as soon as it's ready.

When I saw the first images of Emma's House, I found the set completely uninteresting because of the awkward colour. Who would paint their house lavender? But the more I looked at the pictures and the more I grew fond of the Art Deco Heartlake Hairsalon, the more I started sketching a modular building that would draw some inspiration from Miami's South Beach area with the Hairsalon on the ground floor and the top floors loosely based on Emma's House. THe colour actually doesn't look all that bad – and would not be out of place in South Beach. This is what I have come up with. The façade is completed. A three floor building that, hopefully, reminds you of the US Art Deco architecture. As you can see, the Hairsalon is pretty much left untouched. The baseplate is a little wider, so I was able to add a window on the left side and an entrance to the upper floor apartment on the right side. The colour of the door from Emma's House fits in perfectly. The newspaper vending machine of course comes from the 10246 Detective's Office (I have two sets and I only need one vending machine, so the other one is a leftover), the letterbox is from the brand new Tourist Kiosk 41098. The sides are just as plain as you'd expect them to be. The building is very deep because of the form of the original hairsalon. The upper floors are 16-wide. The back is still partially a WIP – all windows are missing. I have some ideas, but I need to furnish the interiors before I know where I can place some windows. The interiors are not completed yet. I've done no work on the ground floor. I built the Hairsalon according to the instructions and I plan to use the original interior, but right now it's just a big mess in there – you can probably see something through the large windows. One floor up will be a big living room with a sitting area and a dining table. It's halfway done. The furnishing mainly comes from Emma's House and from 40120 Valentine's Day Dinner. Only the top floor is ready. The furnishing again mostly comes from Emma's House, but in the kitchen, you'll notice Olivia's refrigerator from 3315 Olivia's House and the round kitchen table is actually the table from 41092 Stephanie's Pizzeria. The bedroom and bathroom are furnished with Emma's furniture from her House, so nothing too exciting there. I'll keep you updated when I finish decorating the living room and the hairsalon. Hope you like it – poor Emma probably didn't since she's nowhere to be seen. Instead, a family of minifigs will be moving in here shortly.

The coffee bike is great! If this were a real poly, I'd get it right away! Fits nicely with the Friends icecream bike and the Creator hotdog cart.

I wonder if TLG reads the forum The new Friends sets are available at S@H now, and the automatic addition of the minigolf poly seems to work now, as well. Great!

August? Okay... No wonder they aren't available on S@H. I wonder why Lego lets retailers sell those so far in advance of the official launch date.

I thought the new Friends sets would be released on 1st June. But here in Finland, I can't yet see them at S@H. Changing to the US or German site doesn't help, either. Some retailers have the new sets in stores already. What is the official release date for those?

Thanks, AirborneAFOL, for your very kind words. My suggestion is, go ahead and get the set. Hell, get two! And make a modular of it. Feel free to copy any of my ideas, create you rown ideas and show us the result! I've now furnished the bag shop on the ground floor, but some tiles are still missing from the floor. I've also added some flowers to the façade and of course a BAGS sign, but I still need the tan cheeses for the window decorations. I'll post pictures of the completed building after everything is finalized.

These are just very quick teaser-style shots. And I apologize for the horrible quality. My iPhone was probably not developed with Lego photos in mind. But all in all, a double-DO fits the modular street quite nicely. I do hope, however, that we get a larger building in 2016. When I complete the double-DO, I'll take better shots and I'll show you the meth lab with some gangstas hanging outside the lab in the hallway as well.

My experience is that many of the Firends hairpieces make the minidolls look terribly obese. I don't know why.

Snaillad, your creations are absolutely wonderful! This square is brilliant. The colours, the architecture, the buzzling street scene, everything! I especially like the colour scheme of the nougat coloured building. It looks very authentic. The alley is also my favourite. Would you be able to take a picture of the alley between the cool yellow and medium blue houses? Btw, what do you do with the creations when they are completed? I hope you don't pull them apart!

Sure! I'm glad you like it. I just don't know how to get that file to you. I tried so send you a PM but it didn't work, probably because the system requires you to have a certain number of posts before you can use it. And I would upload it here but I don't know how to do it... Could anyone help us?

I don't really think the popularity was based on the rather mediocre minifigs, but rather on the dinosaur and accessories.