sin

I say crane if your city is a work in progress, it fits!

Of course!

I finally got my last BL order for CC and MS Here is my final cost (includes all shipping and handling): GG - $404.89 CC - $251.01 MS - $215.06 So my total for all 3 is $870.96, I am very pleased with this! As referenced earlier in this thread I made the following changes to these sets: GG - substituted 1x2 and 1x6 sand green bricks for the 1x8's CC - Modified to use 6 high doors, 1x2x3 windows used on second floor, 1x4x3 windows with half panes used on third floor MS - substituted curved railings for the white hoses I do have a BnP order I am waiting on with the last torso that I need for MS, the grey garbage can for CC and the grey turntable bases for CC, but this will not keep me from building Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures of my progress late tonight!

TRU near me has not stocked any of the new Star Wars sets on the shelves. Given their track record I am assuming they are waiting for the event to end on the 22nd. (I highly doubt this is the case everywhere, probably just a store manager trying to make their numbers...)

TRU in the US has a buy one get one 50% sale going on now through the 22nd but they are holding back all of the sets that came out on the 17th, i.e. all the new Star Wars wave etc. They give me so little reason to like them I don't know why I even bother looking anymore

I don't really consider those to be EU sets because the figures included were straight from the OT movies. Admittedly the vehicles aren't, someone can correct me if I am wrong here...

No tears shed here. I have always wished that waves were more OT heavy, not that I didn't like TCW sets. There is just too much subject matter from the OT that I haven't had a chance to acquire in Lego form yet (came out of my dark ages in 2010).

Thanks for taking the time to give me some feedback Brickdoctor I have been building up my supply of parts this month for the next chapter of this story. I think trying to only use parts from 1 set was far too limiting for this build and resulted in making some concessions with colors and parts, this definitely contributed to the randomness (that and I am new at this!). The next installment will be radically different from this, well at least as different in style as this build was from chapter 1 . First build was terrain, second lots of greebles, and for the third I am going to try a much cleaner style...

I made the trek to my closest Lego Store (60 miles ) yesterday. I picked up: 75034 - Death Star Troopers 75035 - Kashyyyk Troopers 75036 - Utapau Troopers 75037 - Battle on Saleucami 75043 - AT-AP I am very happy with all of them, the minifigs are superb. I always wanted the original AT-AP but wasn't willing to pay the going prices for it. I am glad that I waited, its very nicely built and Gree and Tarful came off incredibly.

I am going to have a hard time with the summer wave, I know I will end up buying every single set At least this winter's wave is hitting the shelves tomorrow so I will have something to distract myself with for the next 6 months...

I also picked up the last torso I needed for MS from BnP along with a light bley trashcan that I needed for CC. I am going to call them tomorrow to see if the grey turntable bases can be added as a backorder. I would love to avoid placing a BL order just for those... Tomorrow should be the day I get my last BL order, then I can start building my CC and MS

I would say that the smaller Creator buildings would be a good place to start for a nice supply of bricks, doors and windows that can would be very useful in building MOCs. There a few between $25 and $50 USD that can still be found on store shelves - Beach House, Small Cottage and Log Cabin. The current available sets look useful as well - The modern looking family house, Mountain Hut and the Treehouse.

That is a beautiful, clean looking build. I could very easily see that having a bank on the first floor and offices or medical above it. Nice work!

I also checked after reading this but they were still showing as out of stock within an hour of that post.

Inzane and cei, I look forward to seeing your pictures! I am still waiting for that last BL order, it has finally shipped but if it doesn't arrive within and hour or two I won't be seeing it until at least Monday... TheLegoDr, I have never seen a straight MOD of CC let alone one that was 48 studs wide - I can't wait to see your pics!

I'm looking forward to seeing your creation brickgrrl, I will be checking back for pictures! Despite Wodanis' and my efforts being total overkill the completionist in me had to finish at least the subway loop and support structure for the ground level... The corner technic support frames needed a lot of tweaking to maintain strength with the supports being moved to fit the rails. I'm not positive that it provides enough room for the train through the curves but after playing around with my son's yellow cargo train a bit I think it should work. On the curve modules I reinforced the bottom of the technic joints with the inverted roundish plates that can be seen in this picture. These were directly below the supports on the original module and had to be strengthened when the supports were moved. I don't want to hijack this thread so I may continue this in a new thread in the town or train forum Good luck brickgrrl, thanks for making this thread, it's been fun!

I see what you mean after watching the video, for her layout the rail would have to travel through the opening in the wall independently or it would take a lot of tinkering to get a structure to fit just so. I would caution about the removal of the base supports though. The modular buildings weigh around 7lbs each, with the supports bare like that imagine what would happen if the upper part took a good hit parallel to the ground. I think you could maintain enough clearance by beginning the curve a half plate later, as you noted in your last post.

How did you know? I made some drastic changes to the layout of the pillars in my LDD file, my design is basically just like yours at this point. Making the bottom sections modular also makes for easy replication and experimentation with the rails. The biggest difference in how we each chose to go about building the curve is that my design has the train rails closer to the outside of the layout, your has them on the inside. I played with both options, but staying on the outside allowed to contain the curve a lot more cleanly. This will be hard to verbalize so I will post some pics when in a few after I upload them. I still have to come up with a placement for the central support on the curve extremity and technic surface frame. Details, details Alright here is where I am at right now: Here is an overhead shot that shows pretty clearly where I placed the rails The light grey plates and tiles on the baseplates are the support for the rail so its fairly easy to see where it runs. I did play around with using jumpers to keep the rail centered (rails is 8 studs wide, but there are 9 studs between the edge and middle pillar bases) however this caused the rail to hang 1/2 stud off the end of the baseplate after a 90 degree turn. One thing I would note about the way I have the curve laid out - I have a couple of straight sections halfway through the curve that could be eliminated to keep this layout 3 baseplates deep as opposed to the 4 that I have shown here. With the continuous curve the rails still meet up with the edge of the baseplates perfectly.

Hah, bitten by the bug as well I see I like what you did here. It makes sense to have the underground modular as well. Your change leaves just enough room for the track as well! I agree with you, all that would be needed is a different module for the curve and this design could be replicated as needed for an above and below ground display. I think I will have some more fun with this later...

Ah silly me, sometimes it's the easiest solutions that are the most elusive... A handful of 1x2 plates (black in the image) would solve the alignment aid issue Here is an image from the underside to show how they would slot in

Wow that's a whole lot of flower stems! I really like how you contoured the land, I will be checking back to see what the finished product looks like. Placing all of those stems side by side has to take a lot of patience, the stems must be placed just so to avoid them pushing their neighbors off of their studs.

Well I just couldn't stop myself from tinkering a bit more I added a few things: plates with tiles on top to support all of the edges of the 16x16 surface plates boosted the height of the supports by 2 bricks added reinforcement around the base of the supports - without it lateral force could send the entire upper level crashing down onto the bottom reinforced the 16x16 plates - based upon the presumption of working with groups of 4 16x16's Here is a close up view of the reinforced support bases - I left the ones on the corners unfinished so the inside could be seen I built a complete section of 4 16x16 plates with reinforcement to show how it could be done - this doesn't necessarily account for the alignment aid that brickgrrl mentioned but I only spent a few minutes on it and nothing came quickly to mind that would address that I wish I had the bricks or the budget to try this out!

Go to 'preferences' and select 'outlines on bricks' I don't know why that isn't the default setting, aside from looking weird without it - it is really hard to figure out what is what when it just looks like a big lump of plastic. No problem It would be very easy to add 2 wide plates onto the top of the technic beams and then tile on top of the plates to accomplish this. I see what you are getting at regarding a solution that would facilitate alignment. Be sure to post the results when you start building!

Thanks Wodanis! I thought the sections that brickgrrl was referring to were the sections from ground level and above. Assuming each modular sat upon 4 16x16 reinforced plates this would allow them to be placed and removed with any pins being used on the modulars themselves (there would be 16 studs per modular holding them in place). There are 14 studs between each support, even if one were to place 2x2x1 slopes to reinforce the base of the 2x2x10 supports there would be ample room to run track between them. Curves would have to be accounted for, that would be a lot trickier to design the roof supports around.

Lucky for you! I am very glad that I ordered all of my parts before these increases went into effect, I would have been kicking myself otherwise... I would suspect that prices on BL for these parts are going to rise as well.