elleana

Love the little small details

Nice photography too - the wood panelling almost gleams.

Just an update to this thread. I started out with tiled plates, which I thought was rather inelegant. I finally gave in and moved to brick roads and am very satisfied with the result. Picture should be self explanatory. Word of wisdom to anyone going through the same thought process. Just bite the bullet and go brick built. I used 1 x 4 black bricks and white/yellow plates, all of which are reasonably cheap on BL.

Have we seen an official picture of it yet? All I can find are the cusoo version.

My reference was the passenger train from last year, which I think of all my trains (cargo, HE, maersk) had the most bulbous nose so I figured needed the most clearance. It wasn't too difficult to adjust (Some of the girders had to be moved laterally by a few studs) but it didn't affect the stability I don't think. I was using 1 x 14 technic beams and there was only one place where the girders were too far apart to be spanned by 1 x 14 (1 x 16 would have done it, but I don't have any on hand). I was able to compensate in the second level where I didn't have to make the same adjustments.

Quick update: a few bricklink orders arrived so I managed to get started on this. Pictures are mostly self explanatory, had a problem with having sufficient clearance for the train's nose so the layout of the first layer of girders isn't totally regular. The entire structure is very stable though, but I will have to test it again once I get the second layer of the structure done.

My child and I have had many hours of fun with the more furnished modulars. I build them and she uses them as rather fragile dollhouses.

Also you'll frequently find that on EB and other similar places "Bluish Grey" is abbreviated to bley, so you will see references to dark bley and light bley.

My display area is only around 3 baseplates by 12 baseplates wide, all I have space for is an oval track. Not particularly large scale. Am going to elevate one row of buildings, that's all.

That is a beautiful display and a wonderful tradition. Even though GG / CC / GE are rather common they are still very nice buildings. I know its almost the middle of January but am feeling Christmassy all over again!

I'm going to have one every 16 studs, ease of design for me since I am using 16 x 16 plates as the base for all buildings / roads. I'll have one layer of support beams (1 x 16 / 1 x 14 bricks) after each layer of girders. I think it should work. Mine should look like this from top down (can't use LDD for nuts so I will just have to describe it): tile level just underneath building / road plates support beams inverse slopes girder support beams inverse slopes girder baseplate Total ~24 studs high

Thanks, Wookiee, your pictures are very helpful. You mentioned you didn't really need support at the bottom of your girders as the grid was very stable. Do you think that would still be the case if I had two layers of girders? Am looking to raise my street about 20 or so bricks above the baseplate, which would need two layers of girders.

Apologies for bumping an old(ish) topic but has anyone - brickgrrl / Wodanis / sin - made any progress on this? I was reminded of this thread after seeing this fantastic Moc diorama http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=103648. I am now re-inspired to elevate my city and have trains underneath it. Time for yet another massive bricklink order, this time for girders and technic bricks.

Simpson's House bathroom is pretty well done. Just a very garish floor tile color..

Beyond amazing. I am at a loss for words.

My modular display table isn't the biggest, so using tiled roads instead of road plates allows me to save some space and squeeze in train tracks.

Yeah, probably worth my time and effort to give it another go. I have multiple juice bars, bakeries, olivia's houses. I even picked up heartlake mall before I realised what was up.

Sold out online :(

Thanks everyone for your awesome replies. Lots of good ideas! Not really a fan of the color scheme and the ghost theme. Personal thing but thanks. That town hall is a perfect candidate. Added to my list! The buildings featured in the link are to creator bike shop / cafe specs I believe, which needs further work to modularise. But some good ideas in that thread as well. Will read it again later. Interestingly, I was inspired to do this originally by reading a post of yours from way back discussing similar issues. I bought a whole bunch of Friends sets - multiples of the juice bar, bakery, etc intending to modularise them, only to realise that I really, really don't care for the Friends color scheme. Lime green and pink looks really jarring to my eyes.. So they are all stashed in a corner somewhere, and I am trying to figure out whether to break them up for parts (have already raided some for trans clear panels and the like), or hang on to them until my daughter has graduated from Duplo to Friends. That Spiderman Daily Bugle was on sales at Toysrus last week or the week before. I vaguely thought about it but for some reason passed. Argh!

Unlike some of the other members on here, I have limited creative talent when it comes to conceptualising and designing a modular from scratch, so what I've tried to do is to take some existing sets and 'modularise' them, i.e. redesign and customise them into modular specs. So far I've done Gringott's Bank from the Harry Potter Diagon Alley set, and I'm pretty pleased with the result: I have a few other projects in the pipeline (the other 2 buildings from Diagon Alley, Ninjago's Battle for Ninjago City as well as this years' Mos Eisley Cantina) but I was interested to see what other suggestions people had for sets which would make good modulars. I realize the obvious choices are the Bike Shop and Cafe as well as the various police and fire stations, but what else is out there?

Nice haul! I can see one of the yellow minifigs has a cracked helmet

I would imagine you would have immense difficulty finding appropriately dressed (or rather, inappropriately dressed..) minifig torsos and legs. Edit - where's my pants guy might be helpful here

Well it is the /green/ grocer..

Some thoughts on 'cheap'-er modulars: [For the avoidance of doubt, English is my native language] (1) 16 x 32 Echoing what others have said, having half-sized modulars would be awesome. Whether brownstone apartments or just small shops with living quarters upstairs. I know there are oodles of great MOCs like that out there, in particular I'm a fan of Kristel's work. I've done some 32 x 32 MOCs and sometimes its tough filling in the interior spaces, even if its just the sheer volume of bricks required. Which brings me to my next point.. (2) Cheap-ness Again, the first point has already been made - a 16 x 32 modular wouldn't necessarily be half the price of a 32 x 32 modular. I'm sure someone out there has done a detailed and thorough analysis, but my own perception is that as number of pieces in a set increases, cost per piece decreases. There are fixed costs that don't change whether a set has 300 or 3000 pieces. The other thing I would like to say is if cost goes down, part count goes down, and then you lose detail, which I'm sure to a lot of us if one of the selling points of the entire modular line. To put it less elegantly, cheap = less parts = less greebles. (3) Bike Shop / Cafe I am undecided about this. When it first came out I thought - 'whoa cool, cheap modular' - then I took a closer look and realized a fair bit work would be required to modularize it. And the MOCs I've seen so far have proven me right. A minimum of 2 sets and assorted extra parts are required to make it up to the modular standard, and that right away puts the cost significantly higher than a standard 32 x 32 modular. They look pretty good though, so if I find a couple of bike shops on the cheap I might pick them up. Some people have made the point that the set is a 'gateway modular' to introduce people to the modular standard. Again, not convinced. While cost is definitely closer to modular pricing than city pricing, un-modded it looks to me more like 'slightly more detailed city building' than 'slightly less detailed modular building'. And the inclusion of the 3 in 1 build leads me to believe that Creator is probably the 'correct' place for this set to be and is Lego's intention.

To me the old grey had a greenish tint to it, the new grey has a bluish tint. Much prefer the new grey, as a more modern look.