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Everything posted by ReplicaOfLife
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Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion
ReplicaOfLife replied to The Jersey Brick Guy's topic in LEGO Town
Afaik, that policy has been abandoned for some time. I think there was an interview with Jamie Berard some time back where he said that, while that strict limitation had been true for the first few years, by now the modulars have such a standing that they could also get new moulds/pieces. The Jazz Club also had that new piece that fits under the 1x2x6 arch in the pizza oven, for example. Though, from the outside it's propably hard to tell what set an element really was designed for, as usually a new element gets used in many sets upon release. -
Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion
ReplicaOfLife replied to The Jersey Brick Guy's topic in LEGO Town
Thanks for that link, would've missed it. Sad to see that I prefer almost all of the early design sketches they shared to the final design. Also interesting to see Jamie say "When you go to a half base plate it gets fairly tight for adult hands " with regards to 16-wide buildings, seeing as they have no problem at all creating even tighter spaces within the small buildings or even just facades they tend to tack on to the 32-wide modulars nowadays. Like the donut shop in the PS, Art Gallery in the Hotel, pretty much everything in the Detective's Office, or the Pizza-shop-half of the Jazz Club... -
Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion
ReplicaOfLife replied to The Jersey Brick Guy's topic in LEGO Town
Propably because surrounding the windows with a darker color creates an additional illusion of depth, which makes the facade look more lively. On the other hand, keeping it all in one color diffuses the real depth of the facade (created by setting the windows one stud back from the facade) and makes it look more flat than it actually is. -
Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion
ReplicaOfLife replied to The Jersey Brick Guy's topic in LEGO Town
Phew. Positive: It has some decent depth to it, the side walls look really clean. Seems like there's some nice snot work going on on the upper floors of the jazz club. Some nice interior details on the upper floors. But: I really don't like the overall look of it. Especially the upper floors of the jazz club look very random. The rooftop decoration looks downright terrible, imho. The dark red and that azure blue (whichever one it is) are clashing hard visually. The pizzeria has laughably little interior space (notice how they removed all of the front wlals to get that inside pic). Might entirely skip this one. Definitely the least visually appealing one for me to date. -
Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion
ReplicaOfLife replied to The Jersey Brick Guy's topic in LEGO Town
Yep. For a company that's famous for making plastic bricks, they sure are very scrimpy when it comes to putting actual decent-sized bricks in the boxes they want more and more money for. Sure, we'll get dozens if not hundreds of 1x1 greebly bits, but compared to the really old modulars, all the last ones were very poor in terms of how many actual, decent-sized bricks were in there. Buildings keep getting thinner and lower. Very bad direction they've been taking. For 230€, I'd want something the size of Green Grocer with the level of detail of the Parisian Restaurant. Which easily could be done with 3000 pieces. Instead, I'll propably get a building sized somewhere between the Book Shop and the Downtown Diner with maybe 8-10 studs in depth, whose interior walls (if existent...) won't even reach the ceiling. -
"The Golden Frog" Restaurant - Modular Building MOC
ReplicaOfLife replied to ReplicaOfLife's topic in LEGO Town
Thank you, very glad you like it this much- 26 replies
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"The Golden Frog" Restaurant - Modular Building MOC
ReplicaOfLife replied to ReplicaOfLife's topic in LEGO Town
Thanks In my experience, at 32 studs width three floor builds only work if the building is either flat-roofed (so you still get two full upper floors), if the floors are very tall, or if the modular is designed with at least two different facades. On more uniform buildings, like I usually do, removing one of the middle floor makes the buildings look weird, because they will feel too small for their width. In other words, you usually want your buildings to be a bit higher than they are wide. Which, I think, is another reason (besides saving on parts & volume) why Lego usually either does multiple facades or doesn't use the entire baseplate on straight modulars nowadays. Green Grocer was the only regular (non municipal) modular they ever did that was designed as a single, 32 studs wide building, and just look at how tall those upper floors are compared to almost all other modulars.- 26 replies
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That argument also works against the original Galaxy Explorer, which had a big see-through roof panel aswell. Only that back then they used a trans-yellow 4x10 plate instead of a windscreen, propably because they didn't have big windscreens yet. And you really shouldn't get started on structural vulnerability regarding Classic Space ships . Pretty much all of them had giant windows or even giant holes all around their fuselage, all of which would be rather impractical in an actual spacecraft.
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Gorgeous set. Love the shape & building techniques, and am I dreaming or does it look like all the decorated pieces are actually printed? The awful sticker sheet was one of the main letdowns on Benny's SSS. Only detail I don't like about 10497 is the back wing - looks too bulgy and plain just using those two big ramp pieces. Will most likely mod that on my copy. And of course, the unnecessary colors on the inside - though at least they limited themselves to the clasic Lego colors that were around back in the 70ies & 80ies. Which is a nice touch in a way, but I'd still prefer they'd use only the colors actually needed... but that goes for literally all sets they make nowadays. Oh yeah, and I demand we get an identical version numbered 10928 in Europe!
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That looks absolitely marvelous
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"The Golden Frog" Restaurant - Modular Building MOC
ReplicaOfLife replied to ReplicaOfLife's topic in LEGO Town
Thank you :) I intentionally didn't make it fully symmetric - I've done so many symmetrical builds already The name Golden Frog came about by sheer coincidence - when I designed it, I just thought about 'some sort of restaurant'. The frogs already were there, but I had originally planned with dark blueish grey ones as a direct nod to Café Corner. Then I noticed that I didn't have enough grey ones, but did have the golden ones. And since it's pretty common for restaurants to be called "The Golden [some thing or other]" around here, that gave me the name for it. Thank you :)- 26 replies
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"The Golden Frog" Restaurant - Modular Building MOC
ReplicaOfLife replied to ReplicaOfLife's topic in LEGO Town
Thank you @Zork & @Guts 24- 26 replies
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"The Golden Frog" Restaurant - Modular Building MOC
ReplicaOfLife replied to ReplicaOfLife's topic in LEGO Town
Thank you all for your kind words! Much appreciated And also thanks for the frontpage showcase! Much appreciated! I get what you mean about the staircase hand rail looking a bit bulky. It's actually quite low though, when you look at how high it compared to each step. But as I was reading your reply and looked at it again, I actually got an idea for a technique to create a similar effect that would be less bold. I'll definitely re-use this, and that way it won't look the same No, I don't mind at all - if my work inspires others, that''s great! I'd appreciate a shout-out, though, especially if you go very close to what I did. Regarding the roof: Yes, SNOT is involved, and of course there's some supporting structure in the back. But propably less than you'd think - each roof section is one interconnected assembly, and the supports are just attached at two points to that assembly- 26 replies
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"The Golden Frog" Restaurant (Restaurant "Zum Goldenen Frosch") Alost two years after my last MOC it's finally time to reveal my latest work. This is a modular building with a restaurant - "The Golden Frog" (or "Zum Goldenen Frosch" in german) on the ground floor. The second floor houses a psychotherapists office, and the top two floors feature an apartment. Summary: Parts: 5650 (excluding minifigs) Design: designed in stud.io from May to June 2021 and from December 2021 until March 2022 (got hard stuck with the design last summer and worked on other projects for a while). Rebrickable: https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-246236/ReplicaOfLife/the-golden-frog-restaurant/#details Highlights include the roof, where I tried to mimic the typical look of a copper plate roof as found on many older european buildings, the facade featuring lots of snot work, and the glass spiral staircase leading from third to the fourth floor. As usual, the model also has full interior. The color scheme using bright light orange might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I really like the color, so there you are As usual, head over to flickr for even more pictures: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzRQmw The copper plate roof. I'll leave it to you to figure out how it is built - I'll just say that all pieces are firmly connected. The restaurant's namesake is featured above the windows and door on the ground floor. Interior of the restaurant. The restaurant also features a piece by a local modern artist. It's cryptically titled "Entrails of a Star Destroyer". On the second floor, a psychotherapist has his office. Many of his patients find the loud ticking of the grandfather clock to be distracting. He enjoys analyzing their reactions to it. The third floor is the first of a two floor apartment. This floor has a kitchen, eating area and home-office working space. The luxurious kitchen has a big fridge and a kitchen island with further seating. The glass spiral staircase leads up to the final floor. It is built using panels. Curved slopes with cut-out create the nice organic shape of the banister. The top floor is less spacious then the ones below. It features the bedroom, couch and TV area and the bathroom. The bathroom features a big, open shower (with a coloured glass wall preventing spray down the staircase), toilet and wash basin. I hope you enjoyed my MOC - looking forward to any feedback, constructive criticism or praise you have to offer More pics on flickr: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzRQmw Instructions on Rebrickable: https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-246236/ReplicaOfLife/the-golden-frog-restaurant/#details Tobias
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Very impressive, a truly grand hotel. Love the highvattention to detail throughout and the well structured facade!
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True. Though you can propably tile the entire floor with red tiles (2x2 tiles in red are just a few cents each) and buy a new baseplate in whatever color for less than the red baseplate goes for
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Cool building! Love the interior, it all feels very warm and cozy. Making a 'true' modular (with repeatable floors) always is a bit harder than just building them floor by floor, but it's oddly satisfying, even if the possibility is never exploited.
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I bricklinked Café Corner and a sand blue version of Green Grocer back in the day. In the end, it all comes down to how true to the original you want to go. For me, it was more about the overall look, I replaced many rare/expensive parts with similar ones (e.g. I used 1x2x3 windows on Café Corner instead of the panel, and I replaced the invisible dark blue arches beneath the stairs (which were frighteningly expensive) with whatever was cheapest on BL. If I was to do it all over again, I'd start by checking what pieces I have on hand and how far they'd get me. E.g., you can build the walls pretty much any way you like, as long as you stick to the color scheme it will look similar even if you use totally different brick sizes. Palace Cinema shouldn't be too hard, I don't think there are any crucial rare parts in that one except for the baseplate (where I'd just use any one I have on hand, regardless of color) and the dreadful sticker sheet.
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Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion
ReplicaOfLife replied to The Jersey Brick Guy's topic in LEGO Town
Yep. This is also what I like most about the building - it really is something new. And it's done well (imo at least). And while it can be seen as just another ploy to shrink down the floorspace (which it undoubtedly is ), it also adds a new voice to the modular chorus. Most previous buildings had either a distinct middle european or north-american style, while the BH has more of a mediterranean/cuban feel to it. Really looking forward to building this one. Won't be getting it on day one (I have too many unopened sets already, plus I'm working on my next modular MOC), but as soon as it is discounted somewhere, or 2x VIP rolls around, it's mine :) -
Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion
ReplicaOfLife replied to The Jersey Brick Guy's topic in LEGO Town
It doesn't. As usual on the internet, the negative voices are just much louder and more persistent than the positive ones. -
Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion
ReplicaOfLife replied to The Jersey Brick Guy's topic in LEGO Town
No thanks. Very glad they abandoned that. -
Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion
ReplicaOfLife replied to The Jersey Brick Guy's topic in LEGO Town
That would've been very cool. Imho, you have to have that second full builidng for the angle on the hotel to really make sense. But Lego will propably never give us a four storey building in the modular series. Or if they did, it'd be 300€. But if the art gallery was there before, why build that with the wird angle? I mean, yeah, you could construct a narrative to make it work, but those things are rare in real life for a reason. Having an alleyway leading somewhere, like that prototype, just makes it all so much more logical. -
Those are some great buildings you designed over the years, well done. Lots of different architectural styles, but they all work well together anyways. The waterfront section especially looks great. Looking forward to see more!
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Modular Building Sets - Rumours and Discussion
ReplicaOfLife replied to The Jersey Brick Guy's topic in LEGO Town
Still besotted with the exterior of this set. But, after seeing several pictures where different people placed it next to existing modulars, I have to say that it doesn't really work with the older modulars, when the others are placed to the left of it. The only reason you would build a building with such an acute angle in real life is because the street grid forced you to. So putting this on a regular 90° corner looks awkward, because the building's shape suggests something that is not there. I will get it anyway, of course, but I'll either put it somewhere entirely on its own, or on the left end of a row of modulars. Tending towards putting it on its own, because I do want to be able to see both sides of it. Another solution would be modding it to be a regular 90° corner building, but that would kinda defeat its point