ReplicaOfLife

Very neat, I dig how you used a microscale build to evoke the impression of depth! The caravan itself also looks very realistic, though it rather looks like an old, parked caravan than one that was really abandoned. Some minor details (some shrubbery around it, license plate missing or hanging askew, some brown spots to simulate rust) might add to the feel of abandonment.

Very, very cool mod, but I also prefer the version without the fire escape. Did you only change the color of the front facade?

Town Hall doesn't even show up in the german Shop at Home anymore. I'm pretty sure it's gone for good. Also, Detective's Office right now is the ONLY modular readily available from there. All the others have shipping dates in February. For example, Pet Shop has February 24th. Yikes. Glad I got another copy of that one before Christmas.

I was just about to comment on that, too, it totally escaped me when I looked at this yesterday. Another nice detail is the crumpled bedsheets in the youths apartment. So simple and yet it adds so much life.

Yet another inspiring creation. Your buildings never disappoint, and I would agree that they are among the best we've seen (and hopefiully wil continue to see) on here. They all look very realistic, and the amount of detail throughout is astonishing. All thumbs up!

I feel with you. Seeing all those expansions and redecorations truly is inspiring. Made me rethink my own modding plans for when I get around to buy two or more copies of it several times already.

Another good one, I especially like the interior and the facade on the groundfloor. Haven't seen that approach yet. Interesting how the second floor bookshelf structurally is part of the ground floor

Yep, nice work overall Interior on the ground floor is a bit too colorful for my taste, but I guess itw orks for an icecream shop. NIce detailing throughout!

Excellent work there, talos. Really dig the usage of the small antennas as tap pieces at the bar.

I'm currently building (in real bricks) my second modular MOC. The first one (my Hat Shop, posted on here early last spring) was freebuilt entirely using vintage bricks from my collection. The second one uses modern pieces & colors. I pulled inspiration from a design that was posted on here that I really admire (I asked the builders permission wether I could use it) and first designed the entire building in LDD, retro-engineering the parts of the original MOC that I wanted to replicate in my own. Then I placed a total of 7 BL orders to accumulate the ~2650 bricks I was missing. The overall building uses pretty much exactly 3500 bricks. During building it in LDD, I made sure to check availabilty of any kind of brick/color combination that I wasn't sure existed. I'm halfway through the second floor now, and it's a LOT of fun to build this. I discovered two minor blunders with the BL orders (didn't order enough of two types of bricks), but both are used in detailing only and could be replaced by others. With one of them, I think I know what happened, but how the other came to be too small, I don't quite get. But what the hell . Result will be posted here once it's done I already have several ideas for my next project and I'll definately choose the LDD road again. I'd hate being stuck during the build because I really wanted to build something but was missing the right amount of some bricks.

Roger, my version is indeed 56 studs.. I can imagine you do not like the brown building, growing over the pool hall, but when you would see it in real bricks, it really gives the building a lot of depth.. when you see it, it seems that there is another building in the background...and it intends that there are 3 buildings.. Yesterday i finished the roofing.. it is not ready, have to do some work on the backside and the interior.. but here is an update... I have to say, the finished set really does give that impression, and suddenly I like it a lot. Well done!

Really like some of the expansions that have been posted. LegoSjaak, yours looks really promising now, only thing I don't wuite like is that the brown 'building' grows out over onto the pool hall. Not sure wether that's realistic at all, at least in cities in Europe or North America. How wide is your version, btw? Looks like 56 studs? BirdOPrey5, your version with just an extra floor also does wonders. While the blue building still is narrow, the set as a whole suddenly looks a lot less out of scale than normally.

I have two places where I put my modulars. One is on a low shelf in my home office, the other in a glass cabinet. The ones in my home office are connected using pins, the one in the glass cabinet aren't simply because they're easier to get out of there that way. I still have some wiggle room on the low shelf, so I can easily pull them apart. I'm kinda pedantic in that regard and want them to line up perfectly when on display, using the pins helps a lot there.

Nice looking modular there. The gas station outfitting is propably a tad too modern (as lightningtiger pointed out, stations like that were common in the early 20th century), but who cares? I would bet that you can still find a gas station like that somewhere even today. How many extra bricks (apart from the shell related bricks) did you use for the building itself compared to the oroginal Bike Shop & Cafe?

Brilliant, grand design. Looks very impressive, and nice detailing on the small scenes you created.

Quick mod idea: Does the top floor of PS (Pet Shop half) fit on the first floor of the DO (DO side, obviously)? Of course, the barber side would be roofless then, but what the hell...

I quite like this. The building perfectly captures what you wanted to display, a plain building you wouldn't look twice at - the perfect hiding spot for a pawn shop with some under-the-counter-business. It really looks like it could be located in a rundown, seedy part of town. No vibrant colors and neat facades here. The background story fits like a glove. Thumbs up!

Thanks for posting! Yep, that's what it boils down to. I would've expected the DO to be slightly lighter than PR, but I suspected a huge difference between it and the older modulars. More small pieces for details inside at the cost of large bricks to build walls. And - I know I've said this before - DO hardly offers any large bricks. a couple of 1x6 in tan, and that's pretty much it. The blue side is made entirely out of 1x2 and 1x4 bricks, so it propably could've been built using about 2/3rd its number of bricks if they had just used 1x6 and 1x8s were applicable, as they did in the older modulars.That would have had a minor impact on the weight, but would'v brought the piece count down by a couple dozen more.

That's pretty much it. Screw the cookie storyline, save that all for bricks, throw in an additional 150-200 pieces or so for a second storey to the DO (bringing the piece count up to PR levels....or maybe just use some larger bricks instead of all those tiny 1x2 and 1x4s...), and I'm sure there'd be a more welcoming response, even though the interior space would still be tiny and the blue building would still be unrealitically devoid of function. By the way: Can anyone who has already built the DO do a WEIGHT comparison? Just put it and maybe 2-3 other modulars on your kitchen scales and report the findings. 'Cause I don't buy into the 'the building is smaller, but the price per weight ratio is still the same' argument.

I wouldn't necessary agree with that. The height of the blue portion is ok, and having a two storey building like the DO itself also doesn't hurt. It's the sheer volume of the building that's way too low. There's barely any room inside. To do a proper building in Lego scale with that layout you'd propably need to make it about 5 studs deeper and expand it to 24 or 32 studs in width. edit: This was in regards to OTWs post concerning the height. I'm pretty much with Finnbricker.

Guess those pics clearly show that DO should not be put anywhere near TH. Even PR works better next to it than the DO, and that's with the higher side of DO next to TH. Luckily, I won't have that problem anytime soon as I haven't built my TH yet, and most likely will immediately expand the DO upon purchase.

Both are are 14 deep on the upper floors. DO is 3 studs deeper on the ground floor, buit that's pretty much it. Can't believe how cramped the upper floors of the barber shop look. We've come a long way from the wide and empty halls of CC and GG.

Nice review, thanks a lot. Managed to improve my opinion of the set a bit, but I'm still getting two to build larger buirldings as soon as we get the next 2x VIP points special

I wouldn't get my hopes up on the museum passing review. While it looks like a very promising set - and I'd definately get one - there is a strong point against it: It is about the same size as Town Hall, and Town Hall got retired earlier than expected, with low sales being the leading rumor as the reason. It shares some of the points that made a lot of people not like Town Hall aswell - it is significantly bigger and looks a bit out of place on modular street. And we are seeing a trend towards smaller modulars while keeping the 150€ price tag. Thus, if we ever were to see a modular with a higher piece count, as Town Hall was and as the museum would be, it would propably be smaller then Town Hall, maybe even smaller than Green Grocer.