pacc

You cannot rotate a 1-wide brick or plate placed with the halfstud pin on a hollow hole. I.e LDD lets me do this using a window frame but not with a brick. (but deleting the window frame lets me place a brick on the rotated guide which fits on the hollow stud)

Those beerglasses don't seem to have seen a dishwasher in years. It adds to the athmosphere ;)

a) Placing parts is a bit of magic and works great! But moving a small step can make the part jump large steps or move to the horizon: Suggestion: Pressing shift while placing a part will only allow it to move in small increments or by studs surrounding it. b) Option to continue to place the last part while in clone mode.

If there is anything in common with 2008 and 2011 you have missed it: there is two of everything, two cars, two baseplates, two garages, two cells - at twice the price. How can it be hard to produce a version with a back? As a parent and consumer I really hate both because I would gladly buy half twice and make something unique, but feel forced and reluctant to buy even one. The 2011 looks more solid with less parts, but 6398 below looks more varied with even less part.

That is cool. I hope you find a way to display it. A sfinx would look great next to next years pyramid set. That is cool. I hope you find a way to display it. A sfinx would look great next to next years pyramid set aswell.

Every building is 16 wide, good for kids, if you shorten the 3221 you get 2 new floors (if that's a roof window I see there) but the rounded corner of the new police station would have been more slick - as corner or upper floor glass balcony. A red car was unexpected! I would have been happy for a 1x2 curved slope, but I guess that is the 2x4 curved slope with the most boring gray sticker produced. Give me the 7 makes and colors car collection next year...

I might at most put an extra 6x2 plate if the back seems to thin in reality, but less is often better. Brickshelf gallery is public now and I've also uploaded a pair of models to lego DesignByMe as user paccpacc.

Much better, I think I've seen the trick to go up then down in reality, it's a nice feature.

That's a cool modern fireplace. Nice touch to convert to gif to give the impression that it's snowing, eh.

I checked and could put the bracket below the plate, this changes the angle a tiny bit giving a small slope to the hood (which is good) but will also allow an additional reinforcement from below. The roof was a bit off, but now that I found a solution I like it better. And I finally found the bracket (called bottom in the modified bricks) so this version will come up on DesignByMe. Another solution was using a 2x8 technics plate with holes matches and mating the hole in the bracket with a halfpin connector from below. This will still flex a bit over time. My 3,5 year old always puts the wheels on first, after that I have to help by pressing from below for every piece. Though he's not the audience. Sadly I'm not close to getting the pieces for this one, maybe I'll order next year sometime.

I built the chassis to try it out, LDD is worthless at telling you where the model will brake. (and a piece was actually missing since it was invisible from the outside...) It turns out the weak spot is behind the minifigure, since it needs to be the lowest part the floor only connects by about 2-4 studs to the rear. LDD universe does not contain any brackets, but if you use this bracketthe stability should be sufficient. The outer mudguards are only attached from below due to their design, so they will not stand wheight from above and if they fall off this is the first a child will try, breaking more parts. However TLG has done worse in great sets such as 7991, so test your kid with that model if you are worried:

I guess the front distracts from the overall looks of the car... Here's the indiana jones grill, I think it's a different car, maybe something like it exist? It's impossible to find these parts in LDD if they're not named sensibly. As for the windows you have to stick with what lego gives you, but ditching the roof and going for a simpler front results in this version:

This is the smooth lines of the Morgan LeMans '62. Every piece is available from DesignByMe or pick-a-brick. (In red aswell, but it's just not British) You may also get the lxf on brickshelf to order it or mod it further. It's easy enough to put on the lego veteran grill and get impressively smooth mudguards, but this might fit another make of car better so don't wear out that part. Playing around with available bricks in LDD always make you wish for something. I started out with the standard mudguards but they demand 4x4 bricks of standard surroundings. Looking at the bows and rounded slopes there were some potential but still a bit square and I have wanted to try this technique for a while. Please tell me of any other creations with 'studs not quite up' It was really amazing to see that the initial design choice at the front led to no problems fitting the minifigure, naturally having the angled doors if the original and somehow allowing a level footstep. The real thing: Apparently there is aMorgan LeMans 62 website with more inspiration and pictures from other angles. Keeping the smooth curves while adding details such as bag holder and spare wheel came to a compromise. Given the design of the bracket one may get the back lightseven more flush to the car if you turn the connecting parts 180 degrees. There aren't any level bricks underneath, but it will be hard to see in reality. This is a previous design of the hood, if you choose red there is the nose tile of the smaller airplanes to use here that will still connect fully to the window. Nah, that is clearly not a british gentleman, must be some slimy italian. Anyone got the parts to build this?

There's another recent car transport by selander. As a trailer it may not work to have two floors at the front. In reality they do use supersmall wheels and cheat a bit by storing the frontmost car at an angle since the hood is lower anyway. Personally I would try using the technics bricks to try to lower the upper level and maybe at 90 degrees as support.

I agree, the idea to give this to your child turning innocent play into everyone shoots the striped minifig. I might aswell let them watch dexter with me. A hospital of this size would be different with many specialities, functions and action to play out, and most kids will experience it in one way or another which cannot be said about police. Shame on me to consider a police set to get white parts.

So that was the introduction of the fat cars? I hope that TLG decides to revise and update the front piece for the standard car: http://www.peeron.com/inv/parts/52038 My first reaction was to turn it over and use as a smaller mudguard, but the backside lacks the needed holes.

It is odd that the piston was dangling in the instructions, even more odd is that adding a 2x2 plate will make it completely secure and playable. The problem may be that it strains the parts somewhat - but why didn't lego add a smaller technics knot to increase the lenght then ... All in all a good value set with more playability than the more expensive dumper. It also has good proportions and is excused in a 4 wide city with 6 wide trucks, I made a drumroller a bit smaller than this set and the very big original.

My oldest sets are the classic space Galaxy Explorer (497) and Command Center (493) from some happy christmas. Now that seems to have faded out into a bunch of smaller sets where the space ones remains as a bunch of wings, 20+ grey steering wheels and gadgets but the city cars just pops together if you sort out the parts by color... The oldest city set I've picked out from the old heap is the post office: Which is still great because it demands regular visits around all other houses and occupies most trucks loading and offloading boxes....

Try to restrain yourself and get the oldest modular house that still have a decent price on lego.com by black friday. Then you won't regret it when it's out of stock, though I don't see the point of looking for out of production sets when you haven't even begun, there will be new sets next year even though standard city looks dry. I haven't seen great deals on modular houses, though someone else might fill me in here ( just in the game since summer )

You already seem to have plenty of lego, though you can always spice it up. To make you feel a bit welcome I can just point to a few sites to begin with, there are several similar. brickset : Just to keep a list of your sets. Picture, price, bit count and instructions for newer sets. Peeron : When you find an old set you want to rebuild, they will have inventory and scanned instructions. Bricklink : You can buy bricks and even full inventories generated from some programs, the shops are independent sellers but searching here before you buy a set second hand somewhere else can help you from getting scammed. You can always check lego.com which have exclusive sets (three story modular buildings) and some bricks, all at 'market prices' Back to your question. Only some sets are hard to find for City; 7848 (the TrU truck with toyshop) and 8404 public transport station are exclusive for toysrus in both US and Europe (and some other chains aswell) and the city house 8403 in some other store. e.g these are not in the printed catalogue but shows up in some stores. For exclusives you probably mean the modular houses, which rarely shows up in stores so have a look at lego.com. I cannot afford them and couldn't dream about buying a set out of stock... On the other hand I bought Medieval market, then I'll have some more houses without having to jump into three-story exclusives all at once ... For importing, any reason not to import yourself? What you miss out on is holiday deals in the us brand stores but there is still bricklink/ebay/amazon selling from different countries worldwide (if you find out what is a decent price and are aware of shipping and the risk of customs)

Personally, I like the classic 4-stud cars and absolutely loves how they look along with the 6-stud trucks. I only think the original truck, even if it is accurate, does not have the functionality of a normal tow-truck for cars. The new mudguards effectively makes cars 5-wide so I can buy it for SUV's and delivery trucks, but the range-rover is a bit out of scale.

What do you know; the 2011 set 5683 has everything to connect farm and city: Market stand with cachier, crates, sign and a delivery truck to go with. Two flowers, two bread, two corn, a crate of oranges, a create of apples and a printed strawberry crate. two minifigs and a cat. Too bad it's duplo!

By the wishes in this thread there doesn't seem to be much playability left. (complete cornfield in 6 stages of growth or?!) When the city suggestion thread had lots of ideas that fit city corner etc. I think Lego could have bridged the gap to a girly theme with a horsetrainers mansion. And there is always farmville games; small chickenhouse (chickens and eggy bricks), vegetable greenhouse, small distribution truck and marketstand / grocery.

I really think the tow truck is oversized, though perhaps realistic for that kink, I'd really like both this set and the other tower to be replaced with the kind that can tow and have a car loaded at once. Here is my take using parts from the 7642 truck: Unfortunately the car is about 1 brick too high up because of the parts to hinge and lower it... Technic's is a pain to model in LDD and I will not get this set unless it's 50% off.

Minifigures: I'm sure no-one cares about the number of minifigures in a plane or airport (at least when buying) You can always get one (1) traveller to go with it. I'm sure no-one cares about the number of cars to go with the garage or petrol station. You can always get one red and one white to go with it. However, the collectors sets shows that variety is not the problem as long as you produce long enough series. Why not make more frequent changes to the smaller sets instead, we need one tourist, one business man traveller, one mom with baby - just switch production a bit more often than the catalogue and then switch back with no initial cost. The same car model can have different colors, roof instead of telephone booth - still being the small car set. Sets: Let's hope the girly theme has something to bring to city in 2012 such as a small flower stand/shop with arrangeable flower variations. But as above this basic set could aswell sell icecream, cakes, toys or being a beaty parlor with small changes. The toy's r us truck or city corner are complete sets with transportation, shop/resturant, play figure and driver / shopkeeper. The problem seem to be how to make complete sets if you only buy one truck and didn't get the one with a store from the start.