Doctor Octoroc

I think that's part of it - without the contrast between the inside and outside, the form isn't very clear and it definitely loses something. It's a struggle between rounding out the corners properly with slopes and recreating the organic progression of the angle around the form, and doing so in only 2 or 3 plates of height on either side so there is literally only 1x1 LEGO unit of space inside. I opened up the model again to add a pillar of tan in that space and it did add a bit to the overall appearance but the question of how to reconcile that near the top of the form is holding me back from making that change. It's one I've planned on revisiting already, just trying to think of how to pull it off...

Thank you! I'm happy to have some interested followers to both encourage the progress as well as assist with suggestions! Seriously, a lot of these wouldn't have been done without many of you chiming in so keep the requests coming! Also, new model done - Al Hamra Tower in Kuwait City, Kuwait. This one was a challenge and I'm still not 100% satisfied with it but I think at this scale it's a very difficult form to pull off. On a side note, work just picked up a ton - feast or famine as they say - so while this project began out of a means to occupy my time aside from work, I'll still be working on these as often as I can. As a plus, I now have some funds coming in to start building some of the actual physical models. This calls for a spread sheet...

Another of the "US 50" finished - the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, NC. I have to admit, these art becoming pretty redundant since they all have a similar stepped tier design ending in a point - the saving grace on this one is the clear bit at the top which I may revisit with cylindrical pieces instead...

For Iowa the tallest building is The Principal Buidling in Des Moines at 630 feet. Missouri is actually right behind Iowa with One Kansas City Place at 624 feet. The Arch is actually 630 feet tall but I guess the WIki article I've been referencing doesn't consider it a skyscraper or building so it isn't on the list. But as far as I'm concerned, it counts - but I am going to have a hell of a time representing it with more than just a flex hose haha.

Also, just finished the Key Tower in Cleveland, OH. Another relatively simple build but a lot of side studs and plates to get the right look. For this one, the small rocket fins were best to represent the spire, unlike the Bank of America Plaza and One Liberty Place, which use more stepping of plates for the top spire portions.

A before and after project sounds awesome! I've had people suggest to me that I should add new buildings to Legodelphia as they build them (they've built at least 3 or 4 since I made the model last year).Some have suggested building those newer buildings in a different color so that eventually, the model will show all the changes to the city over time.

I finally got around to taking a stab at the VAB as suggested (even though Matt The Tuba Guy churned it out before I even saw the request, haha). It is of course in scale with the other skyscrapers and is now officially the shortest structure I've completed just behind the Seattle Space Needle. I would have left one of the doors open but I didn't want to copy Matt TOO much. And it appears as though his was precisely to scale with the full series as well, I'm impressed with how close he nailed it! I added his next to mine for comparison.

Another one done from the 50 US states, this is the JPMorgan Chase Tower in Houston, TX. Pretty basic build, nothing special.

I definitely debated using color, quite heavily. My thought was to make it look like an architectural model so in theory, the trees, grass and water could have been green and blue, respectively. However, the goal of the project for me was to represent the form of the city layout and it's buildings, so by sacrificing color overall, I was freed up to utilize seams between pieces for some features and a single piece to represent multiple colored features. Additionally, looking at the overall distribution of greenery and water sources across the full map, it would have been quite awkward imo to have shown those areas in color. Philly isn't known for it's greenery, and pretty much the only source of water are the rivers on the east and west side. I think any given building on its own looks great in color hence all of these skyscrapers are in color but as far as a full cityscape, a more uniform color choice I think works nicely to create a clean, professional model appearance. I actually built the digital model in full color and it just looks muddy to me since the actual city colors are duller versions of available LEGO colors and wouldn't do the actual colors the same justice. Plus, like you said, a lot of work to acquire different colors of pieces vs all white and clear. Just to give you an idea of what Legodelphia would look like in all color, here's the digital model. For example, the convention center (top middle of the model) is all white on top which washes out that entire 3 block section while the colors of each roof are almost impressionistic in appearance, which I think only defeats the display of form. It's much easier to read the shadows and highlights in the uniform version. However, looking at each stand alone satellite model, the color works nicely since it's generally limited to 4 or 5 different colors throughout.

I realized after the fact that Central Plaza is actually a three sided building, not four sided. I somehow overlooked this but just redid it to be three sided. At this scale it was tough but I managed to do it! Unfortunately, no mini fig skates could be implemented on this version so the top portion is more representative than accurate.

40 buildings as of the last one haha. Well, that's sort of the idea behind this project - LEGO can't feasibly make every building in the world so they focus on sets that will sell best which means for someone like me from Philly, I will never see a Liberty Place or Comcast Center set. They just aren't notable like the ESB, WTC, Willis, Hancock, Burj, etc. So the goal here isn't to complete a definitive series but to churn out (without sacrificing quality, of course) as many of the buildings out there as possible to eventually give people the chance to build them for their self. And I definitely am into the idea of doing non skyscraper buildings. I've actually already done 3 stadiums/centers - I build a huge Arch style model of Philly last year and also made 4 satellite models that weren't within the main area I chose to build - the first was the Phila Art Museum and the other three were Lincoln Financial Field, Citizens Bank Park and the Wells Fargo Center. It's not the best image of the build itself but someone wanted instructions for the LFF so I put them together and this is the cover art I made for that. Here's the actual model (bottom Left) along with the others in a clean white look. Fun fact, there are exactly 10 tiles making up the football field - totally unintentional but made for a great look of lines across to represent the yard markers. And just for the hell of it, since my previous "Legodelphia" project begat this project, here's that model:

New model finished from the mini series "US 50" (or so I've just now, off the top of my head, decided to call it). - the tallest in each of the 50 US states. Already had built them for a few other states, now I'm working on the rest of the list starting with the Bank of America Plaza in Atlanta, GA. This build started simple but near the top there is some more detail in the layers of the main building and instead of using a generic pyramid brick I opted to use a combination of grill plates and 1x1 cone.

Awesome! Thanks for that reference, it's perfect. I was just arbitrarily searching by state on the SkyscraperPage.com database. Looks like Vermont got the shaft with a whopping 38m tall office building, haha. I'll probably work on this list from tallest to shortest. Already got half of the top ten done, it seems. Didn't realize Atlanta has the 3rd tallest building! PA comes in at #6, not bad - until the Comcast ITC is done, then we'll be #3.

Oh damn, that is huge! I mean, skyscrapers are super tall but per volume I think the VAB beats them all haha. How many feet high is it officially? Also, great job! So I had done this one awhile back and forgot about it since I couldn't get the right look at the scale but then took another stab and really like how it turned out! Of course it's not that tall in comparison, but again, being from Philadelphia, I wanted to take a stab at this one for the series. I'm just holding my breath until the new Comcast Building is done construction so I can do a Philly skyscraper that earns being on this list!

Another model finished, CITIC Plaza.

While 'in Seattle' I decided to take a stab at the Space Needle in this scale. Boy, is this thing tiny in comparison to even the next shortest of the models I've built thus far! I never realized just how grossly mis-proportioned the official model is to the others that came out around the same time. With a sever lack of options for the three extra supports around the outside, I decided to use a combination of cones and Technic pieces to get the look while keeping the height to scale and still accurately representing the rest. I think it turned out nice - it's the smallest model yet by far and only 35 pieces! I like to think of these sets in terms of what they would cost as official sets and with most of them in the 100-200 piece range they are on part with the $20 skyscrapers that released in the very beginning of the series, but this one would likely be a $10 set.

New model finished, another US state down for the 50 in the 'side' collection - the Columbia Center in Seattle, WA!

Thanks! I always browse through the mini fig accessories and other misc pieces before I start a model to see what I can possibly use. It doesn't always pan out but when it does, it's great!

City of Capitals is barely over 300 meters so while it would officially be the smallest one I've done, it's not out of the range. I'll take a look and see what I can do :-) On another but similar note, I was thinking about the fact that I've done 35 custom skyscrapers thus far and being from the States and seeing as we have 50 of them, I was contemplating what the tallest building in each state is and began to wonder how many I've already done. But the US doesn't have a lot of super tall skyscrapers so it's only a few. I've done a good number from New York, a few from Illinois, one from California and of course being from Philadelphia, I did Comcast Center so PA is covered - but aside from those four states, there aren't many others with cities that have notably tall structures. Seattle has the Space Needle...and I can't think of any others off the top of my head haha. Anywho, that just crossed my mind - a cool series would be every state's tallest building all lined up (or perhaps in five rows of ten with tallest in the back and shortest up front). But one thing at a time. By the time I've called it a day on this one, I'll probably have around 10 states represented and the rest will only be smaller and simpler builds, generally speaking.

No problem! I love the requests, keep them coming Also, two more finished. I'm focusing on a bunch of mid-sized structures right now since a) I already did most of the super and mega tall skyscrapers and b) because they force me to be more creative with my builds and that will translate better when I go back to doing larger models. The Center in Hong Kong isn't anything too special but I like the way it turned out. The NYT Tower was fun since from the second I looked at detailed photos I knew exactly how I was going to build it. That's a rarity!

I also decided to redo Two International Finance Centre. It was a bit too thick and the top portion was lacking in accurately representing the actual structure so at first I added curved slopes to the top portion of original model but then decided to take another stab at the whole thing and I'm much happier with it. The result has more accurate colors and shape, as well as less pages in the instructions but with a few dozen more pieces. I'm okay with that as it actually uses a lot less different kinds of pieces and that's generally ideal for any LEGO build.

Okay, by request, here is the original World Trade Center.

I'll be doing the original WTC twin towers next but in the mean time, I decided to do another shorter skyscraper - Central Plaza in Hong Kong, China. I'm especially thrilled with the way the top portion turned out. I attempted a few other methods using plates and hinged antennas but the look wasn't right. I finally opted to use mini fig skates on the end of the four spokes of a hub.

Sure! Anyone else have requests? I've done many of the requests thus far that I could manage, some of them at this scale just don't look good (although I keep revisiting them) but I have attempted Burj Al Arab, 30 St. Mary Axe, Transamerica Pyramid and Bank of China. For the BoC there's literally only one way to build it within any amount of accuracy and someone else already did it so I'm hesitant to basically copy their build. There also isn't any feasible way to get the antenna on top with the build style so while I finished that one I'm not sure it's good enough for the series.

Taking a break from the more complicated builds to bang out another TV tower. They're not super exciting but they are part of the tallest structures and deserve their representation! This one is the Borj-e Milad.