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DeanLearner

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Everything posted by DeanLearner

  1. DeanLearner
    Yes, I remember thinking the same when DD came out. To be honest it seems like a no-brainer to me. Just as I’m sure many people (myself included) sought out the Flower Cart polybag to complement DO, I would be more than happy to shell out for small optional supplemental sets. It would leave more in the brick budget for the main build. A bit of product line synergy would potentially benefit Lego in the other direction too, with younger kids getting an appetite for modulars after getting “hooked” on the accompanying vehicles.
  2. DeanLearner
    I would happily put a large sum of money on Lego never building a multi-storey car park. Firstly, as before, you can’t build a space that would fit in cars without it taking up an enormous amount of space (or vehicles at essentially a Smart Car scale). Secondly, it would look terrible at the benefit of only a fairly poor play feature. Enough people were outraged when Lego jumped forward in time to Streamline Moderne architecture for Downtown Diner. There is no chance Lego are going to build some Brutalist monstrosity (as all such car parks are). I do think that a repair shop could work well though, especially if combined with something like a hardware store. It would give lots of scope for the sort of small details that Lego excels at, and maybe even have a bit of the vibe of the Old Fishing Store interior.
  3. DeanLearner
    To be honest, I just don’t think there’s any chance of a garage happening. The mock-up of a MOC that “leaked” last year was a bit of a mess, and demonstrated how unnaturally a modern style petrol pump would fit within the modular standard (besides that version was essentially just a mod of the recent City petrol station). I know people will cite the designer interviews about them having considered a car showroom, but I we don’t know how many unusual/crazy ideas the designers consider and dismiss in the process of coming up with final designs. Either way, I also don’t think that there is any chance Lego would make a car showroom as a modular set, for the simple reason that you can barely fit any minifig-scale vehicle within the standard footprint of a modular building, and accommodating a vehicle would create too many limitations for the style of the rest of the building.
  4. DeanLearner
    I gave this some thought for a while (though eventually decided I would have to remove too much from Ninjago City to stop it overtowering any other official or MOC modular). One issue with Ninjago City is how far “forward” the building projects beyond the modular standard, if attached at the provided technic pin points. However, adding an 8 stud margin on the two front-facing sides of Ninjago City allows the building to tuck away better, and then to build up what would be the opposite bank of a canal on the other side.
  5. DeanLearner
    Wow they look incredible all together. Such a fantastic variety of styles and building techniques. It’s genuinely difficult to pick a favourite (though for me it’s probably a toss-up between the two on the far left, e.g. the Prague-esque pub, and the bike shop).
  6. DeanLearner
    Haha that’s absolutely brilliant! Too bad that monstrosity of a limousine still survived unscathed though...
  7. DeanLearner
    Wow, this is astonishing! Really inspired technique and parts usage. I struggle to think of my favourite, though I definitely smiled as soon as I saw the upside-down rope bridge. As discussed elsewhere before, Art Nouveau is arguably the hardest architectural style to capture in Lego, mainly due to the difficulty capturing subtle/irregular curves with mostly cuboid bricks. If you don’t mind me asking, when designing this, to what extent did you start with drawings of what you wanted to create (as based on your real-life inspirations), or was the starting point more trying to come up with a list/collection of whole load of curved pieces in the right sort of colours? Thank you so much for sharing this!
  8. DeanLearner
    Nice! I’ve seen a lot of MOC versions of this, but I think yours probably does the best job of matching the modular aesthetic while still being totally recognisable as the original set.
  9. DeanLearner
    Apologies for the topic bump, but after De Marco had such a fantastic run of original and inspired vehicles last year, I was hoping it hadn’t all been given up, so here’s a bit of a public thank you for all the great work!
  10. DeanLearner
    Wow - looks even better in the flesh (ABS)! The technique for the roofing is much easier to appreciate now - definitely a source of inspiration.
  11. DeanLearner
    I love the handcrafted approach you’re taking. One problem with the existing lighting sets are that they inneviably obscure the interior with trailing wires to some extent. Your lamp system with integrated wires is possibly one way to minimise this. How are you planning to deal with the issue of wiring each of the separable floors?
  12. DeanLearner
    Brilliant! I especially love some of the little details like the ringed planet using the toilet seat / life preserver. Voted +1
  13. DeanLearner
    I love it! I’ve been collecting a similar range of City Space components with a view to building a modular-style Science and Space museum, and am actually hoping to use some of the very same parts from the City Square car showroom to incorporate some of the Classic Space colour scheme.
  14. DeanLearner
    I agree, sounds like a great idea for a thread, and I know that would probably correspond with much of the time I spend looking for ideas/inspiration online. I guess the only problem might be the amount of times you find orphaned images without being able to properly credit the original creator.
  15. DeanLearner
    Fantastic! The shaping looks so natural that it appears almost effortless! (Though I am sure that is not the case). That car looks brilliant too - have you posted it previously then?
  16. DeanLearner
    That has an amazing impact upon the overall look of the building and radically improves its overall stylistic coherence. I like the idea of integrating the curved features from Ninjago City, though I think it does stand out a little incongruously at present. Maybe it would fit it more naturally if there was more white in place of tan elements across the rest of the facade?
  17. DeanLearner
    Yeah it always surprises me that Lego don’t do more medical-themed sets, as I can’t believe that they couldn’t be made appealing to kids. Pretend doctor/nurse kits (eg toy stethoscopes) were always a staple kids toy when I was younger. Moreover some of my favourite types of imaginative play, with either Lego or other action figures, involved either chases (explaining the perpetuity of Lego Police) or rescue attempts (often involving figures hung out of windows or down the stairs on the end of a piece of string), and an emergency healthcare service is a natural continuation of that sort of play. Of course, that may just have been my experience, and I don’t have kids yet, but I’d be interested to know what others’ experience was of toys themed similarly to Lego City.
  18. DeanLearner
    I know it’s not on the cards, but it often feels like parts get taken away from interesting buildings in order to include additional vehicles within a set (I know the theory that this is due to kids prefering vehicles). What I would have really loved would have been separate hospital, ambulance, and air-ambulance sets that would have allowed kids/AFOLs to get into the subtheme at a lower price point (e.g. an ambulance) but also to build a complete service using the various sets. What can happen otherwise is like with the most recent Arctic theme, where you ended up with a multitude of smaller trucks across the more interesting builds.
  19. DeanLearner
    Looks fantastic! I was slightly thrown by the first couple of pictures with the new building on its own, but it works brilliantly in the context of the other buildings you’re making. I love the historic sea front idea, and you’ve absolutely made the most of it with lots of clever and fun little details. As @koalayummies says, the use of bright colours is also really nice, and means everything maintains that timeless Lego feel.
  20. DeanLearner
    Exactly. The most well known public Art Deco buildings are Cafe/Restaurants, Cinema/Theatres, or Skyscrapers. We already have the first, the second would be too close to Palace Cinema (which I wouldn’t consider Art Deco), and the third is simply not going to happen. I don’t particularly mind where they go from here, and while I would love to see some Baroque or Rococo architecture, I’d just be happy for future modulars to continue be designed with a particular style in mind.
  21. DeanLearner
    I agree that Downtown Diner does look a bit out of place alongside the other modulars at present, but I think that is not necessarily a major problem (or at least not a new one!). From Palace Cinema onwards there has been an increasing trend of stylistic variation within the modulars, to the extent that probably the majority of modulars now look somewhat disjointed when placed alongside one another. However, while that can be slightly distressing from an architectural purist perspective, I think it also encourages the following approaches: 1) Embrace the eclecticism and eccentricity as core qualities of Lego 2) Modify the modulars to better complement one another (I managed to exorcise my demons about Palace Cinema and Assembly Square that way!) 3) Take the official modulars as inspiration for your own MOCS to better fill in the gaps or create coherent “districts” for a Lego city (I plan on building a pair of 24x32 modulars to integrate a partially recessed Ninjago City into a layout).
  22. DeanLearner
    I don’t plan on buying DD until the promo at the end of the month, but from reading through the instructions and watching several reviews, my opinion of the set has significantly improved (not that it was bad in the first place). It’s similar to my experience building the VW Beetle, where it was only as I was putting it together that I appreciated just how sophisticated a design Mike Psiaki had created. I have heard him talk elsewhere about his interest in the “maths” of Lego, and I honestly think his grasp of Lego geometry is alongside the best of current designers. In addition, one other thing I like about this model is that the back doesn’t just feel like it was tacked on. Without wanting to risk too much of a flame war, as much as I love Jamie’s designs, almost all of his modulars are unecesssirly ugly from the rear, with an over-reliance on the square window frames, even if this was completely out of character with the rest of the building.
  23. DeanLearner
    Interesting. We do already have quite a few of that sort of figure from the CMF and City lines (e.g. Mountain Climber, Hiker). A few new(ish) possibilities that spring to mind include: Female equivalent of S16 Hiker (though likely more generic printing). Reuse of the bear and beehive moulds from the 2018 City Police line. Fisherman/woman maybe using prints from the Old Fishing Store. Probably another kayak...
  24. DeanLearner
    Yeah I’m going to look into fitting in a 2x6x2 angled windscreeen piece (though I suspect I’ll end up needing to lengthen the chassis, and potentially the wheelbase, a little).
  25. DeanLearner
    Fair point, and I agree that it’s unfair to single out Mike Psiaki for perceived flaws in the new set. That being said, I think that Lego have also contributed to a bit of a PR mis-step. The new style of video, while being more unscripted and naturalistic, does shift the focus from the set itself to the designer, and consequently puts the designer in the cross hairs for any slight instance of mis-speaking (e.g. the comment about there being no modular hotel, or a comment elsewhere about not knowing why people like modulars). The bottom line is that the designers aren’t politicians: they’re not there for their slick media presences, and I’d prefer to judge them on the work itself. (That being said, while I do quite like the new pink car, most of the modular vehicles have been woefully inferior to the quality of the buildings they accompany, and in the case of the limo from PC, inferior to even Lego City equivalents. I still think this latest vehicle requires modding to avoid the uncanny valley it is in at present, and I believe that if they couldn’t get it quite right then they should have omitted it entirely.)
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