AwesomeTaylor

Haha, I think I struggle mostly through not having the little bits and pieces I would need to sit down and work on them - for some reason I really struggle to design them in LDD. It's a goal for later this year though. The staircase also had the added issue, when you have two store-fronts, of pushing the building back even further. I have a modular that is mostly complete that I want to re work for precisely the issue that I think it is too far forward and looks awkward, so having something starting 12+studs back would have been just as bad! The gray at the top of the building? Thanks! I actually considered more detailing on the front of the building but though, especially with the apartment, that I had gone a little over the top on the old building so dialed it back a bit. Thanks for your kind words regarding the interiors, it was fun to try to put so much into the little space! Thanks! I might have been a good idea for me to show it as part of a line-up - the bright pink doesn't look quite as overwhelming then :D

I can't wait to see how your interior plays out!

I appreciate the honesty! The old design sure did stand out in my old line-up as something unique and I enjoyed some of the details - but the old sign and garage were sticking points for me a bit. The garage because I struggle with making cars so it really sat empty most of the time, and the blue in the old sign wasn't as noticeable as it looks in the picture here. The double staircase WAS something that I wanted to keep, and at 16-wide I could have just squeezed it in, but then I would have had two very cramped commercial spaces. And as I am moving everything to 16-wide due to personal preference I had to sacrifice a small part of it. I agree that it IS very colourful though - however some of the other buildings I am working on are quite a bit darker and monotone so I am hoping that this can liven them up a little when placed together :) And thanks for your compliment on the interior - I'm having more and more fun making them! Thanks! I tried a few different colours, but yellow seemed to work best when placed alongside the medium blue and the bright pink! Another bonus was that all of the parts were readily available! Thanks! Yes, 16-wide introduces a whole host of extra challenges, and you are forced to get a little extra creative, but I think that is a big part of their appeal! And yes, I defiantly went all-out on having a bight building - some of the other ones I am working on are a little on the dull side colour-wise so I wanted something loud and exciting to break up the monotony a little in my street-scape!

Thanks! Making the sushi sign yellow is what finally pulled everything together I think, although the yellow parts seemed to be a tighter design than the light grey ones so the fit wasn't *quite* as clean. Here is a great guide to help you plan your signage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-segment_display_character_representations#Latin_alphabet Thanks! Making the bakery pink (the previous model was gray with a pink stripe running through it) really brightened it up! And the interior is MUCH more detailed than what I did previously! Perhaps, but the original bakery was made as a sort-of mini tribute to my fiancee who makes incredible cakes and cookies, so there was no way I could have changed it! Well, I took it to bits to make this new adaptation, but that's a good suggestion. I was considering brick-building a cupcake sign, but thought it might have been a little over the top for a little town bakery :D Thanks! I have a few buildings where there are other businesses on the different floors, such as my Skate Shop and Butchers I posted a few weeks ago, but I really wanted to distinguish the two different businesses on the outside here! The pink worked much better than I expected! I thought that once I added it to my lineup it would look a little overpowering but it wasn't too bad! Thanks! The couch was fun to build, but the first design was WAY too dark. The cushions brought it to life I think :) Thanks! The pink on the 32-wide? Yea, it really didn't quite fit into place, which is why I added much more on the new design. Or do you just not care for the colour pink in general?

B-OM-13C Hello everyone! By now I am sure you are all aware of my love for 16-wide modular buildings! Along with my new builds, I have been working on converting my previous 32-wide modulars to this new standard and I have just finished my Bakery and Sushi Shop! Here is the 32-wide version: The biggest issues were: - The rooftop garden was nice, but the garage was wasted space - No one knew it was a Bakery unless they looked inside! And the interior of the bakery was barren - Everyone just thought it was a Sushi Shop - there wasn't enough to distinguish the two businesses - Not enough pink! And here is the new building! Here is my newest modular - the Bakery and Sushi Shop! Here is a head on view of the building. It's a bout a brick taller than the Pet Shop The spiral stairs take you up to the bakery He might not look too happy with his cramped little space, but this guy makes the best sushi in town! A lady chooses some cupcakes for herself from the display downstairs This woman is very excited to be picking up snacks for her office! Here the baker is working on a new batch of cookies! Behind her is a wedding cake waiting to be picked up, and her shelves are full of treats for people to buy! The ladder comes into place to allow the baker and her friends to go up to the apartment The bed and couch in the apartment above the bakery Here a girl almost falls over taking a book off the shelf... Here is a slightly blurry picture showing the different floors

This is great! A little more work and I could see this as a perfect compliment to the Bank and Money Transfer set!

Love these!

Not a chance! The parts would not be helpful, and I doubt there would be enough to make even a single floor

I have my fingers crossed that we will get some official news on this this week!

Thank you so much!! Yes, I planned to make the butchers a litle plainer outside, but I think the steeped roof makes it stand out a little more! Thank you! I really tried to work on the interiors more this time! I considered putting it at the top of the stairs in the arcade - I changed my original design for the crane game from 4x4 to 4x3, and I think I could change it again to 4x2 fairly easily. I just felt that the sidewalk was a little bland compared to the butcher! The x-wing was interpreted by looking at the advent calendar :D I almost went with a smaller spaceship for space reasons, but none stood out as well as that one. Thanks! The comic store was fun just to go through my odd little pieces and see what I could use on the shelves and display! Thanks! I was happy to find a use for Superman. I'm not a huge fan but he looked perfect in this setting! I tried using Batman but there is something about the bright red and blue that blends with the nougat and white :D I appreciate it! Thank you! Again, coming up with display pieces was a lot of fun! Thank you! When I first saw the nougat colour I just KNEW I had to use it for a building! That's exactly where I saw it! Mine isn't as neat, but was a lot of fun to try and make! The exteriors were touch, especially so on the Skate Shop.I have a large blank space caused by the arcade. I was considering making a design on the front, and still may, but have no small plates in the wall colour and didn't feel like putting a lot of colour on the front. I will play around with a few ideas though and post here if I find one that works :)

B-OM-12A I've been working on some new buildings, and continuing to convert my old modulars to fit my new 16-wide town! I have no clue as to how I will work the new Town Hall into this, but I have a few ideas brewing... Today I have two new buildings to show you! I have focused much more now on building furniture, and trying to make some interesting facades using a few new techniques: Here are my new buildings - Skate Shop on the left and Butchers on the right Meet the residents! The Butcher owns the building, but lives outside of town with his wife. The Hairdresser and her husband rent upstairs. The husband works the night shift at the pub, so he is a bit bothered about having to wake up to get his picture taken The Butchers sidewalk has a lovely mosaic built into the front of the building The Butcher even has fresh duck for his customers! Removing part of the back wall gives us a great view into the Butchers His deli counter has a variety of meats and cheeses, and behind him is his industrial meat slicer The back room is refrigerated and contains even more meat hung up ready to be prepped Upstairs, the town best hairdresser works on one of her regular customers Her bay window has a variety of styles for her female customers the choose from This is an outside shot of the bay window. The blue lines are broken up a bit here, I need to order some new parts The top floor has the husband sleeping soundly This bookshelf is crammed full of books about dinosaurs! This young couple met skating the stairs of the Town Hall! Now they have their own business in town! The crane game outside is actually fairly easy. This guys about to win himself an orange 1x1 round plate! The large inverted window shows off the latest board designs to passers by The first floor Skate Shop is full of Skateboards, Snowboards and Surfboards! This guy has a vacation coming up, and is stopping in to grab some new swimming trunks And this kind is getting some new sheels for his skateboard Upstairs is a fully stocked arcade, complete with dancing game and pinball machine! They even have the latest dinosaur shooting game! And under the stairs is a racing game The top floor is a comic store. Customers are always greeted by a full size figurine of a super hero or villain! You can even get replica Stormtrooper or Samus helmets! and the briefcase in the display is from Pulp Fiction! The store is stocked with a HEAP of comics! A birds-eye view of the busy store A customary view of the broken up floors CREDIT: I saw the mosaic design on Flickr but couldn't find it again. The comic rack is adapted from the design buy KcIR for his record store.

I love this! Cute idea for the ropes too! I made a wrestling show for the theatre I built last year. The theatre has been pulled down, but the ring remains waiting for a new home! Maybe I will have to make an outdoor arena so that they can travel from town to town!

This really is rather spectacular! I'm putting the finishing touches on my own butchers just now but as I work in 16 wide it's a very different building! I personally love all the little touches you have added such as the diploma on the wall!

I got 14 today, the staff had felt the packets and separated a bunch so I just told them which ones I didn't want :)

Congratulations, this is a wonderful way to propose and having that in your living room will forever be a reminder of just how special Christmas day is for the two of you now! I'd also love to know more about how you designed this epic picture! Also, I spy the Cafe Corner in the reflection of your window ;)

Are these hard to come by? It seems I may have under-estimated the parts in this set slightly - nothing really stood out much to me. I'm still not sure I could recommend the set just for parts, but apparently there are a few happy AFOL's due to this set...

I see you had the same idea as me when you saw the fire temple set! :D

I hope we hear a few details soon. I just reviewed the Mini Modular set and was a little disappointed, but I am looking forward to the next full set that I can build and then tear down to adapt to 16-wide! :D

Yep, I had to provide my VIP info at the checkout - it was a Lego brand store. I know that Market Street was rotatable, but I always liked the look of the buildings when missing a floor also :) And that explains it - I had a feeling Jamie was behind these :)

Thank you for clearing that up for me. And yes, $100 is the Canadian price, I thought they were the same :)

Number: 10230 Name: Mini Modulars Theme: LEGO Exclusives Year: 2012 Minifigs: 0 Pieces: 1356 Price: 99.99 CAD / 79.99 USD (A few people pointed out that it's a little cheaper in the states, so I changed it!) This set is listed as a Feb 1st release on the Lego website, but I managed to get one from my local store just the other day! I wasn't planning on getting one, but they looked really nice in the store and bigger than I had expected - so I treated myself! I am sure someone will come along and do a much better review shortly, but I hope that this will do until then! Since everyone will spot this in the store easy from the front, here is a look at the back of the box: And here is a close up of the completed set: Quite nicely, each set comes in it's own bag, making it easy to tackle over a few different build sessions: Here are all the parts for the first modular, the cafe corner. Excitingly, the set comes with a new brick separator. This will come in real useful if you place one of these small pieces wrongly! I took this photo to show how hard it can be telling where to place some of the parts. The instructions were too dark for my liking. Here is the front of the cafe. It's an odd way to tackle the design, but it looks instantly recognizable: Here is the completed cafe, along with the spare parts from bag 1: Bag 2 contains the only parts that I deemed to be of note - there are actually 4 of these 2x4 dark blue tiles: Why oh why is this the only model in this set to ACTUALLY do this? This tiny set is MODULAR! That's right, the rest are very definitively single builds. This one allows you to actually remove and rotate like in the full sized set. Bag three gets us started on the green grocer. I wasn't too thrilled about this build, but I did take a photo of the fire escape construction to show you all. I have no idea why it turned out like this though: And here is the completed build along with the spare parts: Getting started on bag 4 - the fire brigade is faithful to it's full sized build with several repetitive columns. Here is where I am finishing off the first floor: And here is the somewhat inspired bell construction: Finally, the finished build. You can't see it well here (scroll down, or be patient!), but the top of the bell tower looks VERY odd! Very much out of scale. The final bag, and this includes lots of very nice trans-green parts: I will touch on this at the end, but this shot shows the consideration that has gone into the design of this set by repeating smaller parts instead of including new, single pieces: Here is the finished Emporium. We even get a second string! This shot shows all the mini modulars together: And the sexy lumberjack turns up to help us to compare the scale of them! FINAL THOUGHTS: Design: 9/10 A LOT of work has gone into making this set. It was clearly a labour of love for someone, and it shows. There are small considerate touches throughout, such as the mine ice-cream stand out side the emporium. There are a few things that break scale, such as the window washers basket, and a few of the windows, but most of the set looks spectacular. Parts: 6/10 There are quite a few parts, but there are issues. First of all, they are nothing special. These are all common parts, and other than the printed HOTEL tile and the new (?) dark blue tiles, these are all parts many of us will have in our sorted system already. Secondly, each of the first three sets were missing a part. Now, I get it. We here all get it. The logistics of this set is incredible, each bag having a very different set of small pieces. I wasn't surprised when the first model had a missing bit. But for three of them too is a little egregious. I can only hope that mine was an outlier case. While I was able to go over and collect the part from my own collection, not everyone will be so lucky. Figs: N/A Build: 8/10 There are some wonderful, inspired parts to this build, especially where small steps are being recreated. But quite a few parts of the build are repetitive, and the only real challenge here is understanding the dark instructions. Playability: N/A FINAL FINAL THOUGHT: I wish these were modular still. If they were just called Mini Modulars due to them re-creating the original sets I would be a little disappointed, but when the one set IS modular it really just shows you what you are missing. Overall Score: 75% At the end of the day, they are a wonderful little ornament. But this isn't something that people will be able to incorporate into their own towns, and while you could break it up and make something new as with all lego sets, it makes a poor parts pack for doing this. The build was enjoyable, but only takes about 30mins per building. Once you have made the set, it becomes a $100 ornament. As such I have a bit of buyers remorse here. It looks great, but I could have done without it. I may consider selling mine.

I picked this up in the store yesterday. I got home late so only built three of them. I hope to finish it off tonight and post a review here for everyone :)

Great idea, lots of lovely piece use, and seems to fit the theme really well!

Oh perhaps that is where I saw it! I did a search for Kichen Aid and didn't see it Thank you! They are some little windows on their side :D Yea, I wish I had thought of this earlier so that I could have made a few models for different people!

Haha thanks! I think I saw a similar design on here about a year ago, but I couldn't find it for the life of me. I think my design is pretty much the same though. I'd love to give credit if I knew who I saw do this first! Thanks! The dark red is one of my favorite colours, as it's not obnoxiously bright but it does still make for a light, friendly model :) And the other bright colours worked together better than I had expected, especially the dark tan/yellow floor along with the white/medium blue counters and appliances!