Mr Benn

When it's Christmas in space, there's only one machine big enough to place the Christmas tree...

Here's my entry - it's Mr Benn changing into his Santa outfit, ready for some excellent Christmas adventure... I'd love to see all these decorations all hung on one huge tree! :D

One thing to consider here is the slight 'practicality' of what you've put together - there isn't really a reason for there to be a central island at all - as long as the trains have doors on both sides, you only need one platform per track. This is a failure of the inital design having two platforms and only one track width - I just extended my bridge to have it spanning two tracks, as seen with most of the small railway stations here in the UK. I'm not being crticial though, the station really suits being both widened and extended and the designs on this page look good!

This is a superb representation of a superb building, well done - I like that when you look in through the roof you can see the foliage and rocks from the different large exhibits. I've been maybe 6 times having spent quite a bit of time in Lisbon- it is well worth a visit as they have some brilliant displays, ranging from the previously mentioned Ocean Sunfish and manta rays in the massive central tank to California sea otters, penguins and thousands of amazing fish in the other exhibits :)

Pleasingly mysterious package arrived with me today - a very nice surprise - many thanks CopMike :)

It wasn't just the Daily Mail, this was also in the Daily Telegraph here: http://www.telegraph...r-Wars-set.html - I think it was page 3 or 5 of the paper! This is pretty decent publicity for Lego really - anyone with a lick of sense knows that the accusations are just a bit crazy, but they've managed to get pictures of the full model into severl national papers worldwide.. not bad going! I like the part in the Telegraph story where it quite diplomatically says "Jabba’s domed home and accompanying watchtower bear, according to the statement, an unwanted resemblance to Istanbul’s great Hagia Sophia, and another mosque in Beirut."

Hi - thanks for your comments! @Aanchir - I do agree that some of the floors look a little sparse and I agree about the ground floor - it's quite hard to both create enough space for the existing furniture whilst stopping it from being too cluttered! And I do agree that the front facade is a little more plain than the nicely SNOTted fronts of the other buildings, possibly because I've chosen those buildings - I think that next to Market Street it looks more comparable! With regards to how many extra bricks were needed, I think that I had a heap of green tiles already and got the stairs out of another set, as well as some pieces out of some of the pink brick boxes, and had to add the pavement bit in the front, but the majority of the pieces for the house did indeed come from the two sets, and there's plenty left over!

B-RM-10D Hi Everyone - just wanted to share my quick conversion of the Friends Olivia's House into a simple yet effective modular standard design instead! Pleasingly the house is already the right width and already designed to stack... although there are a distinct lack of stairs and back of the house - this MOD is pretty much a simple amalgamation of two Olivia's House sets together with just a few extra pieces, and the staircase design taken from the townhouse next door. Excellent for those of us who aren't natural MOC-ers!

It's an old joke, but still a good one! :)

I bought 3677 a few months ago now at one of the brand shops, but it was on sale, which generally seems to suggest winding down of stock - weird that it's still available so easily on S@H though!

Nothing stays sealed with me - I don't ever buy to resell, so the only reason that I still have a whole ton of sets still sealed is because I haven't had the time to get them all out yet! I have to say that I don't think I could save sets sealed for any children who might like them later on - ultimately, you might as well just keep to resell and you'll then be able to get the stuff that they're interested in and want when they're old enough, rather than stuff that they might see as a bit passe!

IIRC the Pet Shop instructions missed out one of the window boxes that is shown on the front of the box, but you get all the pieces for it so I guess it was just a glitch with the instructions. Ultimately I just go with what looks nice :)

very nice diorama! I really like the little Portuguese house with the blue bordering, just like so many houses there, love the roof too!

Unfortunately trains are a very low priority for TLG - there isn't quite the interest in them overall as us train enthusiasts would hope! Check out this thread over at brickset, the posts by Lego_Nabii (who works for TLG) are very enlightening in this respect. http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/3869/why-no-more-monorail/p1

Really nice MOC! Love the exterior (though no sign? Maybe could put a shiled up or something?), and really love the cluttered-inside feel that antique shops have. If you were in the UK, you'd also have to include a tv production team recording one of an infinite number of antiques buying-and-selling programmes that we have here!!

One thing that I don't think helps is that their 'flagship' trains - previously Emerald Night and currently the Maersk - don't come with track, so it's not really a set - even without a motor some track would be great to push them round and stuff (I'm sure a LOT of us spend time pushing trains around wooden track when we were smaller!) I've seen a lot of people admiring both trains in the Lego shops when I've been there, and often they are trying to work out whether the box does contain track - there's always a bit of disappointment when it's pointed out to them just how much extra is needed to make them real sets.

Some really nice points made Capt. Kirk. I don't think that anyone wants to see any degree of censorship of this or any other kind of MOC. We're all adults after all. And I don't think it's TOO much of a worry that a parent might see a MOC somewhere and suddenly think that Lego designed it. Unless they're some sort of crazy-knee-jerk-reaction-type who loves to get upset and complain on the internet about things - I do think that TLG does a good job of protecting its image already (though perhaps it's through behind-the-scenes activities like this that this happens?) I like that Lego stays away from war themes, but I do like that it can be MOC'd into anything at all, WWII or otherwise. That said, I do find that the obsession with WWII many people have quite interesting, given that it was all rather horrible!

It's because sadly compared to the likes of Ninjago and Star Wars trains don't really do that well for TLG. This discussion over on brickset is quite enlightening (it's primarily about monorail, but trains are mentioned too - pay attention to the posts by Lego_Nabii who works as a designer for TLG). http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/3869/why-no-more-monorail/p1

Check out this thread on brickset - much discussion, with a final thought from none other than Jamie Berard. So yes it might be nice, but it's not going to happen. Go go gadget Bricklink!

This looks really nice, even more Town Hall-y! Now I'd just love to see what you can do by getting 2 more and adding one to either side... ;-)

This is brilliant, regardless of its first-vignette-posted-here-ness! The base is a really nice touch for displaying, but overally I really like the composition of it not just being a straighforward cave. Hopefully there's only one of those giant bees though!!

A ball with a solid surface 50 studs wide is a going to be one seriously heavy lump of Lego if you just upscale the plate-balls as they've done in the examples already provided to you. Perhaps it may be appropriate to check out the UCS Death Star II for a few ideas on building a sphere around a Technic framework? Instructions can be found online...

A nice MOC (and I think that people would LOVE 2x2 printed letter tiles, albeit without the scores on)... but I think that the Scrabble copyright owners would have a few things to say about it which would prevent Lego from ever progressing it - remember the whole debacle with a Scrabble-esque game on Facebook a few years ago... But isn't Scrabble good enough already - they've spent a long time perfecting the design to where it is so pretty as this might be it's not going to beat the real thing. Interesting idea to introduce other Lego boardgames to Cuusoo though!

Very nice - I love these sorts of MOCs that fill gaps in the cities that aren't really fully met by Lego. Loving the lift and entry/exit ways and petrol pumps too! The only risk of car parks is that they do by their very nature look a little bit samey, I think that you could add some other details like the 'do not reverse' teeth that you get in the one way bits (could use the standard teeth pieces for thse), maybe even adding ramps to drive between floors (to keep it authentic, keep them as narrow as possible, with good paint scratches on the sides) and also a stairway for the people to access their cars and for junkies to shoot up in. Would also love to see more cars occupying the spaces, it'll give it a lot more character!

That's a fine pair of pom poms she's got there. They'll make her go far! Woka woka woka! Great MOC :)