brickbuilder711

Very cool! A sight too often seen nowadays, but very well designed and composed.

Hi Friends, Happy New Year! Wanted to share a new modular building I have completed over the holidays. This model combines the facades of two LEGO Friends sets that I've collected; 41093 Heartlake Hair Salon and 42618 Heartlake City Cafe. This will go on a street of Miami/Florida esque modular buildings that also use the MILS standard. -The 41093 was put towards a single story building on the modular standard before, but I wanted to revamp it, make it sturdier, and simplify the color palette. Also, since this was built 9 years ago, the parts palette is much larger for this new build. -The barber shop/hair salon comes with: waiting room, cash desk, haircut area, shampoo and blowdry stations - Due to the abundance of cafes, I decided for something different with the 42618's facade. Since the color scheme has a Wynwood vibe to it, I went with making it a tattoo shop and private office. This was also adapted to two stories and includes some masonry bricks in the Spring Yellowish Green color that I was able to acquire in bulk. The details are just improvisational and minimal, but the essential stuff is there. Here's a video explaining the design & details and some high-res pics showing the exterior and interior! Enjoy, and I hope this inspires similar and better creations from you all! \

Hi friends, Wanted to share a sort of a "deep dive" into the clever movable water slide technique in 42630, the Heartlake City water park. This combines the longitudinal double doors with the rotational pivot that allows the minifigs/minidolls riding the slide to roll down due to gravity. The video shows each portion and how it is built into the set. While not able to get the set just yet, this was pulled off using the existing pieces in my collection, which I'll say was a little fortuitous. This is neat in that there are several other applications - GBC comes to mind, and proper modifications can produce similar thrill effects in other areas. While a little extra real estate is needed, this can also be motorized. Enjoy!

Great video review; I'm amazed how critical SNOT is to the facade of the building, they are really stepping it up with the Friends and City lines.

Hi all, It's been a long time since I have done a proper train model... Saw a swing bridge at a friend's HO layout and thought - oh, what if I decide to do one in LEGO - and here we have a functioning swing bridge in L-Gauge! It uses one of my several on-hand Mindstorms-based motors from the early RCX sets. The PF wires tie in perfectly with these, to a spare battery box that operates the bridge in turn key fashion. In principle, 9V wiring and a transformer should work too. I posted a video showing the functionality of this. Hopefully it serves as a source of inspiration in case any of you are contemplating adding river scenes to your LEGO cities. Enjoy!

Got no GWP with the Hotel. Weird. I'll probably get CITY sets soon anyhow. The GWP in US shows for an over $40 city set.

I like this building, I will probably look for it on Day 1. The only thing I find funny aside from the geometry is the choice of parts for the dome. I feel like TLG may have taken inspiration from my Miami Freedom Tower build, if not a pure coincidence, as the four pedestal pieces and octagonal piece are identically placed, with them using a dome on the top instead. Maybe if this is true I get a discount?

Amtrak ;)

This is awesome Tony. Very detailed and crisp. Too bad the current "prototype" is nothing like this.

Really nice, and really cohesive.

Hats off to TLG for producing the visors. Now what's kind of interesting is you can see the clear plastic really resembling the clear elements they made of late, in terms of their holographic glow and what not, and hopefully they fixed QC issues with that plastic. Online sales are doing quite well. I think online PAB is in a predicament with fewer workers, but perhaps lower demand. It is hard to say if this will pin a nail in the coffin for in-store PAB and BAM, let alone the play areas. A lot of hands touch the latter, and a few hands touch the former. If resumption of business as usual is phased, I'd expect just sets to be marketed until the situation normalizes further. LEGO is nonetheless quite an essential product, for state of mind

Just cleaned the Aventura (Miami) LEGO store dry of any and all dark turquoise 1x2 bricks. This has been a long time coming, folks! They also had the dark green wedge curved bows, dark red macaroni, dark green1x4 tile, dark purple 1x2 brick, dark gray 1x6 plate, white quarter domes, clear 1x2 brick among others.

Thanks guys! I love these MOC prototype showdowns too.

This is a beautiful MOC! Great work! Love heavy industry like this.

Thanks! Yes she is finnicky, and definitely needs some kind of lubrication. I don't expect to run her much though. The real thing doesn't. Thanks!! I agree it makes the real thing look humongous lol.

Hi friends, Those that know me know I'm a diesel guy so I stepped into foreign territory LOL. But I had the pleasure of building Florida East Coast #153, an ALCO 4-6-2 Pacific Type that is on display at Gold Coast Railroad Museum. As a volunteer/model railroad operator in their Models room, at will I had the opportunity to get several reference pictures of the engine to build the MOC. In exchange the MOC will be taken and displayed in many venues both in and outside of the Museum to promote GCRM. The MOC was rendered in LDD. I admit I cheated a bit and followed the plan somewhat for the Emerald Night since the wheel rig was mostly the same. Given the unforgiving R40 curves one would think there are so many ways to do a 4-6-2, right? However the originality is all in the unique details of the Pacific that had to be captured. I put together a video showcasing both the real engine and the model in full for the 'showdown'. Enjoy!

Hi friends, So I decided to build a historic icon from the City of Miami for GFLUG displays present and future. The Freedom Tower had use as a news building, then became sort of Miami's version of Ellis Island for Cubans under Castro regime, and now is preserved and used as an art museum by the nearby Miami-Dade College. The LTC (LEGO Train Club) benefit is that this building is adjacent to Florida East Coast's Dodge Island Lead, so it's considerably a trackside building. The MOC was designed in LDD, imported into stud.io where it came up with some really sick render, and made the instructions to do this. LDD's instructions mode is horribly obsolete in comparison, but had its place. 3,800 pcs with about half of the stuck acquired over a five month period... the payoff?... a 3 night build. The front side retains all the detail while the backside, an apparent expansion, was simplified. Video presentation: Cheers!

Maybe a train with loop and Main Street USA station? Likely to be in VC since Robin W. (may he RIP) did a version in sand red years prior?

I saw most of the selection at the Dadeland Mall LEGO store in Miami today. Just in time for 4/20! JK For me though, I prioritized the white 1x2 brick, 1x2 plate, 1x4 plate, and LBG 1x4 plate. I desperately needed those in quantity so I spent a good two hours filling away at the wall. P/P ratio should be very good as a result. I also got a hold of some cabbage, flowers in LRB and dark pink, and some leftover 1x1 plates in some trippy colors. (Vice colors if a hint is needed). Of course I snagged some VC pieces too. I ignored anything in yellow, orange, and those ugly MdAzure petals. Sadly no baguettes. The recently popular idea of mixing is a double edge sword. You end up with a lot of white elephants if you fill quickly, but if you're patient enough, you have a great chance of getting what you really would like to have. A number of parts I wouldn't have expected to fill appeared today.

Some of what the lucky redditor got was for Easter apparently. There are a couple mix match bins for the holiday as I see on AC Pin's Flickr.

<<Cancelled post... please delete, thanks>>

Sure! And thanks!

Hi friends, Completed a new MOC for GFLUG city layouts. The build takes advantage of certain modeling techniques including forced perspective, selective compression, etc. The prototype is along the FEC Railway mainline in Miami, FL and is among four buildings. I hope to do them all. That way I start capturing some of Miami's large, large skyline. Video shows how it's done with a tour of the details as well. Enjoy!

Thanks! 1. Not too much as far as I know, looks Lone Ranger-y 2. I think it uses something called SBricks it was a custom job by James Burrows and he took it well across the country, and I believe it is a Cedar Point coaster.

Don't mean to double up but here's the video for all to see... Long, long coverage... Highlights are in the video description This is the last content I have from the event so, enjoy! A special train operation with a massive schnabel car is in this video