brickzone

Nice, I like it. Unmistakable as a Dalek - it gives a fairly good impression. The old one wasn't bad either despite the blockiness.

Still showing as not available for Ireland :( Mind you, I'd have to wait till there are more new items on S@H that I would want - probably exclusive as their Irish pricing is insanely uncompetitive now compared to either Irish toy stores or indeed ordering from UK (although even that now isn't worthwhile compared to many prices in the main toy store here).

Might try a height shortening too on my own one to see how it looks. I think it would look better with the 1x4x5 windowed doors (although can't get yellow with smoked glass). I like the effect of the shorter height, but I don't like the doors at all.

I think I'd enjoy designing sets for just about any of the standard Lego lines (i.e. not Bionicle or Technic). I think an element of fantasy/imagination would be particularly fun, such as one might have with Pirates, Castle, Action/Agents, Space. However, as regards a specific set - it would be nice to design a modular building (indeed I hope to do an MoC after finishing modding my existing ones). Town Plan has a cinema - but a modular building style theatre (conventional - not cinema) would offer scope for an interesting facade and indeed interior. In fact I may run with that idea for an MoC but I'll have to either work with existing limited window stock or go bricklink. Peppermint_M: My siblings and I (and indeed no doubt countless Lego builders through the years) have always wanted some standard way (no cajoling of parts in an awkward way) to fit two people side-by-side in a four wide car. Indeed the Adventurers piece is one I really appreciate but obviously it limits the vehicle style. I'd like new car doors in general though - I've never been happy with the lack of side windows.

I don't sort but I build from the bags. This way the parts are already roughly sorted, and there is a happy medium between avoiding hassle of searching and searching for parts, yet it slows it down a bit. With old sets I buy from ebay, I sort very roughly by size - sort of like Lego does with the bags!

3 million bricks doesn't sound like remotely enough.

This is astounding! I love the scale of it, and the detail is very attractive and evocative. Some details are simple enough and yet used to great effect! So many things seem very doable (compared to some insane things that some builders do) but yet it is the imagination and knowing just what to use in each situation that really makes this! The sheer amount of little design choices that fit perfectly is impressive. Also small things really add to the appeal of it - such as the stone buttresses on the building (SNOT 2x2 plates with curve and 1x2 studs). I couldn't believe it when I saw there was a tunnel and cave also! The buildings on the waterfront alone are a fabulous scene. This MOC makes me want to go disassemble a bunch of my MoCs and start over and build a new scene! I don't know if I could achieve something as convincing even though I might have the parts for it. Well done indeed!

Well, I think actually it's more just that the stocks of bricks using old plastic are getting used up. Perterz: sounds like a vast improvement - on my Café Corner the 1x8 tan bricks are all lighter, and many other tan bricks a bit darker. Most of the red-brown is the lighter shade that is ubiquitous now in my experience - but in this set the 1x4s, 1x6s and some 1x8s are noticably darker (I'm not talking about old brown - just a darker shade of red-brown). You can notice the difference in brick type too though as the darker ones jam together tighter and have less of a sheen. Also some older slopes that are a darker shade of dark red and have no texture - and others are the newer brighter ones (again, most dark red in sets in the last year or two seems to be this) and they have proper texture as many slopes are starting to have again. Ditto goes for market street - a lot of older navy colour that's darker - but in using some of my existing brick stock (from Agents) for modifications it was obvious that the colour differences were where there were newer navy that is lighter (all my Agents brick stock is that shade). So I do live in hope that this is a time-limited problem.

Nice little extension - the shot of the slime pit from above is good - the simplicity of the small dishes works well and gives a good impression of nasty bubbling ooze - I think you should add that photo to your original post. I'll have to get hold of more of those girders myself - I really like the look of them and they're structurally useful for larger structures. I want that slime face guy! (well, with the hair - I have the one from deep sea set).

That sounds like an interesting idea - after all the Medieval Marketplace boxart has the buildings/features arranged atop a picture and it works pretty well. Plus you can probably extend the Lego sections around volcano walls/structures etc. if you have more parts after building the main features.

A lovely scene. I think the water works very well. I like all the minifigs and the aesthetics of the quay - the chains and detail on the arches. The tyres for bins do look good.

I recently unpacked mine for modification, and I realised that the colour issues were not random as I had thought. Instead the problem is that the set has bricks in both old and new plastic. The newer bricks are lighter, as the new plastic seems slightly translucent. Anyway, although there are minute variations in colour in one or both of the categories - you would not notice anything but for the mix of these two types of plastic. The differences are stark in the brown and tan walls. I actually prefer the new plastic as it does have brighter colours - hopefully it will weather well too. Yellow doesn't seem right mind you - too pale. White is especially good obviously. Any of my recent sets have had no issue, because of course they are all the one brick type - the new plastic. I've nearly come to the point with MoCing/sorting mind you of separating old and new white bricks - even apart from yellowing, the old ones all look terrible next to the new ones, even the old ones in mint condition. I prefer the greater flexibility of the new bricks too - I can understand it might be an issue for large structures or structural elements, but for day to day building it really makes things so much easier (no need for picking, just pull the bricks apart).

Thanks for the comments - I agree the car looks nice in black, I had just hoped originally to do some other colour as obviously black is the colour one sees these cars in (e.g. films etc.) most frequently and a different colour might make it stand out more. Also black is hard to photograph! I've put together instructions for this, using LDD (I cheated by recolouring red car doors black in image post-processing): Enjoy!

Thanks for the comments. I've made some instructions for the pool table (insofar as I could using LDD):

I've recently been using my brother's digital SLR camera - it's very nice and I can take the photos from further back and zoom in (good if using the flash so the light is more dispersed). Very important though, and I only found this out recently, is to press a secret button for "macro" mode. Not only do I hold the trigger for it to autofocus, but it performs some different sharper kind of autofocus with this setting on. I should really dig out a tripod though.

Well, in procrastinating about starting on modification of Café Corner, I was browsing my vehicle parts container ("modified" plates, incl. wheel arches, seats, space brackets/seats) and got on to thinking if I couldn't use the 2005 style wheel arches for an old car (you know the ones where there is defined wheel housing/mudguards. Also while I am a fan of 6 wide vehicles, I felt that for a small car, 4 wide would be nice. So, I'm not sure exactly what year such a car as this would be from, nor how realistic it is (yes, very lazy of me I did no research whatsoever and just built from imagination). Front view: Back view: Side view: Front close-up: Back close-up: It's black due to parts limitations, and the wheels are smaller than is preferable due to the wheel arch size. They also stick out further than the mudguard but that's in order to give the impression that the mudguard too also comes out further from the car body. Comments welcome!

Ordinary Racers cost between €4 - €6 here in Ireland. I think it's fairly obvious that you can't really include much Lego with a Happy Meal!

These do seem to be different to the earlier ones. If you look at the example posted here - you could make the same base out of bricks. It's still lame, but not as bad.

Thanks for the comments! My favorite bit is the barbers pole - but that's mainly just cause of the oohhh shiny chrome (just can't get enough chrome - it looks great). I'm not sure how clear it is in the photo, but there is a mirror in the hair salon - it's glass in a 1x4x5 frame with shiny sticker on it. I don't know if this is a genuine Lego sticker - does anyone know?

I disagree strongly. The heads whatever about their detail/molding, *are* compatible - they fit on ordinary torsos. Kids (or even just Toy Story fans) can combine their Toy Story minifig parts with ordinary ones to give new outfits to Woody, etc. or even make them shorter. The only *fixed* thing is that it is Woody and co.'s heads. Really I can understand people personally not liking these just on appearance etc. but I think a lot of the arguments being trotted out against these are quite in the wrong. Some of the criticism seems to be specifically *because* Lego has made the Toy Story characters in a minifig form rather than Hagrid-style single mould parts. Surely the likes of the long legs pieces etc. are exactly what "purists" should have been hoping for? As odd as they look, there is potential for Lego to use them for other long-legged creations of whatever type in the future, and it's a far far better solution than anything we've seen before like Jack Stone etc. In short, they are *LEGOISH*. I think even those who outright dislike the Toy Story minifigures need to consider that their dislike may be just that - a dislike (however strong), and not a reaction to genuine "dumbing down" by Lego.

72734 parts and 675 minifigs from ~270 sets I own according to brickset. I'd estimate my total bricks to be approaching 100,000 (but probably still beneath that threshold) and minifigs to be somewhere in the region of 750. A nice amount to build with though I am starting to notice gaps/drains in the parts selection - probably time to move onto bricklink more rather than sets. I will have to take apart some MoCs at some stage too!

Well, the "buffer zone" between Irish S@H prices and local toy shop prices is I think on the crazy side. Besides - those are the prices that S@H is for other European countries - and when I was in Germany even the non-Lego store prices seemed to mostly be the same too - certainly not differences of €10+! As for shipping costs and economies of scale - well, the flip side is that Lego doesn't have to allow for the margin of resellers. Plus they have economy of scale because they ship from central hubs and presumably have pretty good contracts with the couriers/post services who also have economies of scale (they don't just ship my Lego order from Germany to Ireland, but rather a whole consignment of things various people and business have asked them to ship to Ireland).

Actually I think ordinary bricks have made a bit of a comeback from the late 90s or so, even with more and more "special" parts. At one stage it was odd for a modern set to have 2x4s, but they are quite common again, possibly because they are fairly cheap and help with the bigger structures of modern sets. I can't complain about having a fair amount of two-stud-wide dark green bricks just from sets already :)

That's a truly monumental building, very impressive indeed! I love how the columns are done, quite convincing! The amount of relief on the facade is impressive, even using Lego studs for some of the detail. The window surrounds are great as well. There is great depth to the front of the building. The rear is just the right balance of plainness and yet with some of the architectural detail such as around the windows that keep the tone of it. The trees are perfect, their placement and scale filling out the scene just the required amount - they aren't too fussy and the ones at the front decorate the building just as real trees placed in such a way would. The red roof works very well for this building, I wouldn't have expected it. The little details on the chimneys and the urns are nice finishing touches at the top. Well done - quite a wonderful addition to the street, which already looks amazing (that railway station or what have you looks amazing too).

I believe there was a poll some length of time ago. My take on it was and is that two-faced heads are fine as long as we continue to only get them the odd time as at present. They give versatility and work well in many cases. They do have the drawback of course of not working with some hair/headgear. So all in all I wouldn't like any more than at present, but neither am I opposed to their use at the current level, and I quite like them and use them myself.