Eilif

A few new sets will get your excitement going, but I also agree that acquiring at least a few batches of bulk brick is a very good idea. Check the link in my sig for ways to find cheap LEGO in bulk. If there's a LUG near you, you may be able to get in on a LUGBulk buy. When I was getting back into the hobby I made offers on other forums (in my case wargaming forums) offering items folks on those forums might be interested in in exchange for bulk (often flat-rate boxes full) of LEGO.

Sorry about the late reply. Unfortunately the minifig rack is long gone. I needed more space so I moved them into shelves in the Ikea strucure that is hiding behind the big blue brickish thing in the right corner of this pic. It's the IKEA IVAR system. http://www.ikea.com/...ing_room/11703/ The You can get whatever height side supports you want, but this shelf... http://www.ikea.com/...ducts/60166573/ ... is just a bit deeper than 32 studs and the distance between the supports is just over 48 studs, so I can comfortably fit a standard 32x32 and half size 16x32 baseplate side by side on each shelf. I put a shelf in every 4th layer of mounting holes and have currently got over 8 shelves full. It might seem odd to buy a whole structure for your minifigs, but you can get shelves or cabinets for the rest of the space and the sides and whole system actually end up being cheaper than buying the amount of brick required to build the rack which took up nearly my entire collection of technic brick.

I'm taking out the Duplo/LEGO supports and the Playrail orange piers seen above and bringing most of them to my dad's place where he has a batch of Tomy/Plarail trains for my son. Instead, here's the basic design for a support made entirely from LEGO that allows trains to run underneath. I've made about 22 of these which appears to be all I'll need. With the new supports, the layout allows for two trains to run simultaneously on upper and lower loops. Also, the arrangement of the additional inner and outer loops allows for each train to reverse direction (plarail/tomy trains only run one way) without interfering with the other. I've started acquiring toy cars that have a "vintage" non-hot-rodded look to them. Mostly early 70s and earlier european cars. Most are matchbox. A few are Hot Wheels, but they tend to be a bit too flashy for my tastes. More pictures of the layout here: http://s5.photobucket.com/user/dane5140/library/Plarail?sort=3&page=1 Next up: Now that I have a workable layout it's time to start building some LEGO structures for the layout!

I probably won't get this, as it doesn't offer me much that I don't have and $ happens to be tight right now. The price isn't the deal-per-piece that you'd hope for in a creator set. However, it looks like a great kit. Probably one of the best crossover (creator to town) sets in recent memory. Folks who compare it to Modular buildings will of course be disappointed, but it was never intended to be a Modular kit. From a parts perspective, I'd probably just save up for a modular, but kudos to LEGO for giving us a couple of nice buildings that will fit in well with a LEGO town setup.

Revisiting this. My initial design (as seen above) for girders doesn't allow for smooth passage of trains underneath. The layout above worked out fine, but when I tried to run a line under another one, the train hits the orange piers. I've devised a simple all-LEGO design that allows double level track arrangements and have acquired some more track to make a larger layout. Pictures to follow later.

Really great work. I also recently discovered Plarail/Tomy/Tomica trains and am looking forward to finding new ways to combine them with LEGO. I'm using Duplo and LEGO to turn my single tiers into full height trestles, but have plans to use LEGO for buildings, stations and such. Unfortunately here in the USA Fisher price has taken over the license for Thomas and friends from Tomy, so the trains are compatible, but the track is different. Now only a small selection of "Tomica" sets are available which only represents a very small sliver of the Plarail range and no long includes things like switches passenger trains, and separate rolling stock.

Took a few pictures of the layout I put together this week. This began by me acquiring a batch of plarail from craigslist so that when my son can play with the same Tomy and Trackmaster Tomas trains that he has at the Grandparents, but on a more advanced layout. At 3 he doesn't want to run the trains, just to push them himself. One of the neat feature of these trains are unique in that when the switch is "off" the motor is disengaged from the wheels so they will roll free. Truth is though, this layout is more for me. It'll be a while before he's advanced enough to enjoy it so for now it's hidden in the attic bedroom. I've got some more stuff coming in the mail, and am still working on a layout that will allow me to change the train's direction repeatedly without it getting trapped in a one-way loop. I'm also using my stock of DUPLO and LEGO to increase the number of full-height girders.

Wondering if there's any fans of Tomy toys' Plarail train sets (also sold in various parts of the world as Tomy, Tomica and Tomica World) here? Any love for the classic Japanese blue plastic train tracks? Here in the USA Tomy is the brand that used to have the license to make motorized Thomas and Friends toys. Roughly the same trains are now made by Fisher Price with a different track system, but a few blue tracked non-Thomas sets are sold in the USA as "Tomica World". I picked up a batch of the older Tomy Thomas stuff at a resale and am totally charmed by these battery powered trains that only go one way, but are part of this huge system of train sets that are designed to run in so many interesting ways. I'd love to see pictures of member's layouts. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about here's a couple pictures of Plarail layouts. (not mine)

Yep, inside I've stored the people, flowers and the glass truck that I put around it when it is part of the collaborative display. The truck in the window is this one .

Thanks, it's such an icon here in Lawndale I wanted to do it justice. No interiors as yet. didn't seem worth it with all the windows being trans-clear bricks. I might do a little something on the ground floor which at least has a partial raised floor to put miniatures at grade in the doorway. Maybe a lobby with some elevator doors. I do eventually plan to put a line of christmas lights inside. It's hollow all the way from top to bottom.

That's what I'm talking about! I'm not too worried about pricey vintage parts (though maybe I should BL some windows...) in general as I've got plenty of parts and matchbox cars of vintage vehicles, but you're general aesthetic is definitely what I have in mind. It would look great alongside the crisp, but playful look of Tomy/Tomica/Thomas trains and accessories.

I've been away a while, and have had very little time to build in the past 3 years. However, my 3 y.o. son's interest in Thomas "motorized railway" trains (I recently bought a bunch of Tomica Thomas stuff at resale) has got me planning to MOC some buildings for him. Digging through my collection I found a bag of the old doors and windows from 60-70's era sets that were scaled somewhere between HO scale and that of Matchbox/Hotwheels toys, so I'll probably use them as a starting point. That got me thinking about MOC'ing in other scales. Is anyone else out there MOC'ing in small model or toy scales other than Microscale? I'd love to see examples especially anything near to scale of HO or matchbox cars.

I haven't moc'd anything in nearly 2 years, but when my club Northern Illinois LEGO Train Club (NILTC) organized a cooperative city build I knew just which building I wanted to build. Located in my neighborhood of North Lawndale, It's one of the few remaining buildings in the now defunct Sears headquarters and distribution center. You can read about the history here if you like: http://en.wikipedia....Company_Complex My apologies for the just-ok pictures. Our camera appears to be gone so I borrowed a relatives smart phone. Technique-wise the MOC isn't anything groundbreaking, but I'm pleased with the result. It stands just over 3 feet tall, separates into 3 sections and used most of my brown brick and all of my 1x2 trans-clear bricks. I made it 25 studs wide to accommodate the window dimensions. One small confession. Somehow I managed to miss a floor, so it's one floor short of the 14 story original. One more thing to go back and fix someday. 3/4 view. Side and rear profiles. Sorry for the flash. Street Level. I plan to go back a some point and add a bit more architectural bits. The actual building has some very fine lips and such that I can probably approximate with contrasting stripes of dark bley plate. Top story and roof detail I used every red 45degree red slope corner and white reverse slope I had.

It is more of a wargame than a RPG but I guess here is the best forum for this... This weekend I had another chance to play my favorite rules-lite, fast-paced, generic miniatures game "Song of Blades and Heroes". This time it was with members of the Northern Illinois LEGO Train Club so of course we used LEGO terrain. Pepa Quin was nice enough to host and provided the terrain tables which were a model of Andy's room from Toy Story and parts of Futurama city. As always, SBH was alot of fun and the guys picked up on it very quickly. We managed to setup, BS, eat lunch and play two games in less than 4 hours! Brief AARs, more pictures and a short comparison to "Brikwars" at our Club's Blog here: http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2012/07/song-of-bricks-and-lego.html A few pics to whet your appetite. Here's the Layout for Andy's Room One of the Warbands Vikings vs Olympians Orcs Assault the Planet Express For those interested, SBH is only a $5 download here: http://www.wargamevault.com/product/58230/Song-of-Blades-and-Heroes

Thanks for the feedback guys. Good to hear directly from those involved. If I can ask a couple more questions... 1) What was done to promote the games? 2) What kind of feedback did you get from the participants.

Hard to pick an exact age or year, but I'd say the golden era is '09 through the present. I've been building/following LEGO since the early 80's. I have alot of nostalgia for the late 80's and early 90's but... We are finally seeing sets that thematically and design-wise match many of the great sets of the 80's but use parts and techniques that have been more recently developed. LEGO is/has engaged with many great licenses, but the core sets are still great. Also, the "Exclusives" line has grown to include the kinds of buildings, starships and other models that LEGO fans in the previous century could only dream of. Lastly, LEGO is currently (in America and adjusted for inflation) as inexpensive as it's ever been. Pack that on top of an active and growing AFOL community and this is the golden era.

An Intersting question. I have no doubt at all that LOTR will outsell Friends by a wide margin. It's just too iconic, anticipated and comes with such a large built-in consumer base not to be wildly successfull for at least a while. That should not be a dig on Friends though. I spoke to a LEGO retail worker and they told me they can hardly keep Friends in stock as it is selling so fast! I have no idea which will have more longevity. I could see LoTR being as fickle as PoTC or as long lasting as SW. Licensed themes are entirely dependent on who has control of the license, how much control they have (sometimes more than one party on each side has to agree) and whether both sides see value in continuing. Friends is different enough from -and so far more successfull than- previous attempts like Belelville and Paradisia that I think there really is no benchmark from which to judge how successful it will be I wish both lines lots of luck.

My son is only 16 months, so he's got his on Primo, which will shortly become his own duplo. When he's old enough to treat the collection with some manner of respect (not throwing,etc...) I'm going to make the collection completely open to him. There will of course be some limits. I don't plan on having him disassemble things that I'm building or have built, and some steps will have to be taken to keep the LEGO somewhat organized. That said, I see little point in having all this LEGO if my kid(s) can't also enjoy it. For the record, I'm not a set collector, so that makes the decision easier for me.

How many of you played in the Mobile Frame Zero (Mech combat) game at Brickworld? What was your impression of the game in terms of -How long it took -How much fun it was -How many folks participated A year or so ago, a few of us NILTC'ers played the Medieval Fantasy Skirmish Game "Song of Blades and Heroes" with LEGO. It seemed to be well received and it plays very fast (40-60 minutes per game). I've run it with wargaming minis at Little Wars, but I'm trying to gauge whether it might be worthwhile to run the game with LEGO at Brickworld 2012 and whether there would be enough interest. Thoughts?

What an excellent thread. That 63 Piper PA-23 Aztec (OY-FAV) is a thing of beauty! Glad to see it's in a museum and back in the original LEGO livery.

I love me some LEGO and really like LoTR, but if the esteemed professor Tolkien was granting time to me, I wouldn't be bringing LEGO. I'd be bringing him tea and asking his perspective on the nature of good and evil, mechanization and it's affect on nature and community, the nature of friendship. If I were allowed to be personal, I might ask about C S Lewis and other notable scholars whom he was friends with. After all that and more, I might ask him from where he drew the inspiration for the landscapes of middle earth.

Had a great time at Brickworld. Seemed a bit smaller in scope and number of standout layouts, but still was an excellent convention. As usual, between taking care of my son and tending the BILd booth I didn't get nearly enough time to hang out with the EB folk, but I hope to do better next year. I did enjoy the opportunities I got to share pizza and talk with some of you, get my yearly lunch with Hinkley, wander through the "world of lights" night semi-impaired wearing PeppermintM's welders goggles. "Goggles off" "Goggles on"! Also, does ricecracker grow a half a foot between every Brickworld? A couple of highlights: -The EB table. Really quite impressive. Pandora and Rufus' waterfall was particularly mesmerizing and of course all the models on the layout were great. Giant Sea monster (squidman "legs" at their best), Monkey islands, unrully village and all. -Virtualug: Alice in Wonderland. Really beautiful, surreal stuff. -Russian chapel: I forget who made this one, but it was breathtaking. -The sci-fi mining operation on the NILTC table. Unparalelled use of winding 9v track to create action on all levels of a tall space layout. Thanks to all involved!

Well done! I didn't participate in the group layout, but having seen the results, I can say that it was well deserved! Great job by all involved! The monkey island was my favorite.

When oil becomes too expensive to be a source for most plastic production, you will likely see a mining of landfills and other trash dumps as well as much more regimented and effective recycling of a higher percentage of plastics. Right now it's not a desirable option, but at a certain point, landfills will be a comparatively economical source for reclaing plastic and metals.