Eilif

My perfect MOC would be a layout of a multilayer steampunk or raygun gothic city. Tunnels, canals, gangways and bridges facinate me, and while I've tried to incorporate different elevations in "Brickington" i've only been able to accomplish it on a limited scale. It would be quite a challenge (and a whole lot of brick) to build a city on multiple levels. For a picture that gives me as bit of inspiration click here.

If you like the full width stairs, then there's no reason you have to loose them. You could refine them by adding a one or two stud wide landing at the top, and a decorative railing up each side. Think about the way that museums and cathedrals have grand stairways and you will have some idea. Columns are a classic feature of many courthouses, but if you don't want them then that's ok too. Ether way, you need some detail. Consider heightening each floor by 2 bricks so that the picture windows don't come so close to each other and to the roof. Lastly, when it comes to a building's front facade, it's a good rule of thumb that there should never be more than a 3x3 or 4x4 stud space without something on it. That something could be a decorative element, a linear pattern, or just another color, but it has to be something. There are exceptions of course. Larger sized MOCs, sidewalls, etc, but when working in minifig scale, empty space on a front facing facade leves the MOD looking incomplete. Here's a good blog that will give you a multitude of ways to detail the fronts, edges, and roofs of buildings. http://bricktowntalk.blogspot.com/ This index thread at the top of this forum has some great building pictures as well. Kudo's to you for your willingness to seek design assistance, I look forward to seeing what your next version looks like.

Very Nice MOC. You took a showhorse and turned it into a workhorse. I'm not terribly interested in hot rods, but I like vehicle MOCs that appear more everyday, and you're vehicle is a great example of a well worn work vehicle.

Whatever. Next you'll be telling me that Toronto is an actual city and not just a studio where they make movies about Chicago.

Great find. It looks like that clock comes with some really nice accessories. I have the Scary clock. It was one of the few LEGO purchases made during my dark ages. It doesn't have too many accessories, but I picked it because it was among the plainest of the clocks offered at that time. After getting back into LEGO, I'm really glad I picked this one, because it's just plain enough to be incorporated into a MOC. If only I could find it....

It's a shame that you can't complete this, but thanks for sharing it with us anyway. It's quite inspirational. You've made me want to add a greenhouse to Brickington.

Well Done. Reminds me of a subaru, or some of the other more station-wagon-ish SUV's that seem to be appearing these last few years.

Nice Job. Achieves the look of the real one very well. Looks just like the ones we have here in Chicago. I wonder how a SNOT version would look with sideways oriented trans plates...

You're off to a good start with the courthouse, but there's a way to go yet. Right now it's a bit plain. I think it would benefit from being smaller and more detailed. Limiting the courthouse to the width of the current windows would enable you to concentrate on more detailing. Stone facade courthouses (which I am assuming this is) usually have more ornate detailing. A small arch or detailing under the awning would be a good start. Along the corners, a set of colums, or simply some a 1x2 line sticking out to represent a colums would be a good addition. If you choose to keep it as wide as it is you definately need more widows and detailing on the front. The rear could use some windows and a service entrance, and perhaps some vents. The roof could use some detailing. The balustrade at the front edge of the roof would benefit from a shorter, but more detailed (maybe a parapet style) edge. The current front looks more like a bilboard frame. Sorry if this comes across as alot of criticism, but I'm sure you can work this into a good MOC. If you need detailing ideas, here's a great MOC of a courthouse that though built to a standard unattainable to most of us, can nevertheless provide plenty of inspiration. My MOCs never turn out as good as the sources I use for inspiration, but starting from good source material is one of the best ways to work toward building great MOCs. All the best.

You have a PM about the Fabuland fig/bike.

If the mods feel the thread has gotten off track then this would seem like an opportune update of the title of the thread, or a split into threads about availablity of sets and a separate thread about sales. There's enough folks with differing levels of English understanding, that we shouldn't muddy the waters with easy-to-misunderstand titles. When it comes to purchasing merchadise "Sale", "sales" or "on sale" Usually refer to a discounted price. On the other hand "for Sale" refers to an item being available for purchase, without connotations of discounted price. A better title for a thread about set availability would be Latest updates on newly released sets for sale. or Latest updates on availability of LEGO sets. Just my $0.02

Nice job, I like how you captured the essence of the playmobile set, but made it your own interpretation. It's a nice MOC. I'd be curious to see how close someone could get if they tried to make the LEGO set as close as possible to the playmobile set. As for the Playmobile brand, I'd love it if LEGO could do more what playmobile does in terms of creating alot of "everyday" type sets for all of it's themes, stressing role-play as much as action-play. This kind of an approach is great for childhood social development, and might help LEGO attract more girls. Interestingly, LEGO seems to be heading slowly in that direction with the farm, and town sets that are being released, and I think that's a good thing. As to the clone brand comment, not even close. Every toy that happens to require assembly is not a LEGO clone, and toys using the same themes are not clones of each other. The term "clone" seems to get tossed around alot by folks who don't know what a "clone" is and don't know the origins of the "LEGO system of play".

Unfortunately, outside the NBA sets (quite a few varieties there) there aren't many options. Mace, Lando, and a couple of others, and that's pretty much it. For the most part they aren't particularly cheap, but they are available. Your best bet is to go to bricklink and then to the catalog section. Select the "color" tab and then select your color. you will get a list of all pieces in that color, enter the word "head" and you will get the selection of heads in that color. When you click on a specific piece, you will be able to see if and where it is being sold. The colors to check are brown, redish brown, and dark flesh. I'm also on the hunt for heads to represent african minifigs. I have several of these heads: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemPic.asp?P=3626bpx276 I'd be willing to trade a couple with you if you have any other brown heads to trade. Professor Kilroy torsos, are also a good not-too-expensive source for brown hands. Best of luck.

Great Theme review. Very informative and well assembled. I just stumbled on it now, and I'm glad I did. I was in my pre-teens when Ice planet came out, and it was the last space sub-theme that I acquired multiple sets from. On the one hand, my fondness for the theme is probably influecneced by nostalgia, but I do think it compares favorably with other space themes. As others have said, it has a very distincitive and coherent design, mythos, and color scheme. It might not have the same cache as some of the more "classic" subthemes -many of which had more than one incarnation- but I think it definatley deserves the "above average" rating that I gave it.

No more rubber band holders? Hinkley is gonna be pissed! I gave him most of mine, but I got the feeling he didn't have nearly as many as he wanted.

UPDATE 4-7-09 Added more minifig parts today and pictures I still have a surplus of legs and some other minifig parts. I am mostly looking for intersting torsos of town type figures (City, rockraider, adventurers, etc) and female hairpieces but feel free to offer castle, space, pirate,, etc, whatever, or any interesting heads or hair. I'm also interested in any brown colored faces besides the one with the full gotee, and anything Stingray. If you don't have any of that, I'm open to other trades as well. I have: 15 pair of sand green legs to trade 3 pair of snape legs. The black and purple print without the grey outline 2 pair of spiderman legs 4 pair of tan legs with brown waist. 1 pair of white legs 1 professor Kilroy head 1 professor kilroy torsos with no hands 2 professor kilroy torsos with light flesh hands (not brown hands)d 1 Aunt May head 2 Aunt May torsos 40 Tranlsucent purple flames 5 Brown Classic Male Hairpieces (Old brown, not "new" Redish brown) General guide to trade expectations: I'll trade 2 sets of plain legs per torso, or one set of printed (or dark red) legs per torso, or one torso per torso. Feel free to make an offer if you have something special that you feel is worth more. I'm pretty new to trading here, but I have positive feedback at both Bartertown.com and Talkbass.com, both with the same "Eilif" handle. I'm not looking for cash at this time, just some friendly trades.

I don't, as I have tons of stores, and a few LEGO retail stores nearby. The unbeatable package of the loyalty card, great selection, prices that are lower than TRU, PAB, grab-bags, and frequent sales means that LEGO retail gets most of my purchase of new LEGO product. I have however made quite a few purchaes of sale items from LEGO direct, and when I do that I will usually pick up a few things from PAB online. Though I don't use LEGO direct for "regular" sets, I can easily see where someone who lived further from urban centers would use it. TRU is pretty expensive, and Target Wal-Mart and others common retailers don't carry everything.

For years, I was also one of the scoffers of separators. LEGO invented them shortly before my dark ages, and I never purchased a set that had one. However, when I came out of my dark ages, I started buying assorted lots of LEGO and ended up with one. I now have several, and now I consider it an indespensible tool for my building table. I still use my fingers for almost all brick separation, but for the hard cases I'll use brick separators. I also find that it is usefull to have two for certain jobs. I use a guitar pick for removing tiles, but found out recently that a brick separator will remove tiles as well! Finally, for those of you who don't like green separators, old dark grey separators are plentiful on bricklink, and the average price is only about 60 cents, with some less than 15 cents.

I remember reading about this a while ago and being even more jealous of LEGO employees than I already am. As to the customizability, I think that all the minifigs business cards i've seen in pictures have been pretty standard LEGO colors and pieces, so I wonder what kind of a parts pallete you actually have access to. Concerning ordering some for yourself, I'd also recomend Tommy the Brickengraver. I got a badge made by him for brickworld 08 and it is quite nice. I'm going to be using him to make bricks as thank-you's for donors to a LEGO program that I run.

Very well done. I used to be a big fan of 40k, and your models capture the Ork feeling and designs very well. One suggestion might be to make the battlewaggon a bit more "Orky". It looks a bit uniform, so perhaps some more variation in color and make it look a bit more random and junky. I look forward to seeing more of your 40k MOCs.

Great job. I'm not up on all my architectural styles, but it is quite striking the way the windows are in the middle of the contrasting stripes rather than centered between them as most people would do. It reminds me -in a good way- of some very nuice asian architecture that I have seen. I'm not as fond of the blue roof, but I assume that was born of necessity.

Great job. You managed to put a beautiful amount of detailing in there that makes it sit very well amongst the other TLG designed buildings. The red sign is beautiful, and setting half of the building back gives a sense of depth and visual interest that breaks up the otherwise even building facades very nicely. I like the idea of incorporating a garden, but perhaps instead of in front, a rear rooftop garden would fill the currently open space. My criticism would only be that the second and third floor has alot of beautiful detailing, but it's slightly visually disjointed. It seems that the building is unsure of whether it is two separate buildings, or one with some repeated themes. It might be best to either make the two halves (right and left) distinctly different, or to make both halves of the the third floor -and the transition from 2nd to third- more similar. I have to say though, that this is a minor quibble about a very nicely executed MOC.

Thanks! I'm glad you all like it. Thanks. I think the first bilding is a great example of the newer color palete opening new horizons. Old blue just wouldn't have looked right, but dark blue really fits the "industrial" look. I've been covering the expansion of Brickington in segments, but sometime this year, probably after Brickworld, I'll try and do a thread showing how it has changed overall. It's really grown alot in the past year. The tan one is my favorite of the two also. I'm undecided as to what to do with the blue building. The front and back look good to me, but as it is usually placed at the end of a sidestreet, the sides are rarely visible except from the rear of the layout. However the same holds true for the tan building, and it got side windows. Perhaps the blue building just needs some "block glass" windows in the form of 1x2 trans brick?

Excellent work. Very Gothic and Victorian. Like Edgar Alan Poe meets HG Wells. Nice job with the buck over the fireplace.

Here's a pair of modules that used to be fixed items on my Brickington layout. They were both made for 16x16 modules to fit on top, but I wanted them to be modular and movable as well. While I was at it I added a few details. Basically the limitation with the modules I use on the layout is that for the most part they have to be entirely flat on the sides so that they can be placed side by side with other modules. Blue factory. It's a pretty plain building, but the color scheme "pops", and it looks really good amongst other Market Street modules. I really like the way the lamps turned out on this one. Tan Factory. the fences on the balcony all fit on the window sills inside the building so they don't get lost when transporting to train shows. I'm going to be working more balconies and fire escapes into modules I build from now on. This is the module that my 2 surf shop modules are usually on top of. Though they will usually be ground floor modules they are of course stackable. But what's that emerging from the ground floor... Yep it's a Hearse. Pretty much the black car from Shanghi Chase with flaps in front of the front tires, a modified rear end and a few other details. A hearse has to have a coffin. Sadly TLG's Re-Release of the pirates line has resulted in a pirate casualty rate unseen since the late 1990's. Sending a mate off on his final voyage in style. Accept the melancholy moment. It's cathartic.