Eilif

It all depends on which set you get. They are all pretty shameless copies, and all are very close to LEGO packaging, but there are three variations in that I've seen 1) exactly like LEGO with logos changed. These products often have significant differences in packaging and contents. 2) Lego looking packages with pictures of the actual product. This has been more common recently. Chrome pistols, cutlasses, lower quality printed torsos, color differences and others ususally give this away. The result is usually that what you see is what you get. 3) exactly like LEGO with Logos changed and some additional photo shopping. Usually it's pretty obvious when you look close. The most common is photoshoping headgear or weaponry to match what comes in the box. The forestman's Catapault set shows this as the cloaked headgear has been photoshopped into pirate head scarfs.

So here it is, I'm curious to know of the money that you spend on LEGO in the past year and a half (2007-2008) where do you spend it? To keep it "at a glance", when you reply, please include the following, in order of who gets the most of your LEGO dollar, pound, euro, kroner, yen, etc... LEGO (LEGO stores, website, or catalog) Bricklink Ebay Other online retailers (new or used dealers, not including Bricklink or ebay) Toy stores Other Retailers Other used sellers (offline used sales, including: yard sales, swap meets, resale shops, etc) IF you want to elaborate -details, percents, why, etc- by all means do so. I'll start LEGO 70% (would have been much smaller if not for Brickworld deals.) Other used sellers 15% Bricklink5% Other Retailers 5% Toy stores 5% Interestingly enough, the actual amount of brick I purchased from "other used sellers" is probably 30-50% of the total number of pieces that I purchased, even though it's probably only 15% of my spending.

glad to see the bigbucks brand is spreading. We have several locations and bilboards on our NILTC club layout. You're off to a good start with this one. Perhaps some additions like windows and details around the edge of the roof would help to capture the coffe shop vibe.

I think it is likely that we may see more nautical based sets. Harbor, fire, police, and now coast guard, it appears that TLG has found that waterborne sets sell. I'd love to see a sailboat or even a cabin cruiser, but who knows. As for the folks who mentioned a C130, I don't think we will see one of those since this year we just got the DC-3 in "Peril in Peru" and this beauty, an alternate build from the Creator Ferry set.

Simply Brilliant! I was looking for stylistic elements to include in my next building, and I think I just found them. Thanks for building and sharing this beautiful MOC. Is this based on a particular house, either in existance, or from history?

Nice cityscape, and great car hauler. Trucks like yours make me wish the roads in my town were larger so I could justify wider and longer vehicles. Are there more pictures of the individual cars available?

Right there with you. With the discount, I think it came to about 125 bucks, and it was probably a fair deal for folks who don't live near a LEGO store, but looking at it, I kind of felt like LEGO was trying to trick me. I went to the sale expecting to go nuts on PAB, but the price of the boxes, and the selection completely changed my mind. I bought one cup (probably should have gotten 2, but hindsight...) and instead went nuts on the half-off damaged box stuff.

I have all three of these, though only the MTT and Cruiser are fully assembled at this time. I canibalized some parts from the Sandcrawler for other MOCs. -#1 choice: I would suggest the Sandcrawler. It has an awesome parts selection, some neat minifigs, and a really impressive appearance once finished. It's also been around a while, and is the most likely of the three to be discontinued soon. Though mine is presently partially disassembled, this is the only one of three that I would consider building a second time. One of the best LEGO SW sets ever, IMHO, though I admit to being biased in favor of the original rather than the newer movies. -Second place would go to the MTT which has a ton of figs and weapons, and a pretty good build experience. If you have plans for a large droid army or display, this would be a good choice. -The Cruiser was a fine build experience, but it has far fewer figs, and despite a fair amount of dark red, it's not a terribly great parts pack. Also, it is fairly impressive to look at, and contains some really clever play features but of the three, it was the one that seemed least worthy of it's retail price.

I'm not usually the party pooper, but I'm not sure I'd call what you have there a town just yet. I think it needs a couple more buildings. Keep at it though! That said, I really like the tank design, very 40k. Also, your Rolls design is top knotch. I very well may replicate it for my town.

What a clever thread. My set is less than cool, but it made me smile. 2193 Action Wheelers

Dwarves mine or Volcano base Both of these are sets that I probably wouldn't buy for myself, but would be alot of fun to have.

The Shifty/Enlighten/Brick Brand is comprised mostly of clone bootleg copies of LEGO sets. I've acquired a few, and reviewed them elsewhere, and reprinted here. Those really curious about Clone brands should check out http://bloks.hyperboards.com/index.php . Clones of Western Set 6790 Bandit with Gun I purchased a few of these for a dollar each at a store here at a variety store here in chicago It has all three brands (enlighten, brick, and shifty) on the packaging and/or instructions. I seem to have misplaced the box, but it's a copy of this set. http://www.brickset.com/detail.aspx?Set=6790-1 It's a pretty close copy, and the box and instructions are obviously copies of the LEGO set with a few photoshopped differences. The brick quality is a bit better than the enlighten sets I bought 2 years ago probably a bit under MB. The set was not a perfect copy. Here are some of the differences... -black hat instead of brown -no bandana -rifles are a lighter shade of grey. and have deeper indentions on the stock than the lego versions -sign says "shifty" instead of "keep out" -different minifig head -instead of a revolver, the set has a chrome colored pirate flintlock pistol -Strangely, the torso is black, with a one color (light yellow) copy of this aquasharks torso pattern. http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemPic.asp?P=973pb75c01 I bought 5 of these sets, and they all contained this torso piece, I can't figure out what happened. I guess they just had a bunch of extra aquashark torsos so they put them in every set. I was buying it mostly for the cowboy hats, guns, and cowboy torsos, so not having the torsos or revolvers was kind of a letdown. Still, the black hats and rifles are neat, and the chrome flintlock pistols will look great with my pirates. Also, I now have plenty of dynamite, and lots of nice black wagon wheels. As for the torsos, I still haven't decided wether to keep, trade, or brasso off the aquasharks logo. Clones of Pirate sets 1733 and 1747 These two sets are very close copies of LEGO sets1733 and 1747. mentioned in the subtitle. You can see the sets they copy here. http://brickset.com/search.aspx?Page=1&Theme=Pirates Points of note: -Like all of this brand the colors and quality are fine for play, but not good enough to match LEGO. The pieces tend to be less glossy, and more translucent. -the box art is strait from the LEGO version. You can tell by the lower quality printing on the minifig torsos and heads that come in the set that the minifigs on the box are LEGO minifigs. -Unlike many simlilar sets, even the minifig faces are even copied fairly accurately from the LEGO versions. -Set 9603 "Shipwreck..." differs from the LEGO version only in it's red oar rather than brown, brown bandana cap (a pretty neat piece) rather than a blue one, and chrome colored cutlass rather than grey. -Set 9821 "Treasure..." differs from the LEGO version only in that it has a trans-red coffee cup instead of a gold goblet, chrome cutlass, and it has the same one color (yellow on black) printed aquasharks torso that came with the western set I previously purchased.(very wierd) Final Thoughts. The charm of "Enlingten/Shifty/Brick sets is -for me- related mostly to minifig pieces and accessories that are unavailable from LEGO or difficult to find. The cheap prices makes it worthwhile to take the accessories, and sometimes the minifigs, and toss the rest of the bricks in the "clone" pile. I already have alot of pirates, so there wasn't much to interest me in these sets. The brown bandana, trans-red cup and chrome cutlasses are nice, but that's really about it. Even the pirate pistol is the regular brown color, and the reappearance of the aquasharks torso is disapointing. If you missed pirates the first time around these may be just the thing for you, if not you may not want to bother.

I'd just like to offer a small bit of evidence in support of the misshipment theory. Misshippments do happen, and sometimes on a big scale. Right when Speed Racer sets were released, LEGO shipped a huge amout of Speed Racer minifig parts with the pieces for "build-a-minifig" to the Chicago LEGO store. The staff spent hours sorting out the speed racer parts from several large boxes of minifig parts as having them out in the "build a minifig" bin would have been a breach of contract. With incidents like that, it could easily have been a mis-shipment. Of course we all (myself indcluded) hope that LEGO is thinking of us and and slipping us clues now and then.

I would definately recomend purchasing this book. It seems to be designed like a re-entry into the Hobby for the AFOL coming out of the dark ages. True, this means that much of it would be review for the experienced builder, but I think that most people will find a number of "ah-ha!" moments when reading it. When I read it, it was the first time I had seen a clear explaination of some of the finer points of LEGO geometry. (sideways bricks vs vertical, etc.) It's one of the only printed discourses on the basic LEGO system, and it's great for touching on some of the less discussed aspects of the hobby such as Miniland scale, Mega-scale, microscale, and mosaics. It also has some thoughtfull things to say about organizing one's collection and using non-digital means to plan a model. I don't refer to it when building, but it has a permenant place in my workspace, and I still (almost 3 years later) find myself flipping through it from time to time. If you are the kind of person that likes to read about your hobby, you will likely find it a good read.

Nice steakhouse, if you're going to introduce a coffee chain into your town, may I suggest a "bigbucks" (not my MOC, it belongs to a friend)

Wow, you guys really made the RC train into something nice. It's nice to see that there is hope for that terribly bulky engine assembly. I agree that Hobby train is one of the better sets that TLG has released. I keep intending to build one of the alternate models, but I can't bring myself to take apart the Croc. Let's hope they do a similar set for whatever kind of train follows the RC system.

Sorry it took me so long, here are the pics of the cars. The other two cars not pictured are 7731 mail van modified into a Scion XB-like vehicle, and a ME models volkswagen bug convertible pulling a camper trailer. I have a few more adjustments planned for the pictured vehicles, mostly color changes and minor mods. As I mentioned, I'm not very good at designing vehicles, so most of my cars are modded TLG designs. Right now I am strongly considering modding the petrol truck from Town Plan into a delivery truck and adding it to my module as well.

Looks great, I can't wait to see it. If you want to use the bases that come with the various buildings, you can simply drop the section where the bases will go by one stud. That might help in dissasembly. To elaborate: two plates (NOT a plate and a tile) with a baseplate laying on top come to the exact height of 3 plates or a single brick. Wierd but true.

Maiq I'd be honored if I inspired a section of foggyville, I would ask that you keep children and frosting off and sections that I may have had a part (however small) in. Basiliscus Thanks, I'm glad you like it. I think you're right about the beach. It's a bit abrupt and strait. I did something like you suggest to break up the shoreline at other points on the layout, but I hadn't done anything for the beach. A sculpted transition with lot's of layers would be a bit much for setup and transport of the module sections, but a few well placed plates could make it seem much more natural.

Great event coverage. Very thorough, yet alot easier to look through than the massive unorganized photostreams that seem to be the main record of Brickworld. There were a couple of things I had already forgotten about, that I was reminded of. Really a great event. Brickworld is, and will likely always be, a Chicago area event. It actually takes place in Wheeling, a northern suburb of Chicago, and will be in the same location next year as it was this year.

Very nice. I'm a sucker for mid-scale (between CC and Town) structures and yours are quite good, especially the first house. The yellow building is nice, but it doesn't seem to be up to the same architecturaly standards as your other two. I can't put my finger on it, but it needs something. Sorry for that vague criticism.

Hmm, a gift shop. I think that would be a prime candidate for a half size (8 wide) structure. I'll have to give that some thought. I'm going to leave the pier's pretty much as-is, but do you folks think that the boarwalk along the street would beneift from being rised a plate or two and made wider. Say perhaps 4 or 6 studs wide. I have more than enough 1x4 brown tiles to do it. I'm pretty set on not having railings, but maybe raising and widening would make it look less like a public hazard.

I was thrilled to recieve the catalog yesterday. The US catalog has Peril in Peru in it. Everything in the catalog is available in the LEGO stores, so I won't have to keep going to Toys R Us (the only US chain carying the set) to try and find it in stock. Yaaay! LEGO DC-3 here I come!

Back Walls: Sorry to disapoint you Klaus, but I think that removing back walls is extremely unlikely. When the designer of cafe corner, Jamie Berard, was interviewed in BrickJournal about Cafe Corner, they showed prototypes with open walls, and the article explains that those designs were rejected. Since all the buildings have removable floors, a feature that has been well recieved, it seems that all access to the interiors will be with removable floors from now on. Luckily for those who like open backed buildings, Removing walls is nearly the easiest of all modifications, though if the next buildings are like Green Grocer, there may be neat rear details in the upcoming releases. Interiors: When interviewd about Green Grocer ( http://www.brickjournal.com/wiki/show/Behi...he+Green+Grocer ) Jamie stated that detailed ground floor interior and back details nearly doubled the cost of the floor, necesitating a more conservative approach to the top floors, so it is likely that we will continue to see well filled ground floors and small interior features on the other floors. Market street was said to be an experiment to see if AFOLs would pay more for a detailed interior. I hope it worked. Genre crossing: I doubt it, but who knows. It's been a pretty successfull venture thus far, and I doubt LEGO would mess with it. I think it will be a Creator/Town cross breed for some time. Jamie has said that he hopes to continue the series, and has given no hints about any modification of the direction of the series. I am really looking forward to the next model relase in 2009, but I for one would really like to see the CC series continue as-is. I have enjoyed building all of them, and they have proved to be the best sets for acquiring parts for my own Town MOC's which I build to a standard a bit smaller than CC, but more realistic and detailed than Town. I hope they don't downgrade the detail or scale to fit better with Town, as it is their size that makes them so unique. That said, if they were to do more municipal type buildings like banks, police stations, post offices, etc, it would be much easier for Town collectors to justify their larger size (compared to traditional Town scale) on their layouts and could result in better sales for the series. Not to mention that those are the types of buildings I am hoping to see.

The truck with the blue windows is an Arkham asylum ambulance chassis with new windows and a few other tweaks, the module is disassembled and packed, but I think the vehicles are accessible. I'll see about getting a pic or two. The truck coming out of the brown double doors is a wood paneled delivery truck built on the chassis of the jeep from the indiana jones set. I'm not very good at building effective vehicle chassis so many of my vehicles are modified, albeit often heavily modified, TLG designs.