Hey Joe

Where's t'grog?

I think JeagerEX was referring to the old Castle subset theme of Ninja. Brickset link here. It's too confusing to explain further so I'll just stop here and hope the points been taken?

Ok, I was just about to get to the LDD stuff but you are the boss... Anyway, here's a Google Map link. It's the building marked "Kirkwood Amtrak" Right across the street you can see the brick building with "Hay Grain Flour & Feed Mills" painted in large letters along the top. This building is about the same size as a Modular (I would imagine) so I guess 68 bricks for the train station would be about right?

You are a fine human being Alasdair Ryan, many thanks. It's big! 68 bricks wide if I'm counting correctly (no easy thing to do with a three year old running around). That looks about right though, I was thinking that 48 wasn't wide enough. Thanks for the heads up about Griddy. I'll check it out. Also, I will do a fly over in my helicopter and get back to you with additional pics, ha ha! Well, maybe Google Earth would be more practical? Let me see what I can come up with. Cheers and thanks again, Joe

Hi, I'd really like to build my hometown's train station, first in LDD and then for real. Problem is; I'm totally new and I've got a lot on my plate (family, job, etc.) so I don't have a lot of time to waste. So maybe some people here can take a minute to help? I've got the latest and greatest LDD installed and also LDD Manager. I'm quite proficient with 'puters but I don't know LDD at all. I can read documentation but prefer just to fiddle around with it, if it's a steep learning curve then I'll bow out early but it looks like something I could get my head around w/o too much trouble. My first question is; about how large in bricks would you say this station should be? I'm planning a train layout with some modulars and probably some City stuff (vehicles and the like). Modulars are 32 bricks wide is that correct? I'm thinking it should be about 48 wide? Does that sound about right or do you think it should be larger? This station is in Kirkwood, Missouri USA and is on the National Historic Register BTW. Also, the Amtrak still stops there. America's largest railroad museum is a few miles west of here on the same line. Ok, thanks a lot! Cheers, Joe

Thanks for the heads up! Joe

I saw some photos recently (can't remember where exactly) of some internal Lego MOC vignettes for an in-company contest that they were running. They didn't seem too shy about using non-Lego parts. If it's good enough for them then...

Oh, I got it. Hard to think straight with a three year old running around!

My Dr. Zeuss idea isn't fully baked but I've been reading some of the books with my son and thinking that it would translate well into Lego.

Right, it's a space thing. I don't even have a layout yet but I'm planning a large one in our future home (not our present apartment, couldn't swing a cat in here). Maybe you could bill it (think of it) as some type of attraction? Legoville Haunted House and Wax Museum?

Dr. Zeuss!

If I were to own and display the Haunted House I would have to put it at the end of a street, perhaps seperated from downtown by a couple normal (Creator) houses. It doesn't look right to put it in the center in my mind (which is most certainly why it doesn't have pins to connect it to anything, it's meant to be desolate). Also, it opens differently from the modulars, right?

It's a beautiful site and what little I've had time to read is worthwhile. Let's just take this page for example. There should be a link to a page that has the entire Pirates 'featurette' menu, something along the lines of what you've posted here on this Eurobricks thread but of course with better graphics and layout. I guess that the index you just posted qualifies but it's spread out over three pages and is not only Pirates. Also, it starts with the most recent first which seems backward to me. If you had posted that index originally I probably wouldn't have written my first post. There should be an arrow to click back to Pirates 22 and one to go forward to Pirates 24. Look at it from a Lego for Dummies (me!) perspective. I'd like to go thru the info logically and sequentially. You're really presenting a lot of information. Brickset has pretty good navigation, you can click on an umbrella theme, say; Space, then click on a sub-theme, say; Alien Conquest. You can also go thru Space by year; 2012, 2011 and so on. All of that functionality is available from any page displaying a Space theme or set (I believe). You know that you can really clutter up a page with a lot of navigation but I'm really only talking about three links on each page: Entire featurette (Pirates) menu Back to previous numbered featurette Forward to the next one You're possibly a little too intimate with the site? Maybe you need to look at it from a stranger's point of view, someone who has never seen it and just wants to get what he came for and go on to something else? Anyway, thanks for graciously accepting my criticism. I went to sleep last night thinking I overdid it. You are a Lego Ambassador after all and I'm no web site expert and I'm new here on Eurobricks as well. Keep up the good work! Cheers, Joe

Thanks, it looks like something I will enjoy reading and will be useful to get me up to speed regarding Pirates. Can I criticise you though? The navigation on your site is horrible. I just clicked on one of the links so far and maybe it's an aberration but it looks like I will have to bookmark this Eurobricks page to be able to find all the Pirates stuff on your site. Ideally, you should have just posted one link here and have very easy and clear navigation on YOUR site to YOUR content. No one's going to read it if it's impossible to easily access it in a logical, clear and hopefully sequential manner, ideally from any page on your site. Sorry if I'm being harsh but I have a couple sites myself and have had some wine, ha ha.

I don't think it's a sloop, I think it's supposed to be a full-sized ship but it's scaled to the size of the lighthouse, in which case it's brilliant. If it is a sloop then you're right, it's off. It looks a lot like the ship from 6277, Imperial Trading Post circa 1992

All art is copying and building on what has come before to some extent but some of these Asian companies really go overboard, don't they? Take a look at this Chinese company's (Wange) product page; link It's exactly like Lego's! I went there because I was looking for some Disney Cars lookalikes that I saw in a market, couldn't find them but they're pictured in the company's catalog. The models (Wange's and these Ninjago knockoffs) are so crude that I don't think anyone would be fooled. Also, these products aren't meant for the spiffy malls found in the West. They're destined for markets in third world countries where the huge majority of the local populace can't afford Lego even if there was a store that sold it. I could be wrong about that though, there's probably someplace in NYC, LA or Chicago where you could find them. It would be interesting to sit in on a meeting at Lego where they discuss their strategy to deal with these things, wouldn't it? It's probably not worth their time and money to pursue it too far but who knows? These Ninjago knockoffs really go over the top in copying the whole concept.

I would say that's fake.

I saw some of those at a market a couple weeks ago, it was pretty shocking as it's such a blatant copy. If you look close at the minifigs you can see the poor quality but from arms length the packaging looks almost identical. Retail price was US$ 1.50

I've been a 'member' of this site for months. It's so incredibly slow here in China that it's basically a waste of time to even try to use it. I don't care for their emails either as they send thumbnails of some pretty cool stuff but when you click on them you get sent to a page that's unrelated to the model you clicked on (or at least you have to shift through lots of other thumbnails to find the model in the email that you clicked on originally). Anyway, I'm hoping they get it together but I'm unimpressed so far. Joe

Interesting, thanks.

Yeah, it seems way overpriced unless I'm not seeing something that's there. What's that stack of largish boxes with theme names on them? Are those store displays?

Ok, here's another one: link Very large job lot of mostly sorted Lego 45,000 pounds

I'm a little new here but it seems to be ok to discuss MB in a derisive, rant-ish sort of way, ha ha. Seriously though; maybe we need to have a special section for off-brands? I'm living in China presently and wouldn't be averse to having a place to chat about local brands. Lego is so expensive here and a few of the Chinese models are worth discussing. That's my two cents anyway.

This doesn't pertain to the actual manufacturing but I believe that most of the final packaging of the product is done in Kladno, Czech Republic for the European (and probably Asian) markets. I was watching a really excellent Lego documentary (which might be from the Megafactories series? I've forgotten) that basically said as much. It didn't mention the American ones, maybe that's Billund or Mexico. If anyone has any definite info please feel free to correct me (Eurobrickers don't seem too shy about doing that, ha ha).

Really nice! Thanks for sharing. If I had to find something to criticize I'd say it looks too 'new' and 'smooth' but maybe that's just my preference for things that look lived in. Keep up the great work!