PaulC

Man, those hooligans are still rioting on Christmas Eve? When do they ever stop? ;-) LOL!

LOL Asuka, I love that idea. I have to admit that I too love the Life On Mars sets. I didn't manage to get the Aero Tube Hangar when it was out, so I have most of the mecha but nothing for them to dock to! |-/ I would love to see someone make a moc of minifigs sliding down the tubes into their spaceships ready for launch! Back on topic, it seems this thread has devolved a bit into rabid space fans ripping into each other over wild speculation in the absence of any real information. Chill guys! The new space line will be... whatever it will be. Don't get your hopes up, but similarly don't be too downbeat until we see it. We'll have to judge it on it's own merits once it appears. Much like... Life On Mars! X-D

To Vader's son and The Brickster: I haven't made it yet, but the Outrider is one of the official alternative models for the ISD. You can download the instructions from Lego.com here, and below is a picture of the finished model.

Thanks a lot for the great pictures Alex. With this calendar and the new City line revealed, I'm looking forward to a great 2007! Merry Christmas to you all!

Man, I love the Sail Barge, but I'm a city boy at heart so Building Crane it is! It's the one set from 2006 that I still want but haven't got. Doh!

I have to stick up for the poor old ISD, purely for it's mod-ing and moc-ing potential. I love my sail barge, but it will always be a sail barge. My ISD will never remain the same. After I've mod-ed it to look much more authentic (removed all those trans greeny-yellow pieces) and built a proper interior for it, it will have to become Dash Rendar's ship for a while and hang out with my original Millennium Falcon. After that I might combine it with the parts from my UCS AT-ST and who knows what I'll come up with?! Woo!

I would call this a Garage or Workshop theme, because that's where you would find a mechanic and all his tools. Or it could be a continuation of the Airport theme, since the fig is the same one as in 7901 Airplane Mechanic!

Welcome Jedifireman. Nice to see an actual firefighter here who can advise us on such things, 'cos I like basing my city models on real-life stuff....although your name did kind of make me think of someone trying to put out fires with a lightsaber! :-D LOL

The Hoverspeed company ran the cross-channel hovercraft, and they also ran ferries between Dover and Ostend, but I don't think they ever used hovercraft on that route, only SeaCats.

*wub* These are just fantastic! I think the size and design of these mini-sets are a big improvement over the 2005 City advent calendar, and I loved that one! I still can't decide whether this latest set is supposed to be a phone booth or a cash machine, but I love it anyway because I could make it into either! And when was the last time Lego produced those flower pieces? I actually think this new guy looks like a park keeper, especially because of the green base and flowers.

The Canadian Coastguard use them a *lot* because they float on an air-cushion above the water so they can move fast and not worry about hitting chunks of ice in the water.Britain has one of the only passenger hovercraft routes left in the world from Portsmouth to Ryde on the Isle of Wight. I've been on it and it's LOUD and very fast, making the crossing in 10 minutes, about half the time of the fastest catamaran. It parks on the Portsmouth seafront right up near the city centre. No surprise then that I'm currently building a moc of it for my city! These ones only went out of service in October 2000 so you wouldn't have to be that old! X-D The cross-channel hovercraft were so huge that they could carry cars as well as passengers, and have been retired to the Hovercraft Museum.

There's so much that's great about your town. I love details like the four-way traffic lights with pedestrian crossing, the road-signs, signs on the buildings, multi-coloured awnings, the food market with it's parking lot and especially the block of buildings with Batman standing on top. That's exactly the look I'm trying to achieve with my own town. I hope you don't mind if I borrow some of your ideas!

Very cool! I love the attention to detail like the air-conditioning units in the windows. Any chance of some better photos of that big fire truck?

...It's Hospital Vignette to the rescue! I think the blue 1 x 2 tile is supposed to be the pillow, and the white panel is a chart at the foot of the bed. It works best if you just lay the fig on the bed (rather than fix it to the studs) like in this model I built this morning: With such lovely pics, how can you resist? ;-)

If the crane gets just two more votes, it will have won after all! Go Crane! I think it's a fantastic set and you made the right choice oo7. And phred's comment is spot on... a lego toilet! Sweet!

LOL oo7! :-D Sorry to hear of your problems Alex. :-| Fantastic hospital bed this morning! (This is just to prove I get up and open my advent calendar before any of you guys ;-) )

...with a little grey doctor's bag. Curses! You beat me to it! ;-)

I actually don't think the Engine is too bad, or at least, it's pretty cool after a very small amount of modding. I posted pics of my mods on the other thread for this set *wacko* but no-one seemed to notice, so here they are again! X-D Instead of buying the set, I just built a copy from my own bricks, and was careful to leave out ALL THE WHITE and holiday decorations. I think perhaps the other wagons could be made good with similar mods. It was easy to adapt for 9v too. I put a motor in the tender, as the motor won't fit in the engine because of the faux pistons (which is one of the coolest details on the set, so I didn't want to remove them). Click on the pic below for more images on my Flickr gallery.

So many responses! Thanks to Asuka and UltraPrime for your kind comments. As for the rest... Actually the cinema is kind of a multi-purpose theatre that can show films and stage shows. This week is a magic show, next week a Star Wars retrospective! I'm sure they'll show something more to your taste soon. The interior of the theatre is almost finished, but I'm not yet completely happy with the roof. I'll post more pics when I'm done. The way I'm planning my city, each 'block' will be on a 32 x 32 stud base, with a grid of streets in between in the American style. I had a look at the pictures on your thread, and a lot of your buildings have exactly the look I'm aiming for. Nice work!

Those are cool pics Alex. I love the effect you've put round the edges, very christmassy! What lighting are you using to take them? Is it just daylight? Can't wait for the next one! X-D

Excellent! Can't wait. X-D

This was a moc I made back in 2002 that I recently re-discovered and took some pictures of. It was inspired by 4796 Ogel Mutant Squid. Looking at the set I was disappointed by the lack of tentacles (Squids have 10!) and the gaping holes in the cockpit to let the water in. I promptly bought 2 sets to combine the tentacles and set to work. Click on the pic below for more images in my Flickr gallery.

That's a really cool house. I especially like the satellite dish. It seems a little OTT for just receiving TV signals though, like it's designed for shooting down intercontinental ballistic missiles!

Time to revive this thread now I've got some pics to show. I've been working on a giant city layout (in my head mostly) for some years now. I'm finally starting to realise a very small part of it in actual bricks. The photos of my first city block start here: These buildings are still not quite finished and will continue to be fixed and tweaked. They also include my homage to sets 1620 and 1592. I never owned these and always wanted to, so I've built my own version to be the "old" part of the city. Also, for those that missed it, here are the photos of my previously posted Brick Street Customs garage (based on 8681 Tuner Garage):

If they did it right, it could be totally different from the current base set. The 1989 movie "The Abyss" features a mobile undersea drilling plaform that's towed from place to place by mini-submersibles. A slightly scaled down version would make fantastic set!