pinioncorp

Really love this, I adore sand red but the colour aside the building style works really well. It's nice to see a building on a slope as well, baseplates really tend to stifle this kind detail. Love the crispy/burnt white 1×2 in the window too. That said, I do think this could be improved by replacing the palisade bricks beside the leftmost windows with more sand red bricks: I know how expensive they are but I think it would break up the grey.

All well and good if you don't have to pay for it. The extra detail is great but it becomes very expensive if you're trying to do it for your entire home layout and not just a virtual rendering. Some brick built trees would also be a considerable improvement over the standard single piece tree offerings from Lego.

Excellent! Wonderful use of different textures and period features. For a Lego model, it is scaled well. My only criticism would be the exposed studs on the lower window ledges, but that's really just nit-picking, I truly love it as is.

I do wish they'd made them in white. But I suspect the limitation of requiring the entire bag made the cost of manufacture unviable.

An interesting, detailed read, but to be honest I'm not convinced you have worked out what makes a good modular building. It's not that I disagree what you've said, I agree wholeheartedly, but it's a complicated subject and it isn't easy to say what makes something inherently bad and what exactly is necessary to improve it. It really is entirely subjective even if some are more balanced than others. However, taken as a whole, some of what you've said is contradictory. For example, what would your opinion be of this building? Of colour use, blocking, framing, repetition and continuity? I believe that you can't go wrong in emulating the style a real life building that you like. It doesn't necessarily mean that it will translate well into Lego, but it will ensure that you will avoid the many architectural pitfalls that designing a building from scratch can present. It would provide you with a realistic colour palette and the ratios of each. It would ensure that all architectural elements line up both horizontally and vertically, and are weighted appropriately. It provides an architectural style that won't be a mishmash of various other styles. Turning said real life building into a realistic representation in Lego form is the most difficult part however and can take lots of experimentation to get right and benefits considerably by a second opinion.

I think a "Fun at the Shops" set would be broad enough to have lots of varied figs. Merchants with props to sell and customers with bags and a shopping trolley. Food and drink vendors, an arcade machine and maybe a bowling alley?

I can't speak for all builders, and I certainly can't pretend to speak as an expert builder, but for me there's a few steps to going from nothing to a Lego Digital Designer plan, to eventually a finished modular. Step 1: Inspiration. Think about what kind of building you want to make. What style is it? What purpose does it serve? This is a great time to investigate some architecture styles and real life buildings that take your fancy. You can either copy a building directly, or take visual cues from multiple. Just don't mix architectural styles as it can leave your building looking confused. Step 2: Conceptualising: Fitting your building into a single baseplate (or more if you choose) can be tricky and is more restrictive than you may think. Especially if you're making a corner building as that limits further the width you're allowed. Fitting it onto a baseplate often requires "selective compression" - the careful consideration and omission of unnecessary or extraneous details without losing the essence of the design. Select the elements that are important to you for retaining the aesthetic. Also be sure to compare your colour palate in real bricks to get an idea how well they go together - some colours really clash, especially the bright hues, make sure you select neutral tones to tone down any garish colours if necessary. It's not always possible to see this in LDD or LDraw. Step 3: Designing. I personally build from the ground up in Lego Digital Designer, carefully laying out the structural elements that I require. For example, I'd lay out on the baseplate the position of the door, windows and other major details to get the spacing right. If you want details in between, make sure you've left enough room for them. As for vertical height, I go by eye as I find it easier to balance. You may find it easier to design an particular elements of the design first (bay window, motif, etc) to ensure you have enough space for them. Some simple guidelines to go by: The ground floor should have a higher ceiling height than those above it. Horizontals should where possible line up. If a door frame goes to 6 bricks high, line up the top of the window frames to the same height. Likewise for verticals. Windows look incredibly off putting if they don't line up with the ones below. Weight - while it's tempting to put plate glass across the whole ground floor, consider where the weight of the building above would be resting on. Give it some supports, that line up with building weight above. They're guidelines, not rules, but the more you break the harder it will be to pull off. Remember that the viewer has certain expectations about a subject, even if they're unfounded: sometimes it's better to look correct than be correct. Step 4: Verification. Make sure the parts you've used in your design exist! It can be hard, especially as a new designer, but look over the plans to see any issues that may arise when you're building it. Did you delete the only attachment point for that assembly? Some redesign may be necessary. Step 5: Order and build! This turned into a rambling post but I hope someone gets something useful out of this. My flickr feed.

I don't mind the weathering, it adds some extra detail and is a good opportunity to make a model a little less black. That said, some applications work better than others. Mike Pianta experimented with some weathering on some of his models to great effect, the colours work harmoniously together since they're fairly similar. The black, grey and brown of your U30B however looks a little extreme. To me it makes it look like it's on the scrap heap. The problem comes from the different shades of grey and brown are simply too far from black to seem natural. I think the dark grey mixing would work well, but only if the model is dark grey, it's just too bright compared to black. Only the dark brown would be subtle enough to give a slightly dirty appearance, without completely distracting from the model. I really like the effect on the caboose however. It looks to me as the paint is bubbling and peeling, exposing the rusting underneath. Maybe try some of the other blues around the edges as well to simulate the fading paint? Dark azure would look nice mixed in. I do hope to see these as brick built models as LDD really doesn't convey how a model will really look.

Clever use of the birdcage and the duck tails! Would love to see it finished with the adjoining wings, architecture set style.

Very impressive. A lot of functionality in a tight package, all while looking stunningly accurate to the source material. Well done! My only suggestion for improvement (which clearly isn't required considering the final product that you've put up, but I'll say it anyway), would be to swap the trans-clear headlights for trans-black to more accurately reflect the dark surrounds of the headlights.

Wow, What an improvement! Really has a used future feel to it, it's wonderful. The textures you've used brings to mind all the different materials (in varying condition) that this scene depicts. Well done.

Lovely car, really captures the essence of the original.

I really feel you've gutted any life out of this building, The original building had charm with the rough style brick facade and snow on the roof, yours is flat and lifeless, and loses the more attractive sloping style of the roof. And how do you get to the second floor? Maybe try adding some window sills and subtle ornamentation to reinforce the corners of the building. Some lamp posts and foliage would help across the platform. The inset upper level also does not match the style of the rest of the building, it may look better as a traditional dormer.

That really looks like a dog's breakfast. Which is quite accurate, as the real buildings are quite... "unique" too. I don't believe that this translates to Lego very well. Part of the appeal of the modular buildings line is familiarity - the designs are common all around the world. The buildings these were based on were intended to be the exact opposite - distinctive to the point of alien. I feel that this fact makes these buildings look like the work of a five year old. Although you've done a fine job recreating them, to anyone unfamiliar with these buildings they come across as unrefined by breaking basically all of the attractive architecture guidelines.

Hey Cale, Great to have a dedicated Lego train resource up again! Especially with such experience behind it. My only suggestion would be to get some more international writers on board - at the current you have four Americans as contributors. The European community is massive and would be good to cater to as well.

Wonderful little layout! Its a great scale to build trains at to get in all the detail. Great use of homemaker figs too, really lovely scene with the moving playground equipment. But I have to say that I love those huge trees!

HI kr1minal, You can find the Emerald Night LDD file in the "Lego Digital Designer and other digital tools" forum, or in particular, this post here. Changing the colours from there is simple enough, and you won't strip out the detail like Murdoch has above.

A wonderful station! Great use of architectural rules and colour. Interesting use of the two levels too, brings in more visual interest while keeping the footprint minimal (something that tends to balloon out of control when making train stations).

I'm sorry, I feel like I'm always being negative on here lately, but I think this model is too boring and not detailed enough to appeal to the train community. The lack of large driving wheels, which are a steam engine staple, is a real killer for me. The large and small wheels have been produced by Lego in red, so would suit your Germanic design. The two bogie design makes it look like a boiler on top of a flatcar. The boiler itself is not taking advantage of the new rounding techniques developed over the years since the My Own Train line of the early 2000s (which itself was a failure). The Lego train community, while large, is a fractured one, as builders from all over the world look for different elements that speak to their geographic location. It is impossible to try to capture everything everyone could want, but you certainly need to wow them with a design.

Are they ballast compatible? The fact that they have no studs on the top makes it difficult to lay sleepers.

I think the reason inverse corners are uncommon is that they simply don't exist in real life. City streets have plenty of intersections needing corner buildings but 90° corners are few and far between. Couple this with the lack of facade you get from building one and the sheer amount of bricks used on the sides and rear that really aren't seen makes it an undesirable project.

Lovely wagon. Doesn't ruin the coloured stripe down the side and doesn't stick up above the roof. The parts you've used make it look like it was a set to begin with. Well done. But aren't the sinks facing the wrong way?

Really nice! I love the open feel and busy nature of the place. Does however bring feelings of déjà vu. My only suggestion would be to change the colour of the sliding doors, as they blend in a little too much.

I unfortunately can't say I like the end result here, it looks like five separate buildings to me. I feel this is because the white sections do not carry over any of the architectural details of the base building at all, they're a different colour, different height and use different facade elements. The windows also trick the eye into believing the levels of the sections do not line up. I think this could be improved by lining the white sections with the same style of grey stonework on the original Parisian Restaurant, and including some olive green elements to the design to tie it in with the PR sections, and lowering the visual weight of the upper floor to more closely mimic the PR. I think the white corner is lovely as an individual building, but I don't see it melding well with the PR.

That won't work as mentioned above, the way the wheels are attached adds friction to the ends as well. But brick built bogies with these on them will work fine.