L@go

Well, I was going to cast a vote because I had an opinion, but I guess it was too much to expect that it would be possible to vote for that option without making somebody who disagrees strongly feel like attacking my opinion. Without having a clue as to why that was my opinion. Why am I not surprised? I like the SDCC exclusives. And any other exclusives LEGO can come up with. Some of them I couldn't care less about, others I'd really, really like to own, but I probably never will. It doesn't make me angry at LEGO, it doesn't make me want to make a poll, write a letter or try to whip up a storm on every fansite I'm registered to. As a LEGO builder and collector, I find it intriguing that not every set and every minifig is easy to acquire. Sure, there are holes in my collection, but it means that if I am ever able to fill one of those holes, it will be much more satisfying. The rarest LEGO items I own are also some of the items I cherish the most - mainly because they're beautiful, but also because they're rare. What's the fun in collecting if everything is easy to get hold of? I don't understand that mindset. And I don't think that necessarily means there's something wrong with me. I also feel a bit annoyed with how the people who don't like the whole SDCC thing seem to think that the whole AFOL community agrees with them. The poll in this very topic indicates that only about 2/3 of the people who read this post do - and let's face it, the people who actually cares enough about this issue to bother to vote, are more likely to be people who agree than people who disagree, so I don't think the number is even that big. I might be wrong. But I do get a bit tired by the whole "If I can't get that, then nobody should get it." There. That's my opinion. I know most of you probably don't agree with me, but how this point of view makes me selfish, I can't really see.

Absolutely gorgeous! I've built a gas station myself that isn't too different when it comes to the colour scheme, and this would look very good on the other side of the street. Are all the parts available in the colours you've used? I'd love to see this brick-built... :) EDIT: I just had another look at that garage of yours, which is also gorgeous - I just never got around to comment on it. Were these two designed to go together in a layout?

And she is gorgeous. Just gorgeous!

Are you sure that's an official LEGO sticker? It should turn up here if it is, but it doesn't.

The cost of LEGO varies quite a lot from country to country. If you're in Sweden - which I'm guessing by the tag in your post - you can probably charge more than you could in, say, the US. So asking here may not give you any particularly good answers. My best advice would be to have a look here - that should give you an idea of what it's worth.

I'm really enjoying your interiors, there's a lot here to be inspired by. But what impresses me the most is your simply amazing work with graphics. You could sell those designs! :)

Thank you! The shelves are just as simple as they seem - they are built from plates and tiles. The sets that aren't built studs-up aren't attached to the shelves - they're attached to the wall. Hope that helps you.

I feel like a parrot just repeating what the others have already said, but: Those greenhouses look so nice! :) The whole thing is very well done, though, and it's something that would be an addition to most layouts. Well built.

Thanks again, people - I really appreciate all the encouraging comments. Makes me want to build more! I've got pictures of my (4x3 32x32 baseplate sized) city block that I displayed at the Norwegian LUG event in Trondheim in April, but I haven't uploaded them anywhere yet. I'll let you know :)

Haha! You're welcome :) I like the rest of your post as well - it's pretty spot-on. But it's been a while since I've let myself get annoyed by the City release cycles - I mainly see these sets as parts packs now.

I don't like them, but then again action figures and war dioramas and all that stuff has never done it for me. And I'm not a big fan of the attitude that makes him say, and I quote: "I want a product that when you're done building it you don't have to put it in your bedroom because you're a fan of something, but you know you just built a toy. I want something that when you're done with it you're proud enough to put it in your living room for everybody to see." Just because he wouldn't want to put it in his living room it doesn't mean that everybody feels that way. If I added his "sense of realism", I most certainly wouldn't feel that it was a LEGO build anymore. Then again, that's probably what all the "legos aren't what they used to be back when I was a kid" people think of the stuff we build with our "modern" bricks. Except it's all still LEGO and they have no idea what they're talking about, of course :) So it'll be interesting to see how this goes. I'm sure some people will like it, but personally I don't think this will appeal to AFOLs in general. I'd also like to see the scenes when the first builders with McFarlane bricks try to get their stuff accepted at a LEGO event. I feel heated discussions coming up...

An easy solution would be to use smaller plates. The longer they are, the more likely they are to warp. It's a very common problem, unfortunately.

I tend to care more about the interiors than the exteriors, really - mainly because I'm better at building them and therefore I enjoy them more. It also somehow feels like 'cheating' to build a modular without an interior, because the exterior is so detailed and seems to promise that there's an equally well-made interior in there. At events, I display my modulars, and 95% of all the people there will only ever see the exterior, they'll never know there even is an interior. But I do. And that matters :) That said, I'm totally with grum64 above: To each their own.

That's supposed to be a Spaceship, Spaceship, SPACESHIP! - but feel free to dream about finding a Galaxy Explorer :)

Next to the Millennium Falcon there's a 10225 R2-D2 (probably not that easy to recognise) and in the opposite window on the facade there's a 41035 Heartlake Juice Bar (probably even harder to recognise). On this scale it gets pretty hard to replicate sets. But you should have been able to spot the Simpsons House! ;)

Thank you! Regarding the smoke, do you see that round 1x1 brick with a metallic silver 1x1 round plate on top right next to the bench? That's an ashtray. But I don't want to be the person implying that LEGO Club Max is a smoker...

Thank you for the responses, guys, they're most appreciated. I'm glad you like the interior - as always I put a lot of thought into that, as it seems to be what I do best when it comes to modulars. Thank you - and welcome to Eurobricks!

Yup - and the torso and decorated slope are from the CMF Series 8 Alien Villainess.

Hello, fellow Eurobrickers! It's been a long time since I last built a modular building - the last one was the B&W Building I built for the Modular Madness contest two years ago. But I've been wanting a #3300003 LEGO Brand Retail Store set for a while, the set that has been handed out to customers at LEGO store openings: And since there are no LEGO stores in Norway and I haven't been able to go anywhere to attend a store opening I bit the bullet and bought one off BrickLink. That inspired me. I toyed with the idea of scaling it up to minifig scale, because it seemed to have potential as a modular building - and as I needed a corner building for a display I was putting together at the time, that's what it ended up as. I'll give you some exterior shots first: LEGO Store 1 by L@go, on Flickr LEGO Store 2 by L@go, on Flickr LEGO Store 9 by L@go, on Flickr And then some detail shots. There are two main exterior details: The sculpture of the classic 2x4 brick on the pavement outside and the skylights, which are also found in the miniature set - but I scaled the brick-style windows up from 2x3 to 2x4, as that's a more iconic LEGO shape. LEGO Store 10 by L@go, on Flickr LEGO Store 14 by L@go, on Flickr When the roof is removed you can see that the skylights are actually transparent and will let light into the building. LEGO Store 19 by L@go, on Flickr The standout feature of the interior is probably the Pick-a-Brick wall, which I tried several solutions for before I ended up with this. But I think this is what works best on this level: LEGO Store 21 by L@go, on Flickr There's also a Build-a-Minifig stand and a wall with shelves full of set boxes. Ideally, I would have printed stickers for the boxes, but for now they only have the different colours that represent different themes - among others, there are Duplo, Friends, Chima, NinjaGo, City, Technic, and Architecture boxes here. And there's a LUG showcase display with a tiny robot model in it. LEGO Store 26 by L@go, on Flickr LEGO Store 25 by L@go, on Flickr One of the things I had the most fun with on the way to finishing this MOC, was building miniature versions of actual LEGO sets for display in the store. Maybe you can recognise them - there are six in total: LEGO Store 15 by L@go, on Flickr LEGO Store 16 by L@go, on Flickr LEGO Store 23 by L@go, on Flickr LEGO Store 28 by L@go, on Flickr And finally, some pictures with minifigs - let's start with a friendly LEGO Store employee (which wasn't exactly cheap, either - there are three of them in this MOC...): LEGO Store 29 by L@go, on Flickr LEGO Store 31 by L@go, on Flickr LEGO Store 35 by L@go, on Flickr LEGO Store 36 by L@go, on Flickr It seems LEGO Club Max is really a pretty lazy fellow who'll use any excuse to get away and slack for a bit, even though he gets paid to hang around and talk to the kids. Luckily, this guy is there to give him a stern talking to: LEGO Store 37 by L@go, on Flickr And that's it! There's more pictures in this folder on Flickr, if you're interested. Thanks for watching, hope you like it - any comments are more than welcome :)

First of all: Your photography is nothing to be ashamed of! I have to say that I like this one - the rear end in particular is very easily recognisable as a Gallardo. In general, I prefer your rear end designs to your front end ones - I don't quite know why, but they're certainly very good.

As I said on Flickr: I think this is the best one you've posted yet. Lovely work!

I'm with naf here. I absolutely believe that this is a genuine problem for you, and the pictures provide perfectly good evidence, so I'm not denying that this is happening, I'm just absolutely baffled that some people tend to encounter extreme quality issues while I, in my pre-dark age years and so far in my AFOL age (about six years as of now) have yet to had a single brick crack on me from anything else than rough play. At the Eurobricks Event in Billund in May there was a presentation by Erland Refling Nielsen, who is a LEGO parts designer - and a Eurobricks member. He mentioned that a part of their job as parts designers is also to test different types of plastics, and expose bricks to various chemicals. Apparently there are certain kinds of chemicals that, when applied to LEGO bricks, tend to make them much more brittle. So if somebody were to, say, not wash their hands between handling products that contain these chemicals and building with LEGO, that might have an effect on the bricks. I can not remember what kind of chemicals they were, or even if Erland mentioned any specific ones, but I suspect that this, and maybe also environmental issues, like naf suggests, might have something to do with the problems you encounter.

My receipts always come from no-reply@lego.com.

I just spotted this on Flickr earlier and had a look through the detail pictures - and that's really what stands out for me. I mean, the diorama as a whole is fabulous, don't get me wrong, but the most impressive thing here is that it's all so packed full of detail. I can't even begin to imagine how much time you must have spent posing all those minifigs and coming up with all those small finishing touches. I think my favourite part of it is that boxing machine - so simple, yet so instantly recognisable. I'm deeply impressed. Well done!

Very nice indeed! This bodes well for whatever you're going to be posting on Eurobricks. Welcome and keep up the good work!