L@go

I'm speechless. The house itself is fantastic, the idea with the split going along the middle is great, and then you top it off with that amazing exterior? It's just about the most realistic garden I've seen. Standing ovation!

I love the way it hugs the ground. It's not very realistic for a truck like this, but it adds to the aggressiveness. Menacing! :)

Let me also seize the opportunity to give you some well-deserved praise for the fabulous buildings you've presented in this thread. I've really enjoyed following your presentation and the creations are awe-inspiring, superbly detailed and manage to look realistic in a way that's truly astonishing for the scale. Well done. Your structures look like official sets, and I wish they were!

Thanks a lot! I don't know if you remember, but if you've seen my Brickshelf folder, you've probably been reminded that I was the one who liked your Small Car Dealership so much I copied it. I'm planning to snap some better pictures of that and share it - although it's more or less identical, it features the cars in different colours and a Crossblade. Coming from you, that means a lot. In my opinion, your modulars are among the very best out there.

Let me just add to the praise. It's a lovely building, and the level of detail is astonishing. Great work!

I'm honoured! Thank you very much! It's interesting that you should bring up the space issue. When I decided to do my first modular on a 16x32 instead of a 32x32, I did it because I thought it would be better to start off small. But actually, now that I work on the interior for my next building, which is 32x32, I find that so much easier than dealing with the cramped space of the 16x32... and that's one of the things that makes the spiral staircase a very good choice in this case. The way I've used it it doesn't take up more space than a 7x7 area in the corner, and it still leaves room on the ground floor to put some furniture underneath it, like the tiny office space.

I say keep it all! It looks fantastic. Those columns are wonderful, and the sheer scale of the thing is amazing. I've been wanting to do something like this. It'll look great in any town setup. Really looking forward to seeing how this turns out - it's a masterpiece in the making! Are those brown or dark red accents on the building? I did a build with tan and dark red and I'm amazed at how good those two colours go together.

I see what you guys mean when you say the outside isn't all that appealing - but I have to say my favorite feature of it all is still found on the exterior: That lovely Christmas wreath above the door is just the perfect touch!

Wow guys, I really appreciate all the wonderful feedback! Wasn't prepared for so much of it :) Yeah, I guessed from the pic in your signature! Quite happy with the design, haven't seen anybody else do it like that and I like how it turned out. Thank you very much - coming from somebody who creates the builds you do it means a lot! I just had the idea to put a lava lamp in, and thought it'd be a nice touch. It's fun to see that you like it so much! :) Thanks a lot - along with the detailed interior it's the feature I'm the most happy with. Didn't take so long to figure out how to do it about right, either - it just sort of came together quite easily! Thanks again - I won't take any credit for that sofa, as I said it's a design from Brickshelf user 'sheep' - although I do think it fits very well into the interior in dark red. I'm not quite sure what you mean, but maybe you're talking about the tiled ground floor? It's sort of become standard for the modulars to have a tiled ground floor, so that's why I did it, plus I do think the chess-board pattern looks nice. But I guess it's all a matter of what you fancy :) Again, thanks a bunch for all the nice words! In fact, I found it so inspiring that I've gone back to MLCAD this afternoon to start working again on my next build, which has been left in limbo with just the (tiled) ground floor finished for a few months now. But who knows - if I have the time and money over the next couple of months I might present it to you some time - it's a 32x32 tan modular building with a couple of nice interior features...

Great MOC, Cecilie! It's overall a good build, but my favourite part is undoubtedly Santa's ride :) The sleigh is great, the sack is wonderfully thought out... and I love the use of the bucket for Rudolph's snout. Brilliant!

It's a good-looking house, but what really does it for me is that brilliant drawer idea for the top floor. Never thought of that!

B-OM-2C Hello all, I keep lurking around the forum, posting now and then, but not being a very active member. But I thought I'd maybe share a few pictures of my first own design since before my dark ages, a modular pharmacy. I started off designing it in MLCAD, and then ordered the bricks via BrickLink (especially from BL store 1001bricks - well worth checking out, for European builders at least. Not the cheapest store, but they offer great service). It turned out quite expensive, but that's hardly a surprise, knowing this hobby :) I think I should mention that I've borrowed some ideas from others; the couch on the first floor is a shameless rip-off of a design from Brickshelf user 'sheep', and the head of the swan above the entrance is based on Brickshelf user OldMcBricker's design. Apart from that, it's all my own design. The pictures didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped - it seems my stationary computer, which I use for photo editing, shows the images as being darker than they are, so I've brightened them a bit too much, which has done bad things with the contrast. So you'll have to take them as they are, it was way too much work to go through that whole process again... As for the building itself: I was quite happy with the way it looked in MLCAD, but when I built with real bricks I felt that there was maybe a little bit too much going on on the facade - it's a bit too busy. I like the dark blue/white color combination, but I'm not sure about the black/dark red for the top floor. What I'm content with, though, is the interior. I tried to make it detailed without being too packed, and I think it turned out well. The ground floor features shelves with different remedies, a tray with pill boxes, a cash register, a tiny office space under the stairs, the spiral staircase itself, a couple of waiting chairs where a slightly dodgy-looking guy patiently waits for his drugs, and a very friendly pharmacist. The first floor features a medical library, the aforementioned sofa, and a table with a lava lamp. And on the top floor there's a couple of chairs and a table, and a TV set (regrettably, it's mono). On the terrace (is that really the correct term?) the old pharmacist dreams of the old days before he left most of the work to his young female apprentice. Constructive comments are welcome! The swan above the entrance, inspired by Old McBricker. The spiral staircase, complete with railing. Note the small office space under the stairs. Medical library and lava lamp. Sofa, design by sheep. The original MLCAD design. There are a few more pics in my Brickshelf folder.

Well, I built mine yesterday, having ordered it from Brickstructures, and I have to say I agree with most of you - it's not a really great set. I own the entire Architecture line, and while Fallingwater is in a class of its own and the White House isn't all that far behind, complexity-wise, I'd rate this set behind the Guggenheim and the Space Needle as well. The SNOT stuff is ok, but apart from that it isn't very innovative and, as several people have already noted in this thread, it all looks a bit bland. As everybody who's been there and seen the impressive wedge in real life knows, it's all the details that make the original stand out. In this scale, there's no way you can make a building like stand out in the same way. So, all in all, this is - in my book - on par with the Empire State, the Sears Tower, and the John Hancock Center. Nice and iconic and fits well on a shelf, not too much detail.

Caught this one on Flickr yesterday, and immediately liked it. The detailing is great - I agree that the barrel-type design is very well done. And the presentation is the thing that really nails it - great scene. Overall just a fab MOC!

I agree that the police sets are quite boring. I haven't got a modern police station yet, though, so I might pick that up - especially as the space theme really doesn't do it for me. What does that have to do with "city", anyway? But on another note - it's nice that not all new sets are as exciting as many were this year. It means that I can save some money and maybe pick up some BrickLink orders instead and focus on some MOC'ing - haven't done too much of that since my dark ages :) That log cabin is sweet, by the way.

I'll add my praise to what the others have said already - I love this one. Great colour choice, amazing attention to detail... the cells, the toilets, the weapons rack, the garages... fabulous. I'd love to put together something like this - if TLG doesn't give us a modular police station soon, I'll just have to make one of my own. I know where I'll go for inspiration :)

Don't know how I missed this first time around - it's an amazing MOC, I love it! The design would look great in any town - it's a building that stands out a bit, with the towers and all. I'd love to add something like this to my collection. Well done - and the story with the escaping prisoners is just hilarious!

One could argue that they are already thinking along those lines... "We know that our Spartans will probably be extremely popular among AFOLs, so why not make these figures rare? Then they will have to purchase 'a WHOLE CRAPLOAD' (as you so eloquently put it) to get their army."

As a fellow norseman, I have to congratulate you on a great piece of work. I love the details (they're even better than the first series), but best of all is probably the disco ball. How did you do that? I also really like the Mexican sleeping in the shadow of that giant cactus - and the idea with the surfer going through the wave is brilliant :)

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! It's no wonder that Nolan's great movie inspires people to recreate scenes from it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're well executed. This one is - without the use of movie tricks :)

Yikes. What have you guys been up to?

Wow, that's a great rendition of those famous landmarks - and the size is spectacular! Really well done. I keep admiring people who have the kind of patience that's needed to pull off something like that. I thought the Eiffel Tower took its time I can't help noticing the great Chrysler Building in the background. Do you have some more pics of that as well?

Great design! And it looks so cool with the box and everything. Care to reveal how much you ended up paying for it?

Amen. It's scary how the money disappears with this hobby...

Thank you for an interesting review - never really knew how these sets looked! I've never seen one of these up close, but the different basketball torso designs are quite neat and would look good in a town layout. Does anybody know for a fact that the arms can/can't come off to be replaced with regular minifig arms?