rich_jacko (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rich_jacko) wrote2020-05-10 03:47 pm
rich_jacko) wrote2020-05-10 03:47 pm
I Built This City...
Well, here it is. It started over five years ago with these purchases and my first home-made modular build, has seen me through several individual building projects, the most recent of which was my museum and toy shop. Now I've finally finished putting together my modular Lego city. Or at least, I've filled all the available table space anyway! There are around 60,000 Lego pieces (maybe a few hundred over) in the display below:
I felt like I'd almost finished a couple of years ago, but then I kept acquiring more modular builds as Lego kept releasing them and as I filled the gaps in my back catalogue. This year's release was Birch Books. I wanted to include it, but had no room to fit it into my plan. So I decided to combine it with the earlier Pet Shop set.
The resulting model uses 3,888 pieces, compared with 2,504 for the bookshop and 2,032 for the pet shop by themselves. Fewer pieces, but nearly all of the detail is incorporated. Both original sets were fairly plain at the back. Here I've added an extra storey in and gone for lots of detail on both sides. Inside, I've incorporated all the furnishings from both sets, as well as an extra bookcase.
Notice how the position on the baseplate is shifted. That's something I've had to do for all the modular buildings (and I've designed into my own builds ever since the leisure centre). The pavement which runs to the edge of the baseplates on the original sets needs to move forward six studs to meet the roadside on the now-adjoining baseplates. Moving this on all the buildings was a fair amount of faff, but it gave me extra space for larger gardens out the back.
One of my earlier projects was doubling up the Palace Cinema into this 4,500-piece multiplex. Since then, I've recently acquired the Corner Garage and the Grand Emporium to fit in.
I wasn't particularly impressed with the garage set, but the vet's surgery above it offered a solution to how to handle the six extra studs I had to fill on two sides of the base (this being a corner building). The L-shaped building is a bit odd, but fills the gap neatly with an extra 1,574 pieces.
The Grand Emporium, as befits its name, offered a much grander opportunity to enlarge my flagship building even further with an extra floor, raising its piece count by another 1,544. It now incorporates two floors of the shop, as well as the cinema foyer and two screens it featured earlier. I've also added the rooftop sign and window cleaning cradle from the Grand Emporium.
On the other side, I've included the narrow stone building from my church build - See, I told you back then that I had a plan for how it was all going to come together!
After this project to merge the Downtown Diner with one half of the Detective's Office, I've now combined the other half of the Detective's Office with Assembly Square, to create the "blue building".
This contains the café, dance and music studio, barber shop and apartment from its component buildings. The extension is almost hidden down a narrow alley in the combined build, but it allowed me to bring forward one side of Assembly Square to create the road corner and side street I wanted in the final city layout. It also gives the impression of the city extending beyond what you can see.
A few more leftover pieces here, to fill another six-stud gap. I really liked the working cashpoint machine, which was leftover from Ninjago City, after I condensed it down to make my Japanese restaurant. So I've added it in as a feature to the Brick Bank, in a fairly simple extension designed in a similar style to the main bank.
I could've avoided a lot of the combining of sets, and included more space for buildings on the table. But where would the fun be in that? I decided early on that I wanted to create variety in the layout by including a park at its centre.
The main features here are the Ferris Wheel set and the roundabout from the Winter Village Market (defrosted of snow). Some landscaping was needed with roof pieces to build up the slopes around the raised baseplates the Ferris Wheel sits on. I also designed and added in all the fencing, paths, plants and a pond. The whole park spreads out two baseplates wide plus parts of the baseplates from the adjoining buildings, and is one-and-a-half normal baseplates deep.
So here you have it, some more views of the complete city in all its glory - its streets populated by 22 vehicles and over 420 minifigures, and all sorts of strange scenes being played out on the rooftops. What to build next? I have no idea, but for now I'm just enjoying the completion of this monumental project. :o)
I felt like I'd almost finished a couple of years ago, but then I kept acquiring more modular builds as Lego kept releasing them and as I filled the gaps in my back catalogue. This year's release was Birch Books. I wanted to include it, but had no room to fit it into my plan. So I decided to combine it with the earlier Pet Shop set.
The resulting model uses 3,888 pieces, compared with 2,504 for the bookshop and 2,032 for the pet shop by themselves. Fewer pieces, but nearly all of the detail is incorporated. Both original sets were fairly plain at the back. Here I've added an extra storey in and gone for lots of detail on both sides. Inside, I've incorporated all the furnishings from both sets, as well as an extra bookcase.
Notice how the position on the baseplate is shifted. That's something I've had to do for all the modular buildings (and I've designed into my own builds ever since the leisure centre). The pavement which runs to the edge of the baseplates on the original sets needs to move forward six studs to meet the roadside on the now-adjoining baseplates. Moving this on all the buildings was a fair amount of faff, but it gave me extra space for larger gardens out the back.
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One of my earlier projects was doubling up the Palace Cinema into this 4,500-piece multiplex. Since then, I've recently acquired the Corner Garage and the Grand Emporium to fit in.
I wasn't particularly impressed with the garage set, but the vet's surgery above it offered a solution to how to handle the six extra studs I had to fill on two sides of the base (this being a corner building). The L-shaped building is a bit odd, but fills the gap neatly with an extra 1,574 pieces.
The Grand Emporium, as befits its name, offered a much grander opportunity to enlarge my flagship building even further with an extra floor, raising its piece count by another 1,544. It now incorporates two floors of the shop, as well as the cinema foyer and two screens it featured earlier. I've also added the rooftop sign and window cleaning cradle from the Grand Emporium.
On the other side, I've included the narrow stone building from my church build - See, I told you back then that I had a plan for how it was all going to come together!
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
After this project to merge the Downtown Diner with one half of the Detective's Office, I've now combined the other half of the Detective's Office with Assembly Square, to create the "blue building".
This contains the café, dance and music studio, barber shop and apartment from its component buildings. The extension is almost hidden down a narrow alley in the combined build, but it allowed me to bring forward one side of Assembly Square to create the road corner and side street I wanted in the final city layout. It also gives the impression of the city extending beyond what you can see.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
A few more leftover pieces here, to fill another six-stud gap. I really liked the working cashpoint machine, which was leftover from Ninjago City, after I condensed it down to make my Japanese restaurant. So I've added it in as a feature to the Brick Bank, in a fairly simple extension designed in a similar style to the main bank.
 |
 |
I could've avoided a lot of the combining of sets, and included more space for buildings on the table. But where would the fun be in that? I decided early on that I wanted to create variety in the layout by including a park at its centre.
The main features here are the Ferris Wheel set and the roundabout from the Winter Village Market (defrosted of snow). Some landscaping was needed with roof pieces to build up the slopes around the raised baseplates the Ferris Wheel sits on. I also designed and added in all the fencing, paths, plants and a pond. The whole park spreads out two baseplates wide plus parts of the baseplates from the adjoining buildings, and is one-and-a-half normal baseplates deep.
So here you have it, some more views of the complete city in all its glory - its streets populated by 22 vehicles and over 420 minifigures, and all sorts of strange scenes being played out on the rooftops. What to build next? I have no idea, but for now I'm just enjoying the completion of this monumental project. :o)
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I shared a few of the photos on That Facebook as well, where they got more comments. Krissy relayed the Bug's reaction: "Woah!", "co-o-o-o-o-l" and "that's going to take ages to put away!" Kelly thinks I ought to take up stop motion animation.