Svelte

We Australians all look the same, that's why I must have had 2 roles Security guard Barney Vance, signing in!

No problems - and I agree 2 tractors (3 if you count the small promo) is more than enough in a line of only 4 or 5 sets

Nice work! I like the brick-built snow covered tree based on the 10069 - that quadruple convex cap-piece was never officially released in white according to BL, and it looks great here The building does look more substantial on a 32x32 baseplate and less like a display piece. This could easily integrate into a modular street as a special Christmas village or standalone.

It's funny how as Lego has raised prices, the retailers have dropped them to steeper discounts than we ever normally see However the shelf-life is shorter than ever before, which I am not sure is a good thing

segambit, please do not post images marked Preliminary or Confidential in these threads. Thanks! You can deeplink them, just not post directly.

Thanks for sharing these pics! It's nice to see some official Lego art featuring the new sets! I can't wait till we get the 2010 catalogue in Aus/ NZ - I think it's usually December and comes with our free version of the Lego Club magazine.

Yes, it's a great little set. Very different from the usual emergency vehicles, with some nice parts, such as all the metallic silver cheese. The ice-cream stand is a fantastic touch! It would make a great little gift.

Wow! I'm overwhelmed by all these amazing responses! Thanks everyone! Good point! I wish I thought of that before I was moving it all around the place whilst building and for photos, and everything on the street was sliding all over the place! There's not much rare here Populating this MOC made me realise just how much I love the Indy license. It is without question the best minifig line ever! Just this year we got 4 different types of female outfit, ranging from glamorous evening wear to peasant blouses to suiting to a sari, not to mention all the sharp men's tailoring (black gangster suits & fedoras, white dinner suit) and then all the other cool Temple of Doom and Cairo 'historical' costumes. Yes, the Prince of Persia figs look nice, but they are not a patch on Indy when it comes to versatility and modern costume. Really, this creation would not look the same without all the beautiful Indy figs :wub: City cannot compete at all, which is why I decided to use fleshies. An escalator is planned for the ground floor, but I haven't begun on the interiors yet. You raise an interesting point about the plain back walls. I guess the practical reason is so that buildings in the series of modulars can sit comfortably next to each other. In this case, I wanted to keep the interior walls plain and window-free so that shelves of merchandising could fit in front of them without looking cluttered or odd. 10197 actually has a very detailed rear, as does 10185. Thanks for noticing Zzz! Colour is my first point of reference wgen building. It was interesting to read in Zuloo's interview with Jamie Berard that he builds all in white initially to get the basic shape and then adds colour afterwards. I don't have that luxury! Colour is highly important to me so I have to plan ahead and constantly adjust to go along to make sure the balance is right. I think I have improved in this - whereas previous MOCs have been super-gaudy and over-detailed, I think this strikes the right balance. Choosing 2 key colours with some secondary accents is the key, I think. But other minor details are just as important - for example, I think the contrast of the blonde woman in glittering pink outfit really sets all the other colours in that part of the MOC in harmony (sand green of the plants, all white dress of the doorman). Another 23? Haha! Yes, I definitely had Harrods in mind - indeed, the reclusive owner on top is a nod to Mohamed Al-Fayed. As for the swimwear displays - maybe it's a cultural thing, but in beach-centred Sydney, most department stores have mannequin displays in bikinis or Speedos at some point before summer! Cute video! That garden does look sweet! Thanks Cutlass! And here's a pic of whoever asked for it shown in relation to other modulars - excuse the bad lighting - you can see it's taller than average. I think it looks good next to the Fire Brigade.

I'd be interested to know if there was any official announcement about the change made to dark red in 2008. The new, duller colour is vastly more consistent but has lost that rich, almost glowing quality that marked the previous iteration. Needless to say, the two don't match very well in MOCs, although I can understand that Lego is more interested in current and future customers than holding onto an erratic colour. Does Lego normally announce these changes? I've never seen this kind of topic before. In other news, 'minimal fuzz' is my new catchphrase Reading between the lines with the silver issue, cost seems to be the driving factor. Surprise surprise!

Interesting that they've tweaked the mould after all these years. Both my flame pieces were the newer style. I didn't even notice! Thanks for the link.

Thanks for all your kind comments, guys! I won't reply to everyone, just the specific questions Thanks, Otter! The intention is to have staircases in the interior, and there are holes in the floors to allow this - you just can't see it yet. The rooftop garden was a late addition so I didn't allow roof access - however, for the moment I've sacrificed functionality for aesthetics as I didn't want a bare hole in the roof when I took the pics. I think it's the glinting gold accents that liven up the dark tan considerably - without them, it would look a lot darker. Observant Quarry is observant! I had so many brown paddles left over from the Pirates set in the soft brown plastic which is easy to cut, so I just trimmed a few to 3L. Sadly no crystalline trans-clear corner pieces or green palm trunk pieces feature in this MOC Thanks for your comments, Rick! Hahaha, everyone hates that Airport set but the door design is a direct steal from it! I even had to go and dig out the set to get the large smooth disc to use as the floor piece The white pieces are from the Mars Mission set 7645 Crystal Reaper (the digger pieces). I had been wanting to use these as canopy pieces for a while. I also wanted a proper curve to the canopy rather than a brick-built effect. It took a bit of fiddling but I'm quite pleased by the result. It's a designer jacket, OK? High fashion! I actually like it as is The Speed Racers Grand Prix set - a great one for fleshy minifig parts! Thanks Erds! I was pretty happy with the design for the pot plants - like the best Lego techniques, it's very simple - the Technic pins from the tail pieces plug straight into the holes in the pot I'd been wanting to use the sand green tails for plant pieces for a while, and I think they look perfect here. The dark tan was mainly from Bricklink, yes. I did a big order a few months ago of dark tan and dark brown so this was a great way to use it up. Thanks Dave! The pot plants are just this: with 6 of these plugged in:

Modular Building - Department Store Before news of the rumoured 10211 Grand Emporium leaked last week, I'd been planning on making a modular building with a predominantly dark tan and dark brown colour scheme :wub: , inspired by the quite imposing Victorian department stores found in the Sydney central business district and the famous London Harrods. Having worked on this for a fortnight, I've finished the exterior, with a detailed interior yet to follow. It is built to the modular standard, although with an expanded footprint, and like 10182 Cafe Corner and 10185 Green Grocer splits into three distinct floors - more middle floors can be added. It was quite a challenge to construct a building in dark tan and dark brown with only the limited palette of bricks available in those colours, but I think I've done a good job of smoothing out the rough edges. I will be interested to see how the 'official' Grand Emporium measures up! Welcome to the Department Store - window-shopping is encouraged! It's a beautiful day to visit the Department Store! At ground level, the townsfolk are happily going about their business: This gentleman's puppy seems intrigued by the toy kitten featured in the window display: This rebellious-looking teen with angry green lippy is probably secretly posting fan-mail to a popular boy-band: A glamorous blonde and her spoiled son leave through the revolving front door, loaded up with the stores distinctive green-and-gold shopping bags. The doorman waves them goodbye - they must be regular customers! The lush potted succulents are indeed impressive: Hidden on the roof of the store is a private garden with water feature, for the exclusive use of the reclusive proprietor. It's invisible from the street! A side-view of the store: A close-up of the window detailing: A side view showing some of the back walls. Unlike the official modular buildings, the store isn't stepped in 8 studs at the rear. This will allow more room for decorating the interior but was also a practical necessity as building a recessed corner using the limited palette of dark brown bricks available (1x8, 1x12 and the 1x2 log brick) would have proved very fiddly: A full-view of the building, minus figs. Discerning eyes may note the small diamond tan tile motif is repeated on the sidewalk and up through the corner walls of the middle floors (it also appears on the roof): Without inverse slopes in dark tan, I used a SNOT technique and regular slopes to get the buttressed effect - I'm very pleased with how these turned out: As I said earlier, the whole modular building splits up like the official models. Here's the ground floor: A look from the rear towards the front, showing the revolving door and the interior colour scheme: The large 1x5x6 panels are removable so you can change the window mannequins around. Practical play-feature! The middle floor has a thread of dark red as a recurring wall motif: The top floor lightens to regular tan as it goes higher so the building isn't overwhelmingly dark (ie, I didn't make it this colour just because I ran out of dark tan ): The roof garden section detaches to allow easy access to the (yet-to-be-built) inside of the top floor: I hope you enjoyed looking at this creation - it was a lot of fun to build, and the job is really only half-done! As Christmas approaches, it will be fun to hang some lights on the exterior and have a store Santa wandering the streets. I do look forward to seeing how this shapes up next to the official 10211 Grand Emporium. Please share your thoughts below!

Thanks for your comment! Do you mean the trans-orange 1x1 plate on the headlights? They also appeared in the Jan wave of City construction sets http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp...rID=98&in=A

I must admit, I am very over those ubiquitous pieces. They were novel at first, but it's just ludicrous to put them on every vehicular set It's been 5 years since they were out - do we really need to see them on everything? I do like the phone booth and tree - great touches! Thanks for this fine review, macoco!

Haha! No, this is my own modular standard department store which I've only just finished. The fleshy figs should be a giveaway that it isn't an official set I just updated my teaser pic and I hope to unveil it properly soon. Thanks for the kind comment!

Happy birthday DL! Have an amazing day!

What the hell is that thing supposed to be, anyway? It looks like a cross between a Rebel Scout Speeder and a SP3 baddie ship! It doesn't really look like the case has anything built on it - more like the case is just sitting on it. Boo for raised hopes! I the Temple of Doom case.

Aaah, thanks for the pics! I'm glad someone saved them. From memory there was also a feature about making furniture in Brickjournal - Mel is a contributor there (or editor). Anyhoo, I find it highly doubtful LEGO will release a furniture service pack for a set that's now discontinued

When Market Street came out, Lego Factory featured some furniture designs from Mel Caddick to populate that set - but the pages are gone now with the revamp to DesignByMe. If you do a search for 'lego factory furniture' some of the old cached pages are still viewable.

If anywhere, this belongs in the Minifig Customisation Workshop. However, Halloween has come and gone so I will lock this.

Ancient news. Locked!

clonewarskiller, please take a look around the site before posting new topics such as this. There's a whole forum for SW discussion, with a very thorough pinned index of topics. The discussion about the license goes here. Thanks.

I am willing to be infected! Sign me up!

It's been around for 2 years - did anyone really think it was going to last forever? It hasn't been 'cut short' and it has nothing to do with Lego being unable to afford the piece count (!). Lego Exclusives generally have a shelf-life of 2-3 years so please try and stay calm. Instead, be excited that it means LEGO is clearing a slot for some amazing new Exclusive in 2010

It's Disney faux-architecture. Personally, I think the proportions look waaaaaay out. I hope for something a little taller and more imposing looking than a dwarf-scaled theme park gift store