randomboy

Picked up 3 cups over the last 1-2 months, finally got around to sorting them out. Very happy to get all those leaf pieces, as my layout is quite large and I know for a fact that I will need them in the future. May even go back to grab the rest they had, because the supply was getting very low. Also scored some white 4x6 plates, 2x2 & 2x4 bricks and 2x2 slope pieces, which I will need for a small snow scene in my Amusement park. Other than that just grabbed random pieces that I am sure I will find some use for in the future. This was at the Northshore Mall store in Peabody, MA

Thank you jimmynick! I finally bit the $$$ bullet and purchased the 10261 Roller Coaster. I absolutely love the set: it is very large, has a good amount of scenery detail and is a lot of fun to play with. On one hand, the build itself was repetitive with all the stacking of 2x2 round bricks it requires, but on the other it was very interesting to learn how they made the structure so stable. First thing I thought when I finished the build it is that I need to fill the empty space in the middle of the coaster: So I took what scenery and plates I could find and came up with this: I didn't think ahead and didn't take into account the cross bar/brace that sits right above the ground in the middle so I had to do some rearranging and ended up with this: Planned improvements include adding some trees, shrubs, building stairs over the cross bar and adding scenery to the space under the roller coaster structure.

Thank you for your comments! I worked out a few more detail over the weekend: - Instead of a separate Star Wars area I am going to incorporate the few Star Wars sets I have into the Fairground and have it be Star Wars themed overall (perhaps MOC the Fairground sets to be more Star Wars themed in the future?) - Train will run from end of the long leg onto a bridge above the left side into a tunnel. The train will be the Metroliner train that my boyfriend played with as a child. I will have to acquire a few pieces of track and some of the missing pieces he lost as a kid. - I should have enough room on the bottom short leg to display all of my coast guard stuff (the little tower, the big and small helicopters) plus the Fishing Store - Added a campground on the bottom short leg to have space for all the RVs and Campers I have. I will use the Beach House (4996) that remains one of the few complete sets I have from my childhood as the campground main house/reception, whatever you want to call it Excited to start buying some parts I will need starting this week!

Hi everyone, Thanks to a lot of reorganizing of our place this past week, I gained a huge area for my Lego layout. I am absolutely stoked to finally have more space than I know what I can do with, it seems for the past 2 years collecting Lego I mostly have just run out of space continuously. This is the space I have available now. My boyfriend is building an HO model train on the top and I have the shelf below for my Lego: Here is my current sketch of the layout. The short side is roughly 13', the longest leg is over 22', the 2 shorter legs are both 18', so lots of space to work with. The middle leg is wider than the outer ones (this sketch is not accurate in that regard): So far the only thing I have actually decided on is the placement of the fairground - on the middle leg because it is the widest so I can have the ferris wheel face either way. I also have a lot of boats/ships so I want to have the fairground potentially sit on a board walk overlooking the water. Buildings in orange are ones I have (missing the Simpsons kwik e mart), building in blue are ones I am going to buy in the foreseeable future. I own a lot of other smaller Lego sets like coast guard boats, smaller boats, campers, etc. I am probably going to incorporate a camp ground on the long leg. Challenges: - There is a drop in height of the shelf between the longest leg and and the rest of the layout labeled 'height drop' - this can also be seen in one of the images above in the back. Sadly the shelf pictured above already existed in the garage and we weren't allowed to take it out/it would have been too much work, so we have to work with the height it's at. I am looking forward to figuring that one out. I'll attempt to build a road up to there somehow, worse comes to worse the road will run off the layout and the height drop will just be a pretty staircase for pedestrians. - The corners are very deep so it is not very convenient to be used for buildings. My plan is to build some really nice scenery, hopefully incorporating a water feature (river or waterfall or both), which I have always wanted to try and build I am going to stop here for now. I am very excited to keep you all updated on my progress as I work on this layout. It'll take years to complete and my largest constraint is definitely money and time. Please let me know your thoughts! If you have suggestions on where to put buildings, how to tackle the height drop or any other comments, they are all welcome! Also if someone knows of a simple drawing program like this for Mac (old OS - 10.9.5) that would be fantastic (pay for is fine, I just want to stop having to use my work laptop for my hobby). Best, Randomboy

Hi everyone, I am currently working on the Downtown Diner and received a window screen that is not clear: LEGO milky window by randomboy, on Flickr Has anyone else gotten one of these? Curious if this is common as it has never happened to me before. Thanks, randomboy

Very cool collection of busses! May have to add a double decker to my city once it’s large enough to need one.

Thank you, dr_spock! Absolutely, I love the architecture here in Boston. I will have to go a stroll through the city soon and find some specific inspiration for a MOC

Thanks for sharing that picture. That is some pretty cool, but extreme, painting. I agree that it isn't really the point of Lego art, I just feel like a little shading/dirt/ etc. could make already amazing Lego models even more awesome. I am purist enough to not want to modify bricks (glue, cut, add 3D printed parts).

Maybe something along the lines of a rectangular cake cover: a rectangular base that you can place your LEGO on and cover with a tall clear box and display on a shelf. Then when the kids want to play with it you can easily put them on the floor

Thanks for the tips! If I have time this weekend I may experiment with some weathering techniques on a car. Thanks for sharing! That’s really cool, I like that it is completely removable. I’d like to build some small dioramas for to photograph and be able to clean the bricks afterwards to reuse them.

Great idea! I haven't really thought about doing this for buildings and cars, I am doing it for my tiled road. I may try to see if I can alter some of my buildings with older bricks. That's true, I guess to make Lego look really realistic you would have to build life size houses (aka more pixels). I like your idea of a stop-motion film, that would be pretty cool. I think for now I am going to focus on using Lego to older looks, but I may build a small diorama to weather and display! Maybe a tiny MOC house and car. Then I won't care if it turns out terrible either.

I was talking to a LEGO Store employee the other day and he said that LEGO is planning on keeping the re-releases (Taj Mahal and Millennium Falcon) on the shelves/available online for many years so fans who have been wanting these sets for years have time to save up for them and collectors who are hoping to make a profit in the future don’t have this option. Obviously I don’t know if this is the actual reason LEGO is doing this, but I’m very happy that I’ll be able to put money away over the next two years to afford both of these amazing sets.

According to Brickset I currently have 28 sets that I collected over the past year with a total of 45,000 pieces went to the Lego store the other day and saw about 20 sets I would want to buy right now.. ah if only money were unlimited. I would also need to buy a new house if I could afford all of the sets I want.

One of my dream LEGO themes would be a Super Mario theme. I still love playing all Mario games and it would be awesome to have sets involving Mario Karts, Bowser’s Castle and the comet observatory and Bowser’s flying ship from Mario Galaxy.

Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone has attempted to paint or has considered painting models to make them look more realistic? I still have a love hate relationship with how shiny and perfect all my buildings and cars look so I was entertaining the idea of painting my models to give them a more realistic feel. I got the idea from my boyfriend who models trains and weathers all of his buildings and cars by spraying them with dull coat and then painting them with pastels. I took a quick pass at a MOC plane built from the batman polybags I got throughout last year to give you an idea of what I am thinking of: Painted Plane (1) by randomboy, on Flickr Painted Plane (2) by randomboy, on Flickr Let me know your thoughts and experiences with doing this! Best, randomboy