Assembling Bricksburg

[Xon67]

Okay, here are some updated renders. I fixed a few minor things on the original image of the front of the building. I have also included an image without the billboards on the front so you can see what's behind them and how they're attached.

Lemmie know if you are interested in seeing anything else.

[kibosh]

You, sir, are amazing. Thank you so much!

[Doge]

I love your work, its quite admirable that you recreated all those objects from the movie. Keep on the good work! :)

[Xon67]

kibosh--Glad to help out. Looking forward to seeing pics of your build!

Doge--Thanks for the comment!

[Actor Builder]

Nice!

[booh88]

Hey X0n67... I've been following this thread with great interest! I commend you on your commitment to the detail and scope of this project.

I too built Emmet's apartment in LDD, some months before you started this thread, but I was wondering how (if you are going off Movie screenshots) you are able to determine a lot of the detail on the back and sides of the building..? Eg. especially in regards to the back - the distribution of the textured masonry bricks, the correct colour placement etc.

I too have obsessed over stills from the Movie, and can not seem to reveal from them nearly as much information as you can. I just wondered if you had access to other sources besides the film. Is the Video Game version accurate?

Anyway... besides all that, I believe I have something to contribute to this thread that no-one has attempted yet. See below:

It's this guy!

But I am stumped on a few points, mainly the back legs.

However, I do know that a recreation of this horse can be found at The LEGO Movie Experience at Legoland California, which does admittedly differ ever-so-slightly from the onscreen version, but nevertheless will be the closest reference imagery I'll be able to find outside the one above still from the film.

• Has anyone here been to visit The LEGO Movie Experience and has already happened to have taken some nice high-res imagery of this horse..?
  
• Or is anyone going soon who would be able to assist me by taking some detailed snaps?
  
• Can anyone identify the Minifigure riding on top?
  
• Can anyone identity the correct technic grey part that the reigns go through?
  
• Does anyone know the original creator who built it?
  

Any further reference imagery I could get would go a long way to helping me re-create this great build, which I would of course share on completion.

Many thanks for your interest and help!

- James

[Xon67]

Hi booh88--That looks great! Thanks for sharing it here. I know how difficult it can be to find references from different angles. I dug through my library and came up with a few images I found on the Internet that may help you out. I don't know where I originally found these, but here they are:

The short answer to your question is: I start with the movie, search the Internet for every source I can find, then fill in the rest myself. The long version is: I get references from several places. Starting with the movie; I have a large library of screen grabs from the movie that I add to every time I start a new build. Between Emmet's "hello city" scene, his commute, and his return fall to Briksburg from the Magic Portal, I get most of what I need for recreating the buildings in that neighborhood. Occasionally as I'm searching through the movie looking for something else, I find a helpful angle of a building in some corner of a particular shot that I never realized had that building in it before. Then I'll go back and update my model based on that "newly discovered" shot.

If I need more, I go to the behind the scenes videos included on the movie disc. Eurobricks member kibosh already posted about an animated build of Emmet's street on the bluray--I've used that as well as a brief "Distance From Camera Culling" example that has proven invaluable in providing fuller views of buildings that are only partially seen in the movie.

If those sources don't provide what I need, I go to several other places. Youtube has provided some good hi res videos of the videogame as well as videos of the The LEGO Movie Experience at LEGOland California. Some of the LEGOland videos I've used are:

The LEGO Movie Experience gives guests at Legoland California a look at the film sets

LEGOLAND_California_Resort_TV_features_THE_LEGO_MOVIE_EXPERIENCE_with_Julie_Estrada_720p

(The horse shows up in this one right around 4:34, but it's not that clear

The LEGO Movie Experience at LEGOLAND California Resort

Both the videogame and the LEGOland Youtube videos provide examples that may be identical, similar, or even completely different from what's on screen in the movie--it's pretty much hit-or-miss depending on what I'm looking for.

Another source is to search image sites like flikr. Eurobricks member Miro78 has posted here several times. He lives and works near LEGOland California and makes trips there "quite regularly" and has pics of the basement set on flikr:

www.flikr.com/photos/miro78/sets/72157640674806745

If all of that doesn't provide what I need, I take hints from other areas of the model that I'm working on to fill in areas that I can't see. I might assume symmatry between one side of a building and another (unless I'm in Cloud Cuckoo Land, in which case ANYTHING goes... :-) ), or recognize that a particular designer favors a certain brick over another.

You mentioned the detail that I included on the sides and back of Emmet's apartment--For that, I started with what I saw in the scene of Emmet's fall back to Bricksburg (you can see the back of all of the buildings on Emmet's street in the lower left corner of the frame as the construction site is revealed in that shot), then I filled in with details from the video game (the game displays a 360 rotating view of Emmet's apartment before the Bricksburg level). In this case, Emmet's apartment in the videogame is very accurate to what is in the movie. One difference I did notice in the videogame, however, is that it left off two billboards on the side of the building (seen in the movie in Emmet's "fall back to Bricksburg") that are made from 8 x 16 flat tiles. The angle plates used to mount the tiles are still there in the videogame, but the tiles themselves have been removed. I think it's interesting to find these differences between the various "versions" of the movie. It reveals a bit of the processes used to make each of them. For example, in other builds in the videogame, all of the correct pieces may be there, but might be rotated incorrectly 90 degrees and actually collide with the pieces next to them. I have a feeling that this might possibly be a bug in the software that the videogame folks used to translate the movie models into whatever software they used to model and/or animate their game. That, or someone bumped the keyboard accidentally when making the game--either way, I think it's interesting.

Hope all of my long-winded rambling helps!

Miro78--Next time you go to LEGOland, can you help out booh88 with some hires pics of different angles of the big red horse? He especially needs pics of the hind legs and back end. If also you happen to get pics of the sides, back, and under the arch of this building for me too, that would be awesome!

Please don't go out of your way to make a special trip for us. Just whenever you happen to go next. Thanks!

Edited April 4, 2016 by Xon67

[Xon67]

A small set this time--a portable cement mixer from the construction site.

I actually reverse-engineered this from the video game before discovering the official set. I guess there's no such thing as too much research before starting a build... :-)

Edited April 7, 2016 by Xon67

[pittpenguin123]

• Can anyone identity the correct technic grey part that the reigns go through?
  

It looks like Technic, Axle and Pin Connector dont think its in ldd

[Xon67]

Instructions coming in from central!

[BrickCurve]

Wow, what a great project! Now one day you will have to actually build it!

[Actor Builder]

The Instruction Tube!

I wonder... Are the instructions sent in by The Man Upstairs, or is there just a huge underground library somewhere in Bricksburg, or what?

[Xon67]

I'm pretty sure he has a staff of robo-execs that send the instructions for him--after they've held several meetings with President Business to discuss them in detail, of course! If they're sent in from "Central," maybe the library is in President Business' office tower?

On that note, do you think the LEGO instructions on the internet come from the office tower, too?

[Actor Builder]

I think that they were uploaded to the internet by one of Business' robots. Not uploaded like a robot usually would, however; He had to type all the codes in and everything. There were no shortcuts taken. It was crazy.

[Xon67]

Good thing those robots type quickly!

[Xon67]

And to go with the instruction tube--the instruction holder:

[Xon67]

In keeping with the yellow construction theme, here's a van that one of Emmet's neighbors parks a few doors down.

[BlackStar]

Hey everybody, I just uploaded the construction timelapse of Emmet's Apartment Building to youtube :)

This building was altered a bit so that it will fit next to regular modular buildings :)

If anyone wants to see more pictures and/or the LXF file used for this build, just ask!

[TheBrickBuilder]

These are so cool!

[Xon67]

Here's an interesting one:

I've only found this building in two shots. It appears three times in Emmet's "Hello, City!" scene; at the beginning behind Mrs. Scratchen-Post's building, in the middle between the church and the overpass (mostly covered by billboards), and at the end of the shot in the upper left under the figure doing a flip on the rooftop. It also appears on the left of the frame in the "Fire in the hole!" shot where the fire truck mech is tangling with the Micro Managers.

This one took a lot more guesswork than my other Bricksburg builds.

Update: Okay, it's actually in THREE shots... I forgot one. It's in a dozen frames during Emmet's morning commute immediately after he turns on the radio. Didn't want to leave that one out!

Edited May 2, 2016 by Xon67

[Actor Builder]

Fascinating! The Cheese Building!

[BlackStar]

Fascinating! The Cheese Building!

Cheese slopes everybody!

[Xon67]

The Emmet Awards were a series of monthly contests put on by The LEGO Company to promote the theatrical release of The LEGO Movie. LEGO sent the top nominees for each contest a golden Emmet statuette in a brick-built display case.

For reference, I used this video from YOP ANIMATIONS:

[The Jersey Brick Guy]

Any plans to do any of the skyscrapers? I'd love to see those.

[Xon67]

Hi Jersey Brick Guy--Yup! I already have the screen grabs I need for some skyscrapers. However, I planned on doing a few more builds from the construction site before working on more of the downtown area. I'll get there sooner or later...