Our FIRST ever MOC- Police Station Modular *UPDATED*

[swisstony]

****  THIS IS OUR FIRST EVER MOC SO PLEASE BE GENTLE WITH US ! *****

I know that many people have created police station modulars but we felt that we could do our own from start to finish. Now as this was our first ever MOC, we wanted to keep it simple but as always as it was being created, it kind of expanded ! But all along we wanted to do the following :

1. Create a modular that would fit into the street and not look out of place 

2. Be a certain height but no higher than Town Hall

3. Be architectularly interesting

4. Be fully furnished.

5. Learn different building techniques and LDD. Never used it before !

So with that in mind and armed with a copy of LDD, a load of bricks and some imagination we started. My wife is great at the interiors so I was tasked with the build of the exterior and with her input we developed it over the last month or so. Did level by level , got our build list, ordered all the bricks that we didn't have and then started to construct. It has been immensely fun as along the way, we have discovered that LDD creates crazy instructions, it allows bricks that you sometimes can't get and some parts looked great on the computer but rubbish in real life so had to be changed  ! And that was even before we got to the interior which proved another challenge as sometimes furniture didn't fit so it was back to the drawing board.

Hopefully it has turned out ok, we both hope that people like the design and although we are novices, we think we have created something a little unique.

For those of you who know your modulars, you will notice that we have given a 'nod' to many existing modulars, both official and other MOC's. The eagle eyed amongst you will notice a little homage or design cues from Town Hall, Krystel buildings , Fire Station etc.

Apologies for the amount of photos ....

The part list is around 3600 pieces including the interior /fit out.

Enjoy !!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2017 by swisstony

[BrickbyBrickTechnic]

For this to be your first MOC, you are certainly talented!

[Pickbricker89]

This is great! The outside is pretty, but your interiors are what caught me! Very well done without over-doing it. Gave me some ideas! :) great work!! 

[SwissBrick]

Wow, cannot believe this is your first moc.., well done! Both inside and outside have great details! I would only change (but have no ready to go solution) the blue stripe in the middle of the facade, other than that I would not change anything, bravo!

[Legoboy22]

Wow, that truly is an architectural masterpiece for your first MOC. the details on the inside and out are perfect. The only small thing I change would be to line up the pavement with the other modulars. Apart from that its perfect. Brick on!

-legoboy22

[ReplicaOfLife]

The interior is amazing!

A police station is on my bucket list of MOCs to do, and this certainly gave me some nice ideas. It must've taken some time to accumulate all the printed and stickered pieces from different eras used in this build!

 

The exterior shows some nice ideas, and for me each floor works pretty well on its own.

But if I may offer some well-meant advice: The building as a whole could use some more consistency in its design. Each floor uses a different window style and placement, and the second floor shares no design elements with the first and third floor. You used tiles to evoke brickwork on the first and third floor, but the second floor uses two kinds of profile bricks for texture. That looks kinda odd, like the second floor was inserted into the building much later on.

But anyway, for a first attempt at a modular MOC, this is good! Keep it up!

 

[peedeejay]

For your first MOC that's a really good start. The exterior looks quite good and the interior is full of lovely details. Well done!

[eliza]

What a great project for you to do together! I think this is an excellent first MOC modular. Lots of great details and atmosphere.

[gotoAndLego]

Looks great. Any reason you didn't have the purplish tiles not he third floor?

[kjm161]

A lovely police station and project to work together on. The sand blue is a great colour choice. Nice bits of humour added to the interior scenes, which are very well done. Congrats on your first MOC!

[Kjellevirus]

Sorry, but I don't believe you? This is your first MOC? If I look at this it seems you did some more before. It is symply beautiful. You really achieved what you wanted. I would place it right next to the official modulars! 

Looking forward to see more MOC's from you and your wife.

[swisstony]

3 hours ago, Kjellevirus said:

Sorry, but I don't believe you? This is your first MOC? If I look at this it seems you did some more before. It is symply beautiful. You really achieved what you wanted. I would place it right next to the official modulars! 

Looking forward to see more MOC's from you and your wife.

Ha ha, yes indeed it is our first ever MOC. That is praise indeed but it truly is our first. We took about a month from design to finish to get it to a point that we liked and fussed and fussed over every little detail. Along the way we tried to emulate the great designers from TLG but the fun part was making a modular that we would like them to build as an official set but also bring some little details that we personally like. My wife has great taste for interiors so I let her design that whilst I got to grips with LDD . We have built other MOC's from other designers but we felt it time to try doing our own. 

16 hours ago, BrickByBrick Official said:

For this to be your first MOC, you are certainly talented!

wow, thanks for that comment, makes all the hard work worth it :)

16 hours ago, Pickbricker89 said:

This is great! The outside is pretty, but your interiors are what caught me! Very well done without over-doing it. Gave me some ideas! :) great work!! 

Well my wife is the interiors person so she gets the credit for those. She does like my input but usually her decision wins out at the end of the day ! :)

13 hours ago, SwissBrick said:

Wow, cannot believe this is your first moc.., well done! Both inside and outside have great details! I would only change (but have no ready to go solution) the blue stripe in the middle of the facade, other than that I would not change anything, bravo!

Cheers for the comment. it seems many people don't believe this is our first MOC :) I hear you about the blue stripe. I tried to mix up the colour palette on the floors to make it more interesting but not use too many different styles . I might try tweaking the brick usage as people have pointed out the 1x2 drive bricks in MSG need changing so they may turn sand blue or white. The trouble that I found is that LDD lets you use bricks that are sometimes not available in the colour or very expensive so I then have to redesign them in cheaper alternatives. but all fun and part of the learning process

12 hours ago, Legoboy22 said:

Wow, that truly is an architectural masterpiece for your first MOC. the details on the inside and out are perfect. The only small thing I change would be to line up the pavement with the other modulars. Apart from that its perfect. Brick on!

-legoboy22

Top comment and thanks. I did notice that when we placed it against the other modulars. It stands proud from them but we can always change it. Brick on indeed !

12 hours ago, RogerSmith said:

The interior is amazing!

A police station is on my bucket list of MOCs to do, and this certainly gave me some nice ideas. It must've taken some time to accumulate all the printed and stickered pieces from different eras used in this build!

 

The exterior shows some nice ideas, and for me each floor works pretty well on its own.

But if I may offer some well-meant advice: The building as a whole could use some more consistency in its design. Each floor uses a different window style and placement, and the second floor shares no design elements with the first and third floor. You used tiles to evoke brickwork on the first and third floor, but the second floor uses two kinds of profile bricks for texture. That looks kinda odd, like the second floor was inserted into the building much later on.

But anyway, for a first attempt at a modular MOC, this is good! Keep it up!

 

Yes the police station was always something we felt was missing from the street. Knowing our luck TLG will introduce one later down the line and do it far better LOL. I might submit it to the lego ideas forum just to gee them up a bit :)  The comments are spot on though. I tried to mix up interesting architecture with each floor but keep the colour palette down at the same time. So later on I think I will take on board what you said and maybe echo the sand blue bricks on the top floor to match the other two floors.

The top floor has its inspiration from the Fire station , hence the hat with guns and also the brick work is based on that. But thank you for the comments, it makes us happy you like the MOC ..

11 hours ago, eliza said:

What a great project for you to do together! I think this is an excellent first MOC modular. Lots of great details and atmosphere.

It started out a project where my wife always wanted a police station to go with her street collection so I said I would design one in LDD for her and then evolved into us doing it as a shared project . like all good marriages I would show her what I had designed and then she would change loads of it :) but in the end I think we reached a point where we BOTH liked it. so all good I think. 

8 hours ago, gotoAndLego said:

Looks great. Any reason you didn't have the purplish tiles not he third floor?

You mean the sand blue tiles on the outside ? yes I think they need changing to match the first two floors. totally agree and will post up the changes when we do that.

8 hours ago, kjm161 said:

A lovely police station and project to work together on. The sand blue is a great colour choice. Nice bits of humour added to the interior scenes, which are very well done. Congrats on your first MOC!

Thank you very much. 

We have loved reading all the comments so far almost as much as we loved doing the MOC. If it was up to my wife she would have built it and never shared it online but I thought it was up to an acceptable level to show it on here and on other forums. It also gave you lot the opportunity to point out some tweaks that we could do as I am sure not everyone gets it right first time.

To share a little insight into how we chose certain elements or designed it a certain way, we took inspiration from a variety of sources but ones that were in keeping with our vision. So for instance the Police sign was taken from SteBrick and his police MOC.

 

However we discovered that his Police sign falls out if you tip the building so we didn't like that. So painfully we learned how to fix the letters and tiles to a bar all clipped in sequence, a little like the Pet Shop does it. Then we had to work out how to cover the back as I didn't want it to be exposed so it took ages but worth it.

The front light on the pavement is inspired by an old Police station in London that I know. So we tried to recreate it from here

You will also see in the background another building that we liked the brickwork 

The same police station in London has a great entrance so we used that for the pillars and railings

 

The lift ( or elevator) was inspired by Lego Town Hall. The reason is because normal stairs in MOCs we found take up too much internal space and on a building that has 3 floors we needed to find a way that maximised floor space but still allowed access ( as long as you know the code for the key pad entry :) )

Then we decided a bit of humour was needed to offset such a serious like building. So the donuts in the kitchen were a Must have feature , the Chief inspector on the top floor being allowed to bring his dog into work as he is the boss !, the criminal with his solicitor on the ground floor being interrogated and so on. 

So there you have it , a lot of fun and your comments from everyone certainly make it worthwhile and we are busy planning our next project !

 

[Stefaneris]

Good choice of the color for your Police Station. I'm quite impressed with the height, it seems like it dwarfs the AS. The interior with all the funny details looks great

[Withacee]

Well, it reminds me quite a lot of Kristel's Coveted Clutch, so unique it is not, especially the first floor, I feel some credit might be due.
But it looks really nice, and congratulations on your first moc.

[swisstony]

Just now, Withacee said:

Well, it reminds me quite a lot of Kristel's Coveted Clutch, so unique it is not, especially the first floor, I feel some credit might be due.
But it looks really nice, and congratulations on your first moc.

Funnily enough I actually got in touch with Kristel a few weeks ago to ask her about the windows as I was going to use her building for inspiration. I also mentioned that fact in my description at the top  (though I spelt her name wrong.whoops)

Quote

For those of you who know your modulars, you will notice that we have given a 'nod' to many existing modulars, both official and other MOC's. The eagle eyed amongst you will notice a little homage or design cues from Town Hall, Krystel buildings , Fire Station etc.

So a nod has been given hopefully where appropriate 

16 hours ago, peedeejay said:

For your first MOC that's a really good start. The exterior looks quite good and the interior is full of lovely details. Well done!

Hello squire. Now coming from you that makes a great comment indeed as we are big fans of your work. In fact my wife is the one that has been emailing you about the Fish Shop and purchased the plans from you a few weeks ago. That is now complete and she will send photos soon :)

I will make sure she sees your comment though as she looooooooves your designs !!

[Withacee]

27 minutes ago, swisstony said:

Funnily enough I actually got in touch with Kristel a few weeks ago to ask her about the windows as I was going to use her building for inspiration. I also mentioned that fact in my description at the top  (though I spelt her name wrong.whoops)

Ah, that's why my search on "Kristel" on the page returned no results

Keep up the good work.

[gotoAndLego]

Yeah, the sand blue tiles. I feel like you also need to work the vertical ridged bricks into the third floor because right now it doesn't look like it belongs.

[Littleworlds]

Excellent build! So much atmosphere! A proper, absolutely realistic police station. And its a beauty as well. Great start for your first moc!  

[SollX]

it is a beautifull build! i like it

Edited April 3, 2017 by SollX

[koalayummies]

Echoing all the comments of praise here, fantastic and well done modular. Its and excellent and a very complete police station unlike many of the official Lego city sets. The modulars need a police station like this. Great MOC. 

[TheLegoDr]

There are some interesting ideas floating around here. I agree that it needs to be more coherent, but a valiant first effort.

I saw this on brickset forum, but decided not to comment, so I guess I'll comment here. (I wasn't logged in at the time on bs).

Interiors are always fun and I know not everyone does them. I have an urge to always do them in my own buildings, then I never finish the building. Even though no one ever looks inside, I want to have it "complete."

[DK_Titan]

A very well done first MOC. Looking forward to your 2nd.

[Dakar A]

This is a great first MOC @swisstony! Funnily enough, my first big Bricklinked MOC is also gonna be a police station, so I feel you deeply on the various struggles with the transition from digital design to real life. I cursed my past self a few times while building, and a snafu with want lists is what's currently preventing me from posting. So I'll live vicariously through you! 

The internal detail is fantastic, kudos to your better half on fitting all that in on a 32x32 building! The outside isn't too shabby either, I really like your use of sand blue. And you've also captured what I think are the most important aspects of the modular series- façade detail, color blocking, and a liberal use of light grey! However, I do have a suggestion for your next MOC- try to focus on line and how the overall outward appearance of your MOC comes across. Currently (and I do not mean this to be disparaging- it's still something I struggle with), your MOC is very split between the floors. Outside of their shared coloring, each floor seems to have its own details and partitioning. If you look at the Fire Brigade, you'll notice that the windows on the second floor line up with the ones on the first, and the central section with the garage 'continues' up through the second floor. In your MOC, for example, this could be implemented with the main entrance's 'block' continuing up the front of the building. You can also see this somewhat in SteBrick's MOC, in that the top 2 floors are separated into 3 sections, which continue the lines of the bottom floor and act as color compliments to them. But outside of that, you have a lot of talent and a great team, and I look forward to more MOCs from you guys!

[swisstony]

Well thank you ALL for all the great comments and constructive criticism , all good in our book !

We have taken onboard many suggestions from you seasoned MOC builders , in particular we have concentrated on the flow of the building in terms of complimenting floors and blockwork. We also noticed that many of the comments were about how the second floor ( or the floor above the ground) looked out of place and whilst I was keen to use the new window technique I had learned from Kristel I do agree that floor looks slightly out of place with the other two.

So with that in mind we have been redesigning it...the extra bricks are on order and should be with us soon and then begins a bit of painful deconstruction and rebuild.

Will update this post when it is complete and then you guys can have another shot at your opinions :)

Stay tuned !!!

 

Edited April 13, 2017 by swisstony

[LegoSjaak]

There is no need being gentle.. it just looks very good.. !! I would place a light bluish grey half pin in the 'P' from your Police-sign... to fill it up a bit.. you could put it in from the interior side...!

Great work!