10264 Corner Garage

[Vindicare]

2 hours ago, Lyichir said:

See, this kind of thing is just a shitty thing to say, regardless of who designed the set. If you wouldn't tell the designer that to their face, maybe second guess whether it's an okay thing to say about them without even knowing who they are.

The decorative brick pattern to me looks quite authentic to the sort of American architectural landscape you might see a gas station like this in.

 

Exactly. The dramatics need to be toned down a lot. Insulting the designers efforts because you don’t like the building is unnecessary.

1 hour ago, Comon27 said:

Interesting you say this. I would have to disagree with you though.

-I think the GE's exterior is fantastic. It nails a classic central London shopping centre (and maybe other European cities too) and due to it being one of the early modulars, I can forgive its interior.

-The PC also had a good exterior however for it's era, the interior left one wanting more I feel. Something was missing but I can't quite put my finger on it but I thought it was a great set personally. Someone earlier mentioned that it was the modular that most people had on Brickset. This might be due to many keen AFOLs expanding it. 

This leads me on to the BB. I think TLG thought consumers were bored of just having a single purpose building, especially because they released a modular only once a year, so a multipurpose building would satisfy more customers. 

Finally the CG. A really different build to all of the rest. As I've said before, I just need to figure how it would work with the pavement going round it and it should be fine. A "solid" build as someone has already described it as. Not every building in a city is a show stopper and this is one of those "solid" builds.

J

Again, exactly. Not every building has to be a modern marvel, this line is meant to show a town. Towns consist of all kinds of different buildings. I think the build is going to be on par with every other Modular.

Edited December 4, 2018 by Vindicare

[LegoModularFan]

1 hour ago, AFOLguy1970 said:

Well, after sleeping over it, I am fairly unchanged in my opinion of it.  It is going to be a pass for me.

*see the initial post for the rest*

Very well said, I couldn’t agree more.  If I had a chance to like a post, only one post, it would be this one. Thanks for this post.

[x105Black]

I'm pretty happy to see this.  I love the idea of an inverted corner, and it looks like it comes with a variety of new and useful pieces.

I really like the use of ice skates for squeegees, though.

I also like the tree.

Edited December 5, 2018 by x105Black

[TeriXeri]

Doesn't look bad at all, but still wish they'd offer some 3-in-1 buildings at the same time.

[LegoDW]

Thoughts

Cons:

1) Wish inside of the upper 2 floors were the whole triangle, cut out for rear door entry really took a lot of space out.  Not sure why upper floors couldn't have been full triangle.

2) Driveway will be difficult to line up with TLG road plates.  

3) Roof is incredible boring.  For $200 US should have given us some details up there!!!!

4) 3rd floor apartment, already have a few of these in previous sets.  Wish was something more fun!

5) While the service truck is good, wish bricks were put into the building (say the roof).  Fairly easy to moc a truck.  

6) Not crazy about the colors. Need the regular Octan green.  Also while orange bricks of top two floors is ok, already have this from pervious sets.  Would have appeached something more unique.

 

Pros:

1) Like the unique building look. 

2) Vet area good!

3) Truck is a winner

 

 

 

 

[BrickFit26]

2 hours ago, Jasper Joppe Geers said:

What kind of blue would that be then?
First floor medium blue, second floor Sand blue?

It's just that the dark orange colour like this is just too dominant to my taste.
 

A lighter blue to lighten up that dark orange. I also like that mknt green that was in the Assembly Square. It would be a good color to add.

 

2 hours ago, RuffDraft said:

Glad someone else has spotted it too... I was really annoyed when I saw how much the car was bouncing around when the lift was being demonstrated. The designer has made a beautiful garage door with a wonderfully concealed mechanism, but then they've made some form of bouncy car lift that wouldn't be used in the real world at all - if you bounced the car around, you'd cause more damage than you'd fix! 

i wonder if It can be fixed somehow.

[Aanchir]

9 hours ago, Huaojozu said:

Just look at the facade... there's so many tiny pieces there, that I would be surprised if the weight was significantly larger to what we're used to. Especially with the smaller footprint of the building and sparse interiors, I don't see where they could put the bigger bricks that would increase weight. 

Sparse interiors are honestly a big part of why I might expect a higher than usual weight per brick, since interior details like tiled floors and furniture often use smaller bricks than stuff like walls/floors/ceilings, and if this set doesn't have as much of that stuff as other buildings, then they aren't there to pull the average piece size down.

Also, regarding the building's size, I think a lot of people are considerably underestimating it. Out of curiosity (and because I knew I'd measured previous buildings before and failed to put it anywhere I'd remember to find it), I went ahead and made a spreadsheet (still in progress) to compare the modular buildings' interior floor space, height, etc. I was a little surprised myself to find that this set has the highest roof line of any building since Town Hall (excluding stuff like towers or chimneys that stick up from the main roof line) and the most interior floor space of any building since Pet Shop.

The main reason for this seems to be that most corner buildings either have only two floors, big gaps in the upper floors that overlook lower ones, or both. This is the first in quite some time that has three floors that are all close to the full size of the ground floor. Even many of the mid-street buildings like Parisian Restaurant, Downtown Diner, and Detective’s Office have floors with very uneven amounts of indoor space (side note, I remember when Parisian Restaurant was the building people complained about being too short and having too little interior space for its price).

3 hours ago, Comon27 said:

This leads me on to the BB. I think TLG thought consumers were bored of just having a single purpose building, especially because they released a modular only once a year, so a multipurpose building would satisfy more customers.

In issue 31 of HispaBrick Magazine, Jamie Berard actually explained the reason for shifting towards more multi-purpose buildings, which surprisingly enough is… us! Early on it was satisfying enough to most buyers for the buildings to surpass the ones that appeared in official sets. But later on, after many MOCists had great success designing their own custom buildings, Jamie felt like it became much more difficult to make really common subjects like banks, police stations, fire stations, etc. in a way that would still be surprising to AFOLs and wouldn't strike us as having already been equaled or surpassed by previous MOCs. Adding a second business gives the set as a whole a way to still feel conceptuall unique, particularly if the businesses can be connected narratively/thematically as well as physically as in the case of Detective's Office and Brick Bank.

Edited December 5, 2018 by Aanchir

[Factioneer]

19 hours ago, Kristel said:

I think it looks great!  My favourite parts are the garage section (I really like the dark green version of the Octan colour scheme), the overall shape of the building and the trim on the roofline! 

And if I were still into building modulars (rather than just admiring those built by other people), I'd be excited about this as a parts pack too, especially the windows and all that dark orange!

Hiya Krystal! Are you going to review/blog about the Corner Garage on your site in January?

I do agree: the dark green, roofline and new/interesting parts + excellent colours make this one appealing. I was a bit reticent about Downtown Diner last year at this time but the build was fun and the architecture grew on me once I had it in hand. I have (of course) made my own adjustments and additions and will likely do the same with the garage. However, my first impressions of the garage beat my first impressions of the diner by a lot.

Hope you keep blogging, Kristel. The builds you chose to showcase were always some of the best and you had a good eye and shared my own tastes in many ways.

 

- f

[Kristel]

1 hour ago, Factioneer said:

Hiya Krystal! Are you going to review/blog about the Corner Garage on your site in January?
...

Hope you keep blogging, Kristel. The builds you chose to showcase were always some of the best and you had a good eye and shared my own tastes in many ways.

Sorry, but I've got no plans to review this one ... too many other projects on the go and not enough time in the day!  My blog has been a victim of this as well and I keep thinking I should just remove it, but can never quite get myself to do so just in case I want to come back to it one day. 

[jaesroe]

On 12/3/2018 at 11:07 PM, Robert8 said:

Dude... not sure about it.

It looks hmmm average. Nothing groundbreaking

cannot agree with you more...............

 

[CopperTablet]

The response isn't overwhelmingly negative.  It's mixed.  It seems to be about 60% positive, as far as I can tell.    But, people are more likely to post and complain about something if they dislike it than if they like it.

It's ridiculous to compare this to Paupadros's MOCs.  Pau is not only arguably the best Modular builder on the planet, but they also have access to every element ever made on Bricklink, while the official Lego designers have to use parts that Lego has decided to produce for 2019.  Pau also does not have to operate at a profit.

Edited December 5, 2018 by CopperTablet

[mapimi]

I think it has definitively grown on me. At first I felt meh about it (the fact I was seeing the images on my phone probably did not help). And I do feel inspired to extend the building past the garage. 

The two things that really bug me are (luckily they are minor but I feel for the price hike they could have included just a few more bricks to address this) :

-No protection on the staircases other than the couches. The staircase up to the vet's office could also have used a ramp, or some way of blocking a fall into the garage. 

-The apartment has no door. I feel in every other modular, individual apartments have had a way to lock themselves out from the rest of the build, which isn't the case here.  

I do hope we return to more "neutral" architectural styles next year. But long live the modular line :) 

[BrickFit26]

Everyday it grows on me, but I find small things that make me go . I just noticed that from looking at it from the front the Dr. Jones vet sign is like 90% blocked off by the Corner Garage sign. 

[kodlovag]

10 hours ago, LegoModularFan said:

I wonder if it would have looked better with SNOTed cheese slopes, certainly not the whole gap would be covered but probably a big part of it. And I wonder why the designer didn’t use cheese slopes as they already exist in Dark Orange...

I had the exact same idea, about covering the gap with cheese slopes. I used that technique in one of my inverse corner modular, and it was possible to completely cover the gap. But my facade used hinge bricks for the diagonal, but this modular uses these new rounded 1x2 plates, and this diagonal technique shifts the stud positions by half. Whatever I'm trying looks just even worse, than the original gapped design. Furthermore the height of a level is 9.something studs, should be increased to 10. The whole upper part of the building should be rebuilt to correct the gaps.

I really don't like the upper part of the building. I gave it a chance, but now I also have a failed attempt to correct it. :( Maybe someone else come up with a feasible solution.

[Venefic]

This is one of the least appealing modulars for me. 

[Gongoro73]

I'm on the "I like it" side. Not my favorite but a very nice addition to my city. I don't need every modular to be a groundbreaking design. I think this is a very nice depiction of an old kinda industrial area building. American, European? Well, certainly, the gas station looks American, but I've seen lots of similar buildings where I live, in Spain. Anyway, who really cares about it? Cities are always a nonsensical mix of different architecture styles, that's the charm of it.

I like the fact that it is just one building, the color scheme looks good to me. I don't care about the sparse interiors, as I never open them to play with, I REALLY don't care about the fact that a Veterinary has his office upon a Gas Station (c'mon, it's Lego, who cares about these things?. And even if you care, it's sooo easy to MOD it).

Agree with what some others have already said: I understand and respect that lots of people don't like it, but we should behave like adults and not insult designers for this or that. Lego is just a hobby, let's not take things so seriously. We are not forced to buy it, so, If you don like it, don't buy it.

The only bummer for me is the bump on the price. I think €200 it's too much. 

[LegoModularFan]

15 hours ago, paupadros said:

I was thinking about what Jamie said to a recent HispaBrick interview. He said something along the lines of: "We often go for houses that are recognisable or that the fans can relate to", when asked about a building in Art Nouveau style.

I'd really appreciate having more information about this, do you know in which edition and which page it was? I've searched a bit about and only found this in the 31st edition:

Quote

HBM: Have you ever noticed modernist buildings of architects like Gaudí? If so, are they too curved to be reproduced with LEGO® bricks?

JB: It’s a wonderful style that is very difficult to capture well in LEGO®. Even in person you have to be there in some ways to appreciate and see it and enjoy it, and with our limitations of the bricks it could potentially just look messy. That is even a challenge we have making ‘normal’ buildings: pull back on the details, hold back to allow something to work. It can get very dense and your eyes can get lost. My fear is that this is a particularly difficult style of architecture and I’m trying to think of a scale that would allow it to work well, but it is a good challenge. Have you seen any version that people have built that worked well?

HBM: Just one, and it was OK, depending on the perspective.

JB: Yes, and that’s it. Sometimes you see a photo when you look online designed for one nice shot. I remember seeing a couple of things in the past, years ago, on The Brothers Brick. There was another one where they had a beautiful black and white creepy house and it was just wonderfully crafted. And when you first see it you think it is minifigure scale, because that is how we all think. Then I started looking at the details and saw it was much taller. Later on, I saw some images of the side and realised it was totally built just for that image. If you turned the camera half a degree you would have seen all the blind spots. I was really impressed when I first saw it, but if you are really just building for a photo, and you sneeze and it falls apart… then I lost a lot of that initial excitement.

And I guess the beautiful black and white creepy house Jamie's referring to is one of Mike Doyle's buildings:

TwoStory with Basement by Mike Doyle, on Flickr

Three Story Victorian with Tree by Mike Doyle, on Flickr

Lego: Victorian on Mud Heap by Mike Doyle, on Flickr

4 hours ago, CopperTablet said:

It's ridiculous to compare this to Paupadros's MOCs.  Pau is not only arguably the best Modular builder on the planet, but they also have access to every element ever made on Bricklink, while the official Lego designers have to use parts that Lego has decided to produce for 2019.  Pau also does not have to operate at a profit.

Nobody said that @paupadros was the best modular MOCer...   There are so many great builders that it's quite difficult to become one. I was comparing it with the CG as it's the only modular I can remember of with a similar shape. Also there are already so many great/useful parts that Lego already produces so I personally think that it would have been possible to make this modular better... 

 

Edited December 5, 2018 by LegoModularFan

[Anonknee Muss]

On 12/3/2018 at 6:03 PM, ncx said:

This pricing has nothing to do with the rollercoaster... the coaster was justified due to its special track elements, as is with train sets. they are much larger pieces.

saying that its everyone's fault for buying the coaster and not forcing Lego to drop the price due to backlash, is a ridiculous statement.  

I couldn’t agree more! Over 4000 pieces for £300ish (can’t remember the exact price) is decent, that’s less than 10 pence per piece which one of the factors I look for in sets, if it contains very very big pieces obviously I take this in to consideration.

On 12/3/2018 at 6:03 PM, ncx said:

  pretty hard to not question your sig when it blended in with your statement I was commenting on, do you always say the same thing? "Really?"

What do you mean?

[Darnok]

I took some time to think about this one, and I doubt I can add much to the discussion, but I want to give my opinion on this nonetheless.

I will judge the Corner Garage (CG) mostly on its own, trying to compare it as little as possible to other Modulars. For reference: in Germany this sets standard price is 180€. All of the following is of course my personal opinion.

 

The Good

• Overall outside look. To me it looks great from some distance, and integrates perfectly into a setup with the previous Modulars. Assume you stand some feet away from it - from that perspective I really like its appearance. The contrast between the ground floor and the upper levels in terms of colour and style is good. Speaking of colours:
• "Factory style". The first and second floor look amazing. No in-your-face feature, just believable and realistic architectural features. The dark orange and light sand blue work perfectly with this.
• The garages exterior. Again, this looks pretty good. Some mechanics shop adds a lot for a "Modular town", and on top of that it looks lovely all around.
• Minifigs. Just a great variety of characters, genders and looks. And five different animals! My absolute favourite is the female mechanic.
• Open space to work with. While I do not like the interior (see below), it gives a lot of space to modify the build. I already have many ideas what to do with the interior, and the set provides a great start.

 

The Bad

• Close-up look. Others have brought it up many times: the gaps between the wall section looks ugly and unfinished. Stuff like that is acceptable in a City set or for a private MOC, but not something in the Creator Expert range. This does not look as bad from some distance (see above), but it is still a huge downside of this Modular.
• "Open" interiors. Why is there no wall between the stairs and the garage? Why is there no door in front of the appartment? Why is the ground floor open sand? Why is the appartment so minimalistically furnished? Why is there so little going on on the huge open roof? All of this just looks unfinished to me, as if it was not really thought through. To me it feels like the whole thing was close to production when somebody noticed "oops, we still need somethign going on in the inside". A rushed job at best, and not appropriate for the Modular line.
• That car. I think cars have no place in the Modular line, not at all. There are so many options for cars in other Lego lines, why waste space and parts for them here? And while a truck like this can be part of a garage, it is not necessary for it. Those parts could have been used for a proper interior on all levels, or more details on the outside. The way it is, I consider this car a wasted opportunity.
• Veterinarian. This is complaining on a high level, but the vet's office looks rushed to me, as if the contents of a small play set or polybag were thrown into an otherwise empty room at the last minute. The huge sign on the front window is also completely wasted due to the garage sign and glass roof directly in front of it. Why somebody chose this arrangement is completely beyond me.

 

The Ugly

• The price. There is no way around it, the price of CG is just way off. Should Modulars be forever sit in the 150€ bracket, with all the restrictions this would bring (parts count etc.). Of course not. A price rise over time is normal. What makes this one difficult to swallow for me is the severity - 30€ in one go, or +20% - combined with the fact that this Modular does not offer substantially more in comparison to previous ones. The part count went up only minimally (100 over PR, 89 over DD, both at 150€), and the build itself is not more complex or offers anything spectacular. Given that I think the price is not acceptable, and I will not buy this one - at standard price. There will come a time it will be sold at discounts, and I can wait...

 

Summary

This one is a mixed bag for sure. There are things I like a lot, and there are many elements I dislike. To me the biggest downer is the price in comparison with all the things I would like to change: that makes the price even less acceptable, since I have that nagging thought of "should this not be the way I want it already at this price?"

As a model standing on its own I still consider the Corner Garage okay, and a solid addition to the Modular line. Not good, but not bad either. I will buy (and modify) it one day, just not right away - and definitely not at the price Lego is asking!

[LegoModularFan]

On 12/3/2018 at 6:52 PM, Lyichir said:

At this point I really shouldn't be surprised by how much negativity surrounds this set (since AFOLs always find something to complain about), but nevertheless it still stuns me. This is an amazing building that has a completely novel look compared to previous corner buildings and implements all sorts of awesome new techniques (especially the angled facade using the new rounded 1x2 plate), yet once more I've seen people insulting the designers' skill or saying it looks like the almost universally simpler Creator 3-in-1 sets.

Whatever... I'll enjoy it.

I've already responded to this (see below) but I have something to add to my response.

On 12/3/2018 at 7:18 PM, LegoModularFan said:

First of all, I would like to say that I respect your opinion. I couldn't read all the comments but personally, I'm not a big fan. I'm personally not trying to insult designer's skills (I'm not defending myself by the way), the Lego designers are always the most skilled and talented so the greatest MOCers, what saddens me is to see that they have too many limits when working on an official Lego product which doesn't let use designer's real talents and skills. I'm sorry to say but this is my least favorite official modular to date. I respect your opinion though, not everyone have the same tastes...

First of all, I would like to say that I'm not trying to prove you wrong. I only wanted to share an example of what I'm speaking about.

Here are two Garage MOCs made by two actual official Lego designers:

General Store by César Soares

General Store by César Soares, on Flickr

Of Rust and Gasoline by Markus Rollbühler

Of Rust and Gasoline by Markus  Rollbühler, on Flickr

And now the Corner Garage modular:

Obviously, they can't make such incredible models as official sets as these MOCs have way too many illegal techniques but I guess something looking a bit nicer than the CG was possible... 

Edited December 5, 2018 by LegoModularFan

[Comon27]

25 minutes ago, Drunknok said:

Summary

This one is a mixed bag for sure. There are things I like a lot, and there are many elements I dislike. To me the biggest downer is the price in comparison with all the things I would like to change: that makes the price even less acceptable, since I have that nagging thought of "should this not be the way I want it already at this price?"

As a model standing on its own I still consider the Corner Garage okay, and a solid addition to the Modular line. Not good, but not bad either. I will buy (and modify) it one day, just not right away - and definitely not at the price Lego is asking!

Really nice overview of your opinion. I'll also try and get this on a discount sale or 2nd hand new. I just hope I won't have to wait 6 months for this to happen : )

[Darnok]

21 minutes ago, Comon27 said:

Really nice overview of your opinion.

Thank you.

 

21 minutes ago, Comon27 said:

I'll also try and get this on a discount sale or 2nd hand new. I just hope I won't have to wait 6 months for this to happen : )

If I remember correctly, DD was on sale last year near Easter, so you might be lucky. The CE line being kind of exclusive  means it will take some time before you see "big" discounts. The time around Black Friday (i.e. late November) is your best bet, so quite a bit in the future for now.

[Comon27]

Just now, Drunknok said:

If I remember correctly, DD was on sale last year near Easter, so you might be lucky. The CE line being kind of exclusive  means it will take some time before you see "big" discounts. The time around Black Friday (i.e. late November) is your best bet, so quite a bit in the future for now.

Yes, you're right. Fingers crossed, they do a double VIP in easter. 
In the meantime, I'll have to start prepping my city for it : )

J

[Marinho]

I like it. Could be better in some aspects, but I think overall the design is nice, and it will fit good with the other modulars. Only think I quite don't agree, is with the price.

[paupadros]

18 hours ago, Lyichir said:

See, this kind of thing is just a shitty thing to say, regardless of who designed the set. If you wouldn't tell the designer that to their face, maybe second guess whether it's an okay thing to say about them without even knowing who they are.

Maybe shitty thing to say, but I've been told in EB that one of my modulars looked like "dog's breakfast". I would listen to what they have to say about their creation and say what I would've done instad. In fact, if that person hadn't been harsh on me for one of my models (Old Ben's Gallery, by the way), I would've never built Sweets & Co. at all. Definitely not an appropriate thing to say, but a necessary one to improve design.

 

8 hours ago, CopperTablet said:

The response isn't overwhelmingly negative.  It's mixed.  It seems to be about 60% positive, as far as I can tell.    But, people are more likely to post and complain about something if they dislike it than if they like it.

It's ridiculous to compare this to Paupadros's MOCs.  Pau is not only arguably the best Modular builder on the planet, but they also have access to every element ever made on Bricklink, while the official Lego designers have to use parts that Lego has decided to produce for 2019. Pau also does not have to operate at a profit.

Indeed. I'm probably not the best modular builder on this planet (as some of my models don't even follow the modular rules strictly) and I don't have to constantly be checking whether a certain piece in a certain colour already exists and don't have a time limit either, but I believe something a bit better could've been done. It's very interesting to read some of the comments as one of my favourite bits (the garage's ground floor) is the one some people dislike.

I don't think designers are forced to use new pieces made for that year. Yes, it's the flagship set of the year, but wouldn't they have used a ton of Vibrant Coral if so?

 

Just out of curiosity, almost all of the pieces from the top floors of my model have been made in those colours.