My city story

[alex54]

Layout

So it's time for me to post somefew pics of my future layout.

Anything is really finished, I have changed some things here and there, and I know that I will do it again... But I want to progress in my layout too, Iv'e got so many things to do in it! (like interiors...)

Here some pics of piece of steet. Just note that there are missing all the street details, like lamp and minifigs, of course!

And here some closer view on few modified buildings.

The townhall is taller than before and the outside straires are more imposing :

I've made some modification to my "art nouveau" house, because I wasn't sohappy with the wite column. So I decides to put them of. I rewoerd on the stairtoo and try to make the rail looking more vegetal :

And finally, some quick shots from my modified versions of the cinema and the green grocery :

Of course, those last pics don't show all the secret of those version. I will show you latter...

[Minifig Lecturer]

I like the revised Town Hall. Looks more imposing. Nice improvement.

[Holodoc]

I always love to see new pictures of your beautiful city.

I went through the whole topic. I just realized it started when I wasn´t a member of Eurobricks.

Aaah, nice story you and Hobbes ( ) were/are telling.

The evolution is really remarkable.

I wonder that I didn´t reply so far.

Now here we go:

Your ability to downsize larger scale buildings is extraordinary!

You clearly deserve a new title "Downsizer" or something similar.

Concearning CC, MS and the cinema it´s not easy to build something similar to another house being restricted in the colours and bricks you can use (rather than building somethin completely new), but everything worked out fine!

It all fits so nicely together. The colours used, different styles of houses - I especially like the "art nuoveau"-house, it´s unique and your little modifications made it even better! .

I´m not sure about your Harry Potter MOC It´s too big compared to the other buildings. That counts for the two towers especially. What does it represent? If it´s a castle I recommend to have it seperated from the other houses, it deserves more space around it. Or ist it a gate?

I would have expected a small clock at the townhall, maybe in the top part of the front instead of the lattice?

Otherwise I propose a clock tower standing on its own.

Finally there are people missing!

It´s always a pleasure to see your creations. Thank you very much for sharing!

Small ON!

[alex54]

I like the revised Town Hall. Looks more imposing. Nice improvement.

Thanks, it's exactly what I wanted!

I always love to see new pictures of your beautiful city.

Your ability to downsize larger scale buildings is extraordinary!

You clearly deserve a new title "Downsizer" or something similar.

Thanks a lot!

I especially like the "art nuoveau"-house, it´s unique and your little modifications made it even better! .

I really want to make it beautifull, because it's the kind of houses that you find where I leave.

My "HP moc" is not an HP one!

It's not a castle, it's an old prison, it's the Craft Door.

Here a pic of the real thing :

As you can see, it stands around regular town houses. So for me it's not so strange...

I've made the arch bigger to permit some cars to pass through it, like in real. But the proportion are not exactly the same, it's the way we have to go with the LEGO bricks!

If this moc seems not to be seen at its place from Eurobrickers point of view, it doesn't shock the few people who has seen it in my room... It's because they know it in real too! It's a local monument that I would like to keep in my layout...

I would have expected a small clock at the townhall, maybe in the top part of the front instead of the lattice?

Otherwise I propose a clock tower standing on its own.

I have thought of that clock story too, and I don't have take any decision right now. But I think that I will prefer to put the clock in the top part of the front of the townhall, instead of a proper clock tower. Dunno why...

Finally there are people missing!

I will try to put some minifigs in the next pics, evenif it will not be my final layout.... It will looks more alive...

It´s always a pleasure to see your creations. Thank you very much for sharing!

And it's always a pleasure to have some constructive remarques, and the vision of other members from our mocs. That permit to see the bad things and to modify them!

And you have given me the desire to make a new post office... I have started to work on it this afternoon...

[Jipay]

Nice town. Can't wait to see it in the new MOC appartment of yours

Damn, they don't know the porte de la craft. Everyone knows what it is ! OK mainly people living here, but hey...

It's an old prison / torture chamber, you can actually visit it and see all the nice tools they used in order to make the heretics tell their abject atrocities. Or maybe it was innocents unjustifily killed

[Asuka]

An impressive layout indeed with many simply wonderful and original buildings, well balanced in size and color scheme. Beautiful!

[Holodoc]

It's an old prison / torture chamber, ...

Too bad the challenge is over, you could have used this one for your entry.

[Marko]

I loved your story, specially giving the evolution path . My favorite was 2006 layout. Unfortunately I do not like so much your new CC era creations as they anyway tend to move away from original 80s spirit though you have tried to avoid it. Thank you for the good work and your 2006 style will have some influences in my future creations. I am planning to play with colors (light yellow, bright pink, etc) to create something Med style atmosphere but still to stick to the playability and open architecture.

[Eilif]

Glad to see this topic brought back up. I missed it previously. I'm very impressed with the balance you have achieved between the Classic town style, which I feel is too small for significant architectural detailing, and CC style, which is a bit larger than I have space or funds to build a whole town out of.

I have been trying for a similar balance in "Brickington" but you're buildings are much nicer, and quite inspirational. I'll be curious to see the next installment.

[alex54]

Layout, B-OM-10A to B-OM-10E

So, it’s time to me to post some pics about my (always under construction) layout, or rather some pics about my mocs.

There are nothing really new here, but I have made some modification on all my houses.

When I have built my smaller version of CC some years ago now, there were a 7 studs free area behind the houses, as you can see here :

But I dislike it, making the back not well finished and no closed, even if my buildings are opened back.

And this position on the baseplate just let me around 6 studs (the 6 of the roadplates) to put some street live (streetlight, benches, and other flowers) which seem too few.

So, I decided to translate my building on the edge of the baseplate. I decided to make the 2 studs larger to have a bigger inside space for the future “furnitured” interiors.

The adaptation of my two cornered buildings take me more time than the other, and I had to take some decision about their size and proportion. In fact, I need to respect some modular criteria : the corner module has to be made on a L 32x32 studs.

And now, I need to find some inspiration for my CC neighbour.

I have also made some effort in the way to build the inside structure, which is visible in an open back style. And I try to make them as strong as possible (we can see some very nice creation on BS and elsewhere, but the way the bricks are put together is, sometime, really fragile).

My town hall. I’m not quite happy with the entrance section, I need to work on it…

My new proportioned bank corner. I have put some playability in it with a safe…But don’t say a word about it, there are so many bad guys in LEGO city… (and policemen too!).

Some two downtown houses

My smaller GG

And my lonely smaller CC

The second step of my work is the pavement.

I realise that I prefer studless steets, so I decided to put some tiles everywhere (I need a lot of dark bley tiles now! What at good idea!).

I don’t like that much the 2x2 pavement that we can find in LEGO sets (CC, MS, GG…).

The look of this pavement is too regular and too strict for me.

So I have search how to have a more chaotic pavement staying in a module…

After some mathematical reflexions, I came up with the idea of making a 4 stud wide ground.

For a more random aspect I used some 1x1, 1x2 and 2x2 tiles.

The module was here :

After that, I just had to apply it on my roadplates : one ground up, one down, one up, one down… to give a more random aspect.

And tada!

I have to admit that I’m very pleased with it!

Now, I just hope to find some tiles in a PaB (At last, I have seen them in the factory selection…)

I’ve got a lot of work yet to finish this damned layout…

And the 80-90’s feeling seems to be behind me now...

[mikey]

A great attempt to morph the two building styles together, the fronts of your buildings look brilliant. I have been trying to do this (open backed, but highly detailed buiding), but without much success yet!

Your pavement with a veriety of tile sizes looks superb, a lot better than using all the same size, very realistic.

[Freddie]

Gotta love the pavement! The chaotic style looks way better than the 2 x 2 tiled style, which often has to the broken up with colours to not become too boring. For the corners you can have a small, triangular public garden to fill in the gap between the pavement and the road. It'll break up nicely, and will make the city appear more livable.

But, for the interior for some of those residential buildings, maybe you should have curtains in the windows or something - it'll look way better from the front and the building won't look abandoned. Well, for those without interiors to begin with, that is.

Otherwise, the city is looking fine.

[Minifig Lecturer]

Yes, I agree, the pavement is very nice. Like the bank and ATM too, neat little feature Alex.

[alex54]

B-RM-4C

Gotta love the pavement! The chaotic style looks way better than the 2 x 2 tiled style, which often has to the broken up with colours to not become too boring. For the corners you can have a small, triangular public garden to fill in the gap between the pavement and the road. It'll break up nicely, and will make the city appear more livable.

But, for the interior for some of those residential buildings, maybe you should have curtains in the windows or something - it'll look way better from the front and the building won't look abandoned. Well, for those without interiors to begin with, that is.

Otherwise, the city is looking fine.

Thanks for your comment!

For the corners, I've planed to put some plants grass flowers and trees, with fences.

And for the interiors, I've got a lot of work too!

I know that those pictures look abandoned, like a gosth town, but it's just to show that I'm still working on it, and they don't show the final result that I want to finally share... Need more time!

So, in the same spirit, I'm working on a small, but hard to build, corner house.

Contrary to the Café Corner, my projet is harder to build because I don't have that much place to make it. It has to feet on a 1-x16 baseplate and be insered in a corner of my "city place".

I have starting with this :

but I need some tips or better, somepics from real similar building in terms of integration. I have never really see thopse kind of building, or I cant' remember me them...

And Google is not that much your friend for thise kind of special research when you don't really know what to ask for...

[Klaus-Dieter]

That's a very huge and awesome City layout, alex54!

I really it!

There are a lot of great official sets included of different decades which look really beautiful!

Although I'm really no fan of mixing official sets with MOCs I must say that your MOCs fit well with the official sets and the interior of them - mainly of the newer ones - is really beautiful.

Very well done!

Klaus-Dieter

[Tyleraf]

Would you post some more pics of that corner building.

[Tom Bricks]

This is great. I love how you are making the modular houses open backed. I thought about doing this but I decided to make my classic buildings closed backed instead. I love that sidewalk pattern too. Looks great and I can't wait to see it with minifigs.

[Teddy]

I'm impressed with the downsizing.

The pavement pattern is shere brilliance.

I also like the little kid playing on the Wii.

You could make a Nintendo game screen cap sticker for on the tv.

Edited June 20, 2009 by Teddy

[Wout]

These houses are great.

Love the art-Nouveau/jugendstill house, the people in the back of the houses and your new houses.

Maybe they can ask you to design a new Cafe Corner like building.

[Holodoc]

Excellent - again!

Very inspiring. If I only had time...

[MarcusV3]

Wow just WOW! This has really inspired me to do some modular building of my own. I made 3 modular buildings within a week. They're nothing like CC though they don't have millions of details But I'm getting the CC buildings very soon so I wanted to make a bunch of buildings of my own. My building was more of quantity not quality But they where my first mocs Now I just need a camera Oh well great work I hope you keep on making these buildings and post some pictures

[alex54]

… Looks great and I can't wait to see it with minifigs.

Me too!

…I also like the little kid playing on the Wii.

You could make a Nintendo game screen cap sticker for on the tv.

Well it’s a good idea, but I’m not a great sticker maker, I don’t have the good paper nor the printer, so…

…Maybe they can ask you to design a new Cafe Corner like building.

Thanks, but there are so many better builder than me before !

Excellent - again!

Very inspiring. If I only had time...

Thanks Mr. Holodoc !

Time, dear time, why are you running so fast?

Would you post some more pics of that corner building.

Sorry, but no!

I’ve already destroyed it! I wasn’t happy with it.

I don’t know if I’m the only one, but when I build a MOC, I immediately know if I’m satisfied with it or no.

I mean, when I start to build something, when the MOC starts to look like something, I know if I will keep it built or if I will destroy it. In that case, I will wait more or less time, depending on my self conviction which told me “hey, you don’t have made a bad work, give this moc a chance to grow in you!”.

For my corner building, I didn’t take the time to finish it.

But I’ve already work on its successor.

Building the first and already dead version of my corner building, I realise a thing: I find less interested to build a whole house 100% conceived and imagined in my head.

Now, I prefer to look at some nice building around me or seeing on pictures to have some inspirations. I don’t pretend to build the LEGO version of those models, but I try to capture the feeling (proportions, style, particularities, nice details) of the original version. Sometimes it makes the building harder but more challenged.

This is the way I took for the second try of my corner building. It’s not finished yet, but I’m quite happy with it for now.

I will post some pics in time…

[prateek]

Well it’s a good idea, but I’m not a great sticker maker, I don’t have the good paper nor the printer, so…

just draw something on a piece of paper and put it on, thats what i do

[alex54]

Layout

So after a long time without being active on EB, I finally take the time to show you some pics of my always under construction of my layout.

As you can see since the last time, there are no big changes for the major parts of my houses :

- I have put my smaller market street next to my smaller CC.

- I wasn’t pleased with the small area next to my smaller GG. It makes a “hole” between houses. So I decided to make a thin house. For it, I used the architecture of a building near my home (sometime, we don’t need to go too far away to find some inspiration!).

- I have put antennas, chimneys and other things. And just those few little things add a lot and bring a touch of realism. Before, my roofs were too “perfect”, which look unrealistic.

- And finally, I have made it! I have built my corner building in a way I like! It takes its style from another local existing house.

So finally some pics :

Here a general view with my houses side by side.

It’s not my layout disposition, but it permit to show all of my modules in one shot.

Here the thin and modern house.

Here the corner house

Finally, a pic showing some roof details. You can also see two crows.

Now, I’m working on the inside of my buildings. I will need a lot of time to put some furniture and tile the floors and streets.

When they will be finished, I will present you each modules with some pics to show their evolutions and inspirations.

[prateek]

That's great. I love all the variety in your buildings