Details: This beautiful gingerbread house is chock-full of an overwhelming amount of candy-coated details. It looks like the house is dark orange underneath the thick coat of candy, but that almost doesn't matter with all the other goodies packed in here. There's only three photos here, but they're clear enough to zoom in and get a good look. Some of the highlights: a mix of 1 x 1 and 1 x 2 plates with teeth to create icing-style cornice work, 2 x 2 tiles as Necco wafer-style roofing (I suppose they could be intended as a different candy, but it's definitely a great roof), swirl signal paddles on 1 x 1 round bricks and 1 x 1 round plates with open studs to decorate the railing posts, stacked 1 x 1 round bricks to make candy-canelesenes, curved slopes for the icing snowbank, the standard 1 x 1 round plates as small candy trick, various reddish brown and dark brown tiles to make the chocolate bar door, and hypno disks and another printed 4 x 4 dish to represent swirl candies. Perhaps the best technique, though, is using trans-yellow bricks behind the windows to give the glass a sugary look when the building is lit up from the inside (visible in the second photo).
There are even a few details here that are not immediately obvious in how they were built. Note how several flowers are sunken into the model so their stems don't pop out at you - these must be attached to something deeper inside the model. Then there are the 2 x 2 plates seemingly attached to fences - presumably there's a Technic axle behind those 1 x 1 plates connecting the 2 x 2 plates to something behind the fence.
Details: In a bit of a retro/deco-ish feel, this pair of Cafe Corner-standard buildings gives us something we don't see enough in this modular style. It's easy to get wrapped up in the time period that we see in the official sets, but these feel a bit more 1950's or 1960's. Many of the techniques used are what you'd expect (the cinema in particular seems to borrow a bit from set 10184 Town Plan), but there are some great surprises. Plates with rails give the diner a surprisingly convincing impression of texture. The mix of three different styles of mosaic-based lettering gives a realistic feel, breaking up the impression that you're looking at something whipped up based on one person's preferences - the combination of blocky letters for the "Galaxy" sign and curvy letters on the "Empire" sign is a brilliant touch.
Details: You may have noticed the odd pacing of posts these past few days. We are at BrickMagic, and earlier today (erm, yesterday now) were present during the official unveiling of 10218 Pet Shop. I've been slowly uploading my photos of the event (including 10218 and a few great town and train layouts) to BrickMagic 2011 flickr set, and we'll probably put more of a round-up together sometime in the next few days. The high-res press photo pack has also been put on flickr. Here's the official info from LEGO:
10218 Pet Shop
Ages 16+. 2,032 pieces.
US $149.99 CA $199.99 DE 149.99 € UK 119.99 £
Available: Beginning of May
Continuing the LEGO® Modular Buildings series, this highly detailed, 3-story Pet Shop building and townhouse with full internal and external detailing is the perfect addition to your LEGO town. Greet customers with a menagerie of pets and let them treat them with a selection of toys and supplies. The pet shop building features a hinged staircase for easy access, upper apartment with kitchenette and upper loft overlooking the open plan interior below. To the side, the tastefully appointed townhouse features a detailed ground floor with accessories and spiral staircase leading to the upper floor. The attic space features storage boxes and French doors leading out to an elegant front balcony, while the rooftop garden, complete with fresh vegetables, brightens up the rear of the building.
• Includes 4 minifigures with accessories: pet shop owner, girl on bicycle, painter with paint roller and woman!
• Pet shop includes dog, cat, 2 parrots and fish tank with goldfish!
• Also includes 3 dog bones, ball, frog toy, birdhouse, bucket and brush!
• Kitchenette features stone fireplace, stove, sink, coffee maker and small table and chair!
• Upper loft features skylight, bed and lamp!
• Townhouse features ground floor with mailbox and mail, hat rack, couch, telephone, toilet and access to basement crawl space!
• Measures 11″ (25.5cm) wide and 10.5″ (26.5cm) high!
• Combine with other modular buildings, like 10197 Fire Brigade and 10211 Grand Emporium!
Details: We've touched on this design before, back when instructions were made available for it. Originally, it only existed in that digital form, but now one has been made of real bricks. A few minor modifications had been made (forcing a few parts into a dark green color, making some structural improvements), but otherwise the design is still the same. What makes it so special is that this model is being auctioned off on eBay as part of Creations for Charity, which is currently raising money for relief efforts in Japan.
Details: I've previously covered half-size versions of the Fire Brigade and Cafe Corner, but now two new installments have been added to the series: the Green Grocer and the Grand Emporium. Both do a stunning job of capturing the look and feel of the original.
The interesting thing about going for half-size instead of just a generic "microscale", is that there's actually a scale factor involved to dictate what some parts should be. In both of these, you can see how 2x2 tiles on the sidewalk become 1x1 tiles to create the same mosaic-style patterns. A pair of skeleton legs on the grocer becomes one 1x1 tile with a clip on top. Doors and windows can be tricky, since LEGO hasn't made windows in some of these sizes. You're still required to fill some details in in an impressionistic manner, but not everyone can pull that off and still have things end up looking fairly accurate.
Yes, we're sneaking in a double-header again - these are Tuesday and Wednesday's models of the day.
Details:
Since we're still behind from my hand injury earlier this month (I'm fine now, by the way), I am going to copy what I just posted over at Brick Town Talk and count it as two of the missing days (I, for one, cannot wait to get back to my regular calendar). Brick Town Talk is the definitive place for news and inspiration related to the Cafe Corner-type kits and other models inspired by them. There's recently been a slight change of management, but the site is still growing the same way it has been these past few years. One improvement casual builders will enjoy is the new URL - BTT is now at http://www.brick-town-talk.com/ ! Other new features include the "inspiration of the day" (a photo of a building that could translate well into LEGO form) and the building tips page (which describes the Cafe Corner modular building standard).
Details: This model (not related to the great recent set) is based on Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter books (more specifically, it's Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes). Just to kick things up a notch from the open-back nature of the Harry Potter kits, this rendition actually conforms to the Cafe Corner standard. The bold, rare colors are the first thing to catch your eye, but they're not even the most outrageous over-the-top feature - that would have to be the tipping of that hat.
The cleverly brick-built windows and the sidewalk mosaic make this stand out even more. Those great round dark orange protruded windows are also accurate to the version in the movies.
Oh, and about those rare colors - guess who figured out how much further you can go with them when you use DUPLO? This underused technique was able to keep the part count here unusually low - exactly 1,000 pieces were used.
Details: Recently, LEGO set designer and frequentlyfeaturedbuilder Marcos Bessa has made available for free download the LEGO Digital Designer (LDD) files (useful as building instructions) for five of his models. Two of these models have previously been featured here as a model of the day, and all of them were built before he was brought into the LEGO company. Several of these models can be found in the portfolio used when he applied to join the company. Here are the links to the page for information for each model (each page includes information on the model, a link to photos on flickr, and a link to download the LDD file - along with a brief note regarding reuse of these designs):
Details: Two of my favorite LEGO sets from the past few years are the Fire Brigade and Cafe Corner. Naturally, I love the little versions as well. These are at half the scale of the originals, fitting on 16 x 16 (or 5 inches square) baseplates instead of 32 x 32 (or 10 inches square). Considering how much has to be sacrificed due to size, it's amazing how many of the original techniques still work and how much of the original look still shows through.
The Fire Brigade model was only built recently, and is based on the older miniature Little Café Corner model, which was first built in January 2009. In the time since, the builder has since been brought on as a set designer for the LEGO company.
Naturally, I think we all want to see the full set together. Apparently a miniature version of the Green Grocer is already in the works - do we have any volunteers for Market Street or the Grand Emporium?
Details:
Usually, when I see a model inspired by the Cafe Corner set or following the modular build standard established by that kit, I write about it at Brick Town Talk instead of here (if it hasn't been blogged there already). As I was prepping a post about this model for BTT earlier, more details started to stick out to me - enough to make me realize I should feature it here as well. While this isn't quite a reproduction of the original building that inspired it (shown above right), this conjures up all the right details from the original and fits it into a layout-ready 24 studs (sure, 16- and 32-stud measurements are more common, but it's easy to fit in any multiple of 8 studs as a building width). The gargoyle-esque bits on either side of the top window are Bionicle krana in white. I don't believe we've ever seen them used in a model for minifigs before. Above that same window, we also see a ball joint element and a tooth with axle hole used as architectural details. Spires are made from 1x6 curved slopes, and border detailing makes use of many 2 x 2 curved slope pieces. All those clever bits come in before you even get to the gorgeous detailing at the windows!
Details: There aren't enough people willing to try making mosaics for minifig-scale creations. This model goes a ways towards fixing that - there are mosaics in brick-built (sidways) floors, and on the inner and outer walls. I don't think I've seen a minifig-scale bowling alley before, but this one will be tough to beat. The roof is removable - tiles were used to make that lift off the same way the "modular building" sets have their floors lift up. This is perfectly in scale for those buildings too!
Details: Premiered at this year's Arte em Peças event, this gorgeous show-stopper is actually in scale with the Cafe Corner and ready for minifigures. It's not truly to the Cafe Corner standard, though, since the back is wide open. Of course, if the back wasn't open, we wouldn't be able to see the fantastic interior work. Highlights include leathery couches, mosaic floor patterns, a pair of grand spiral staircases, a variety of minifigures on display, detailed curtains built upside-down (in dark red!), and ornate window decorations on the outside. You'll need to use the "View All Sizes" feature on flickr to zoom in and see the original photo size in order to see some of the details.
Details: Recently featured on Brick Town Talk (which you should be reading in addition to this blog anyway), this Burberry store stands out as a high-water mark amongst recent highlights in the Cafe Corner standard of modular building (I post those highlights over at Brick Town Talk instead of here at LMOTD, but I did feature another model by the same builder this past March). Some of my favorite bits here: The Grand Emporium's awning technique recast in gold using parts from the Battle of Alamut, the use of a wheel and a dish for a unique gold-ish flourish at the top, and a group of bracket-plate-tile testures on the second floor (this actually adds up to the width of a normal brick and gives you that vertical stripe effect). I'm also a big fan of the studs that face toward the front of the building - the added texture looks great, and it's a feature that tile-crazed LEGO fans tend to forget actually looks pretty good in many contexts.
Details: At one point, there was a rumor that the next Cafe Corner style set would be sand blue. It's a shame that we didn't get a new kit in that color, but this model would be hard to top even if Jamie Berard (the designer of Cafe Corner, Green Grocer, and Grand Emporium) did pursue that color in an official set. While this whole model is fantastic, some highlights include the horse statue, the clothing racks, and the stunning architecture. The corner in particular is an interesting trick - instead of putting a full edge on the building with an angled doorway and windows, we get a column that just rounds things off. I'm pretty sure the texture there is achieved by use of click hinge bricks facing opposite directions. Corrected by a reader Wednesday morning: This effect is built sideways in two different directions - those tiles are actually attached to 1x2 slopes, and we're seeing the sloped surface face outward. A clever and very easy solution!
Official information about the new Grand Emporium kit (which had briefly appeared on the Shop at Home website without any real announcement last week) has been scarce. International prices are still hard to pin down, and we still have no idea when the official release dates are. Strangely, though, in spite of the lack of information or fanfare (don't they know how excited we are about this kit?) the kit has surfaced for sale at LEGO Brand Retail locations in the UK. Brick Street over at Brick Town Talk was able to buy the kit at the Milton Keynes location for £139.99. He's been building the kit and reviewing it online as he builds it. There are tons of interesting details just in the box art he posted, and the pictures of the set's insides are even better! My search for 10211 (the Grand Emporium's set number) seems to be the best way to pull up all of the review posts at once.
Details: In the book and movie of To Kill A Mockingbird, most of the action takes place inside of the Monroe Country Courthouse. Here it is, rendered in LEGO form, roughly Cafe Corner scale with an open back corner so we can look inside. The gothic structure includes an interesting rotunda and dome on the roof. Don't miss the angle work either. A clever design (built on commission) coincidentally perfectly timed for Black History Month here in the USA.
Details: I know I've blogged many models based on the Cafe Corner kit before (I'm also a contributor at Brick Town Talk, where we've previously featured today'smodels). These are different because they're actually really small - just 5/8ths the size of standard LEGO bricks. They are built with Modulex bricks, which the LEGO company manufactured for use in architectural models (they were not sold in venues where LEGO bricks are generally available). Building with Modulex is an interesting challenge - the part selection is radically different from what's available with standard parts, and even the colors aren't standard LEGO colors (although some of them are quite similar). In spite of all that, Brixe63 was able to successfully render these two popular LEGO kits (Market Street and Cafe Corner, both recently discontinued) in Modulex form.
Details: I like to focus on some pretty clever techniques here, but sometimes you can build a very detailed and pleasing little model without getting too fancy. This one still features some nice tricks ("headlight" bricks to use tiles as a realistic brick texture, pairs of round 1x1 plates stuck with string in the middle to make lights, rows of parts used to get architectural details, wheel well elements as window arches, etc.) but is largely built with standard bricks, standing up straight in a simple and elegant pattern. The scale is perfect, too - the house is the right dimensions to fit with "modular buildings" like Cafe Corner and Green Grocer, but the dark red section only goes up to a more classic town height of 7 bricks tall. The remaining three bricks' height before the roofline is done with various architectural details.
Details: Here's another minifig-scale town masterpiece. It's suburban, but still in the Cafe Corner standard. The column capitals are spectacular, and the textures for the trim and roof look even better. Then there's the inside - the library is actually fully furnished with bookshelves!
Browsing through Brickshelf today, I found some photographs of an event that took place in Switzerland. While I really don't have much to say about this at all, I do suggest you take a look at some of the other photos from this event.
They've [people who put this show on] got some great ideas that could add to any persons layout or creation.
This beautiful gingerbread house is chock-full of an overwhelming amount of candy-coated details. It looks like the house is dark orange underneath the thick coat of candy, but that almost doesn't matter with all the other goodies packed in here. There's only three photos here, but they're clear enough to zoom in and get a good look. Some of the highlights: a mix of 1 x 1 and 1 x 2 plates with teeth to create icing-style cornice work, 2 x 2 tiles as Necco wafer-style roofing (I suppose they could be intended as a different candy, but it's definitely a great roof), swirl signal paddles on 1 x 1 round bricks and 1 x 1 round plates with open studs to decorate the railing posts, stacked 1 x 1 round bricks to make candy-cane lesenes, curved slopes for the icing snowbank, the standard 1 x 1 round plates as small candy trick, various reddish brown and dark brown tiles to make the chocolate bar door, and hypno disks and another printed 4 x 4 dish to represent swirl candies. Perhaps the best technique, though, is using trans-yellow bricks behind the windows to give the glass a sugary look when the building is lit up from the inside (visible in the second photo).
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. Naturally, I love the little versions as well. These are at half the scale of the originals, fitting on 16 x 16 (or 5 inches square) baseplates instead of 32 x 32 (or 10 inches square). Considering how much has to be sacrificed due to size, it's amazing how many of the original techniques still work and how much of the original look still shows through.
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