10218 Pet Shop official press release & pics

Via FBTB: 10218 Pet Shop Revealed (more pics in FBTB’s Flickr)

UPDATE: Here’s the video from The Brothers Brick:

10218 Pet Shop
Ages 16+. 2,032 pieces.
US $149.99 CA $199.99 DE 149.99 € UK 119.99 £

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!

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Japanese 8×8 Town

Since I can’t read japanese, the best I can guess is that these were created (?) during the “FLC(Fujiyama Lego Camp 2010)”.  LEGO camp?  The Japanese AFOLs met for a camp?  Anyway I thought the little town is very cute.  You can see more in this Brickshelf folder.

Source: legoblog via  LEGO Kei

Some MOCs I Like

NOTE: Added picture of ‘The LEGO Ideas Book’ out Aug’2011 thanks to killyrbf.  The cover looks fantastic. It’s a must get for me! (Love DK books) 😀

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Snowy Visage by Siercon and Coral

Dark Augusto Armageddon-class Mother Ship by jason corlett

B2 – KriegsLäufer by Fredoichi

Life-size Electric Guitar by tkh

St. Philip’s Chapel by LegoLord.

Hogwarts Castle (with Hogsmeade Station) by  Mr Offset 

Un-named Creation by zgrredek

Red Dojo by  ACPin – “In the early spring as the flowers bloom, the preparation for battle looms across the red dojo. Last minute rites are administered by the sensei amongst the most skilled pupils before they go to battle.”

Piano by  marshal banana

Conflict at Noordoostpolder Lock by  Johŋ

Some MOCs I Like

Awful lot of backlog from the past 2 weeks… so no time to sort by theme, I’ll just post them out whenever I’ve prepped up a batch.

(WIP) The Great Gate of Minas Tirith by Pate-keetongu 

The Fort as Isla D’Or by 2 Much Caffeine

“Feed ’em to the Sarlacc Fish!” is another nice creation by 2 Much Caffeine

Un-named Ship by EB Perfectionist

LEGO Restaurant Modular Building by BrickCityDepot

Beetles by Dr Mobius & Lino M 

(WIP) Lima Superpower by SavaTheAggie

1:13 Peterbilt 359 towing truck with old-style Holmes 750 machinery by Maciej D.  See the set description for more details

Etude in Water and Go West Young Fig by tsimon08 – there’s something incomplete about both creations, but I do like some of the flora n landscaping techniques employed and so I decided to feature them after some consideration. 

Riverside Fire Chief Pinewood Derby Edition 2 by V&A Steamworks

Free Download of Marcos Bessa’s Models

Update: I don’t know why, but I can’t link the pics to the websites.  So to be clear, you have to go to his blog to download the files (LINK HERE) and to Flickr to see the rest of his portfolio (LINK HERE)

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Remember Marcos Bessa? (Yep, he has become a LEGO Designer – read HERE).  The good news is that he has kindly put up his LDD files on his blog so you can now download for free his digital creations here from his blog.

I also just notice that Marcos shared his portfolio created in July 2010 for the LEGO Designer position.  Here’s a sample:

Nice huh? More in Marcos Bessa’s Flickr.

Some MOCs I Like

Decided to clear my backlog of MOCs to feature by starting with ‘contemporary’, since I found another 2 that I like today.  Both feature the use of custom decals that look good.  Kinda inspiring. 🙂

LEGO Newsstand by lgorlando – haven’t seen any new buildings from him for a while. Hope won’t have to wait too long for the next one!

Red Box DVD rental & Pepsi Vending Machine by tehLEGOman 

Volkswagen Kombi/Samba Van by Bruno Vaiano

Huis Ter Djik by Nieks G.

LEGO Carry Case by houghster on flickr is a Christmas present for his daughter.  It’s a really lovely present huh?  The best use of the carry case I’ve seen so far. 🙂

Fallingwater by Spencer_R, a microscale-version of architecture set 21005

New York Central M-497 by Aleksander Stein looks amazingly like the real thing.  Read more in his Flickr account.

Building A Toysrus in my Town

Long-time readers of my blog may remember that I’ve a tendency to do quite a lot of research before I start on any MOCs.  After (finally) building set 7848 Toys R Us City Truck, I decided it’s time to introduce a new toy store to my minifigs (even though I don’t have space to display it…).

To refresh your memory, 7848 looks like this: 

My peeves about this set?  The store is too small, too many stickers and the truck is too big.  I do like the miniature LEGO sets tho, as well as the idea of having a Toyr R Us in my town. 

Let’s have a look at some modular TRUs and modified TRU trucks that I wanna share again here.

Back in August 2010, I featured lgorlando‘s modular TRU (original post with more pics HERE):

And then in September 2010, I featured the ISUZU Toysrus truck by andybear@hk.

Brian Lyles recently posted his TRU corner building on MOC Pages (more interior pics there):

One more uncredited creation I found on Joystiq (if anyone knows by whom/from where, pls let me know):

But what does an actual TRU building look like?  Wasn’t sure what the latest ‘look’ for a new USA TRU stores is supposed to be.  Anyone from from USA can help?

Anyway there are loads of pics on the internet, but the one I settled on was for a largely blue building, yellow border around the automatic sliding doors, and the brand spelt in large words across the 2nd storey.  Some examples:

Why this particular look?  Well, I don’t have a blue building yet, so it adds colour to my town for one.  I also have quite a bit of blue bricks (white’s fairly depleted after a series of white buildings), and wanted to make sliding doors ever since I watched the instruction video on the LEGO website (from my previous post HERE). 

And my progress?  Well… I started this afternoon and the 1st level is mostly done I think… running into a bit of roadblock on the letterings (brick-built or print on stickers?) and lack of specific parts (since am still not ordering from BrickLink) and so I decided to take a break to blog. 

Suggestions or inspiration anyone?  Especially for a modified truck.  Anyone has instructions for smaller truck that looks like the ISUZU truck Andybear made?