My modular Winter Toy Shop

This post is in response to a request from an EB member who wanted a closer look at the modular winter toy shop in the street pic I posted in my modular corner cinema entry (Link  to post).

Actually, haven’t found a purpose for it yet, so not a toy shop (since there will be a TRU in my town 😉 ) and the interiors are not done up too. But 1st some background…

1st Version – Winter Toy Emporium

This is my first modular MOC, or rather, the 2nd incarnation of it.

My first originally looked like this, and actually came complete with interiors, winter landscaping and little scenes that I found amusing (I especially liked the last pic below). I named it ‘Winter Toy Emporium’ and worked on it around October 2009, just after the Winter Toy Shop (10199) was available. 

This took 2 sets of Winter Toy Shops and 2 sets of Harry Potter Shrieking Shack (4756):

2nd version – Unnamed White Building

Somehow, I found  the building lacking and besides I really didn’t have space to keep it displayed.

So still using the parts from the 2 Winter Toy Shops (10199), I decided on a mostly white themed building that still retained the stuff I loved in 10199 – the distinctive roof and the red and white awnings.  I also kept the chimney and fireplace. It also comes with a 3rd floor living quarters for the shop owner, and an attic storage area.

I think you’ll agree the 2nd version is a lot girlier… not sure if by conscious or unconscious design but I do like it that way – hey, whatever I can do to make my town more comfy for ladies k? 😛

I thought of making it a lingerie store, but I really didn’t have enought princess leia or mermaid torsos to make that happen. So the possibilities now are either a clothing store (ladies of course!) or a nice cafe, y’know, the kind where gals love to get their dose of desserts?  But it’s not gonna happen unless I get a huge order of Bricklink parts…

You may have noticed that it looks kinda lopsided? It’s something I struggled with but couldn’t fix without taking away the part I like most about the 10199 -the roof.  So my ‘solution’ is to put it next to a shorter building, like my cinema or Marketstreet… some new street views:

Update on 16 Aug: Realised I forgot that the white building works as a double storey building too. So a few quick snaps today, and in black and white background just for variety. 🙂

Lego City MOC and techniques

Came across a couple of MOC in the past 2 days that taught me new stuff I think I could apply in my own Lego town.

First, a hotel room interior by NewRight that at first glance I thought was a real room. Hey, it was a thumbnail view on Flickr k? 😛

Next, I like the pipes in this vignette of waste collector by Ezechielle from EB (link here).

I also like the idea of using the T-junction road plates for other purposes as Bachus, also from EB, has shared (link here). He even did a step-by-step to show how it’s done, so nice!

[Side complaint: I really can’t stand how TLG insists on packing straight plates with others – evil ploy to make us buy more??].

Do you need to buy the collectible minifig series 2?

Yeah, I thought so… and in case you thought you didn’t/wasn’t/will resist the temptation… then don’t look at the pic below.

More pics can be found in – 2×4 –‘s Flickr account.

Btw, I heard the series 2 figs (8684) will be available from 1st week of September. Apparently they are already in Singapore. Guess it’s also good that my wallet can recover from recent purchases. 😛

Toysrus Store for minifigs

Thought about MOC-ing a Toysrus store after getting the TRU truck?  If you need inspiration, here’s a (yet another) great building by lgorlando. 

I really like the details like the irregular sized letterings on the signage and of course the interior with ‘life-sized’ Toy Story and Star Wars statues, toy houses and castle, and motorized car for kids. A clown minifig is also on hand to entertain the kids.  😀

Lego Modular State Capital

I was about to call it a day when I came across this on Flickr. So of course I had to share it here. It’s by lgorlando, it’s great, and I’m too sleepy to be descriptive. So in the man’s own words:

“A third rendition of my Park Avenue and Palace Grand with tan as the primary color. Someone told me the Palace Grand looked like a “government building” and I wondered what that would look like.”

Yeah, still no pics of his fabled city layout. I’m waiting too.

My modular corner cinema

Update again: See my modular town hall (also from 10184) pics here.

Update again: See my modular white building pics here. 🙂

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Update: My cinema has been blogged in Classic-Town! Yippee! Click here to see the post. 😀

I’d also posted in EB about my cinema and after reading all the kind comments, feel so inspired to build some more. 🙂

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Readers would have seen from earlier posts (here for my modular street and here for research) that I’d been fiddling around with a modular corner cinema modified with parts from the Town Plan. 

Well, I finally put in the last 4 pieces (the technic blocks with hole that came with my S@H PAB selection) today and since I’m kinda sick of playing around with the cinema, I thought to take some pics over the long weekend and share here – sorta an official closure. 😛

Front and side views:

First floor interior, front door, ticket booth and popcorn corner:

2nd floor interior, entrance and cinema room:

Back view (really ugly!):

Ok, not perfect… but I’m lazy to fix the flaws. Stuff I’m pleased with are the popcorn corner, ticket counters (I like the TV screens 🙂 ) and Yeti display (like those movie displays at cinemas). 

Stuff I don’t like so much… (wow, such a long list!) Stairs ain’t so great, the screen and chairs look kinda sad and the back is really ugly (luckily not visible in my usual display!).  Plus I don’t have enough white plates for the flooring and roof so it’s really patch-worky looking – the red plates are totally based on whatever plates I have on hand) and the white tiles are leftovers from the winter scene I did last December (I think either blue or red tiles would look more authentic for carpeting).

As a last view, my current modular street:

 

Update: Got the cinema from Town Plan to do a side-by-side comparison with my modular:

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So what’s next? I’m thinking to modularise either the Pizza store from City Corner (7641), or the Police Headquarters (7744) or the Hospital (7892).  What do you think?

Am leaning towards Pizza store, mainly cos I have lots of red bricks on hand from all the basic brick sets I’ve been swiping.  Plus it’s an easy one.  The Police HQ and Hospital will probably have to be a full plate thing rather than the half plate for Pizza store, so those are also gonna take a while to build up.

Decisions, decisions…

Some MOCs that caught my eye…

Just one quick pic of each creation. Do go to the Flickr pages to see more and leave comments/compliments for the creators. 🙂

First a subversive trailer park creation.  Lego town/city creations are usually fairly happy suburban scenes, so it’s quite refreshing to see a trailer house by by Doctor Mobius.  My fav bit is the car on blocks.

Next, a San Francisco cable car by Tom Bricks.  I haven’t been to SF so no idea if it looks authentic but it sure will look good in any table town creation.

Last, we have Dawn Feather Keep by LegoLord.  The lovely lush greenery and a meandering stream caught my eye.