A Couple of New Things

Been back at work after the holidays this week, so haven't had as much time for designing. Even so, I have managed to do a couple of things.

Last weekend I went to an exhibition of Lego in Ipswich. It was wonderful! I took some happy snaps while I was there:

Nice city scene with some of the Modular Town sets and some MOCs

Part of the same display

Vehicles

Star Wars Diorama of a fight between clones and droids

Tantive IV

Harry Potter display <3

Hogsmede Village (missing the Shrieking Shack though - I have that!!

Close up of some of the goings-on in Hogsmede

INXS concert

Love this - so awesome!

Lego Friends Town - someone has been busy collecting all these sets!!!

DRAGONNNNNNNS

This one is probably my favourite! There is so much detail!

!!!

Nice Farm! I love the crops!

LOTR FTW!

I spoke to some of the people organising the event, because it would be great to display some of my creations. They told me to join their Facebook group and so I did, and then of course proceeded to get out my sets and see what sort of display I could create!

Creator Houses

Possible Layout

Looks pretty nice together

YAY!

Being all creative with my camera angles

Just because it is cool :)

I call this one the Guild Hall. It is partially collapsed at the back. I tried to put as much detail in as possible, and I am really happy with the outcome. I also like the outline bricks function in digital designer, which I have not used before. The trees in this model I did not design, I downloaded them from the user gallery.

From the front. 

Back of the building showing the collapsed portion

Another angle of the back. 

I also had a play with a two storey version of my terrace. Looks ok I think.

Yep. 

A Frenzy of Designing

I've been in a bit of a frenzy of designing over the past couple of days. All of the following designs I have done since Saturday.

I had a brainwave in the middle of the night as to how it would be possible to make sliding doors, so I had an attempt with a really simple mock up. The result is below.

Yes it is a box, but it is a beautiful box. 

I then decided to do double sliding doors to create a better opening.

I call this one The Pavilion. Original, isn't it?

The Pavilion

I then decided to go really crazy and  make a huge mansion, with some sliding doors at the back opening onto a courtyard-ish thing.

Mmmmm...Mansion

The back

Following this, I decided to play with a style totally different. I made two very cute, Australian-style cottages.

I just want to pick it up and give it a hug!

Nawwwwwwww

This one is probably more like a terrace.

From the side. 

 I am investigating new sources to buy bricks, because Pick-a-Brick is becoming unreliable. So hopefully I will purchase another building by the end of the year. Maybe with my tax-return  money? Hehe

Upping the complexity and looking into jobs at Lego

Over the past little while I have decided to try my luck with modelling some slightly more complicated models. Here are the results:

This one is loosely based on a real house around my neighbourhood. 

This one is more faithfully based on one in my local neighbourhood. 

The model above is based on the townhouse to the right in this image. 

I made this one up off the top of my head. 

Split over three levels, because that is fun to model. 

The two latter models feature stepping blocks of land. Both were quite interesting to model, because having just a small step down changes the dynamics of the internal space. All of these houses are quite generously proportioned. The townhouse is probably my favourite; it is quite clever in its' design internally.

Along the same lines, I also modelled my grandparent's house:

It's quite a big house!

I used plates instead of profile bricks for the weatherboards on this house. I think they look rather clunky when you compare them with the profile bricks used on the models early. 

I also had a bit of fun with a house built around a tree. It's a nice simple model this one, I quite like it. One day I might purchase a version of it. That will be a while away though, I think.

I have also, FINALLY uploaded my CV to the Lego website today. I have no chance of getting a job at the moment, but at least it has been uploaded! I decided to use AutoCAD to draw up 'architectural' views of my buildings. It was quite time consuming, but also quite therapeutic. Here are some examples of what I have done.

Ground Floor, Modular Terrace

First Floor, Modular Terrace

Second Floor, Modular Terrace

Front Elevation, Modular Terrace

Ground Floor, Modernist Residence

Front Elevation, Modernist Residence

Side Elevation, Modernist Residence 

  I think that is all I have done for a while. I'm still designing, as often as I get an opportunity to :)

Happy Building. 

Learning

I have been using my free time at the moment to educate myself in the ways of the complicated modular town sets, in order to increase my understanding of how to achieve details through the use of unusual combinations of pieces. I downloaded all of the modular town set instructions, and have been working through them slowly.

We all know that I already have Cafe Corner built.

I decided to build the Town Hall:

And the Fire Station

And I have also finished the Green Grocer, but it is being a little bit painful, so I haven't screen capped it yet.

I also have made another modular terrace. I did this before starting my 'education'.

It is very dark and rather basic, but at a good scale.

I then put them all together:

Wish I could buy all these. The thing I have noticed is that the proper sets seem to use a lot more colour. I think I will keep that in mind when I design my next building to fit with these.

The next project I undertook was looking at a real Parisian Terraced house that I saw when I was in Paris. I thought I would have a go modelling it.

This is the original building.

The second building from the left. 

The Lego-fied version

Obviously I have employed some artistic license, because I have no idea what it looks like other than the facade. 

In other news, my latest physical order has arrived and is built :)

YAY!

Where have I been hiding?

I have decided to take on a rather ambitious project - it involves sorting all of my real (as in physical) Lego back into sets. It has been in disarray for many years; my brother and I pulled everything apart to make different things, and so there are pieces everywhere.

I decided to sort everything into colours, and roughly into sizes, so that if I were to be looking for say, a 1x2 Palisade Brick in Sand Yellow, I could just go to the Sand Yellow box and pick one up. Thus far it has been fairly successful.

Boxes of awesomeness

Privet Drive, miraculously complete!

I have also undertaken a massive task in Digital Designer. I have decided to take on a building on a scale I have not attempted in a couple of years.

So that's what it looks like from the front...I am looking to make it a winter scene, thus the random white bricks

Entrance foyer... so many tiles

Dining Hall from the back...yeah there are some unresolved bits here and there. 

Kitchen. YAY

And that is it for now, I probably won't post until everything on this one is done.