Friday, October 31, 2008

Bungalow (Happy Halloween!)

From Brickapolis' photostream:

Looks like the homeowner's a bit scared of Halloween:


Then again, those don't look like Trick-or-Treaters...

Thursday, October 30, 2008

STEAM Street Scene



Street scene from STEAM 2008 created by brickish member's - From Right to Left: Ralphs Corner Shop, Park, Chip Shop, Curry House and Pub (Just out of view) Cafe Corner Doug's Bank and Police Station, Julie Griegs Photo shop, Ed Diments Town Hall, Annie Diments Hairdressers, James Shields Pet Shop, Mandy Dees Georgian House, Warren Elsmores House, Noami Farrs Sweet Shop, Post Office and shop, Warren Elsmores modified Town Plan Cinema, Huw Millingtons Lego Shop, Doug's own modified Town Plan Petrol Station and Market Street (Out of shot are the Green Grocer, the other half of the Market Street, David Tabners House and Darren Smiths Bank) The roads were built by Doug and Jon Goldsworthy to his design, The vehicles were built mainly by Ralph but with a few extra by Doug, Tom Groombridge and Duq (whose real name I don't know, sorry!) The trams were by Doug, James Shields and Ben Gorman.

Snow in Europe



From zgrredek's gallery.

Monday, October 27, 2008

Art Lego



Posted at the Dragonov Brick Works blog

Zombie Apocafest and BrickCon Town

I did a brief (long distance) wrap-up of this year's BrickCon over at LMOTD, but I think that the town layout and the Zombie Apocafest layout are of interest here as well.


The Zombie apocalypse layout is roughly based on the Cafe Corner standard for the buildings, but the people and details aren't based on anything we'd see in a town - they're based on fantasy/horror films and video games. Be warned that there is a bit of violence here - but it's all in good fun. I didn't get all the in-jokes here (I'm not into the zombie flicks), but the buildings are great and of much more universal appeal - in the photo above (from dunechasers's flickr photostream) you can see an amazing shopping mall (I believe I heard someone say that a LEGOLAND model builder built it).

In addition to the links at the other site, there's a separate flickr set for the Zombie Apocafest 2008 layout.

The more traditional town layout photos seem to be mixed in with the rest of the BrickCon photos. Additionally, many of the town-themed models also have a Disney theme, such as this impressive section (also from dunechasers's flickr photostream):

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Expanded "Downtown", from the Green Grocer

A new addition to the previously featured "downtown" layout - this time using (only?) parts from the Green Grocer.



from AT94's flickr photostream.

Polystyrene Car


Currently in Hamleys Oct 2008




Double-Takes

While the detail photos here are all LEGO, I'm impressed by the way that some of these photos match the scale of this building with that of the life-size buildings in the background. There are tons of great details in this model - note the windows and the roof.



From Viaur's Brickshelf Gallery.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Christmas House


From Mandy Dees MOC Pages gallery.

Just a very simple design with a clean transition between the white and tan wall colors. The railing leading up to the door is also another good detail.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Warehouse



From CWL's gallery.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

New Road Plates



Several of the Racer sets for 2009 have road plates. They look as if they are two different sizes that connect together.

What size do you thin they are. I'm guessing 8 x 16 and 16 x 16. What ever size they are, I'm sure they will be extremely useful to Cafe Corner fans (maybe even as roof tiles).

From manxboi42's gallery

Vehicles

From tman79027's gallery.


Thursday, October 16, 2008

Brick Fan Town 2008

Hi all, long time no post huh? Well I've been really busy soo... my bad I guess. Luckly we have a couple of new great contributors on the Blog!

Anyways this is a creation I felt I had to post because it's really awesome, don't you think?

It's part of the Japanese Brick Fan Town 2008 display, and this one is by far my favourite module.

From EARL-0's Gallery.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Wood Working Shop With Tools




Full photo set (don't miss the woodworking tools):

from legozilla's flikr gallery

Sunday, October 12, 2008

"Real" Cafe Corner


Coming from lights flickr photostream.

I made sure to search the Brick Town Talk for this and did not find it, hope i did not overlook anything.

Anyways, this creation is amazing. It may not be modular but it sure captures the feel of an European atmosphere. The tiles are expertly done and the whole thing is just flat out awesome!

Not sure that i like the tram lines in front though.

A Building Downtown



from AT94's flickr photostream. Some things are intentionally imperfect here, to give it a more realistic city look.

Snowy Old-Fashioned Facade



Created by / photographed by flickr user Profound Whatever.

I know it's just a facade, but there are some great details here - I love the clumps of snow, the icey road and sidewalk (studs-not-on-top instead of Cafe Corner style, but still an interesting effect), and the way 1x1 plates are used (and angled!) to create a realistic stone texture. The railings and the heavy use of log-bricks really gives it that early Colorado feel and makes it easy to show off the rare color (dark green) without using up too much of it. The rounded parts around the top floor windows are another great touch.

Dan

Friday, October 10, 2008

Chris as a New Author!

Hello! My name is Chris and I would first off like to thank Brick Street for the invitation as a new author for this blog! I really look forward to adding on to this blog in the future for great Cafe Corner ideas.

I got involved with Cafe Corner buildings about 3 months ago, when I first found Ralph's Corner Store over at Flickr. At this point I already had Market Street and the Cafe Corner, but i needed more, so i scraped together a lot of white, brown, and bluish gray tile pieces and made my Clothing Store. Since then i have made a Red Townhouse and Hardware Store also.



And here is my most recent creation, just a collaboration of all my Cafe Corner Style buildings, also on my Flikr. I currently have to upload my Brickshelf, bu have not figured out how to upload mass amounts of pictures quickly, i need to update it.

Thanks again for this opportunity to work on a great blog and congratulations to Dan too!

-Chris

City Hall Facade


A gorgeous facade for a City Hall by a MALUG member, also sent in by reader Akos:



from xxtruck's gallery. Quite a few nice bits here - the lamp posts look great, and the use of plane windows on the top floor and jetski handles on the roof blends in perfectly.

Houses

A few nice houses by MALUG members, sent in by reader Akos...from Multipla's gallery. Using only 1x2 bricks for walls gives those buildings some nice texture.

Introducing Dan (one of the new authors)

Hello! I'm Dan, one of the new authors here - but you may know me from my posts at the LEGO Model of the Day blog. I'm looking forward to writing about town buildings here without the pressure of having to post every day. Although I blog about everything LEGO on that blog, when it comes to what I've actually been into building lately, I'm more of a Cafe Corner fan.

I'm a bit picky about calling things "done", but I'm pretty happy with the Cafe Corner compatible Lab building that I built for Futuron astronauts (it's late 80's LEGO space thing). I was really surprised by how well the geometry of some of these larger, Space-oriented windows fit in with the Cafe Corner scale - two large Space panels on their side are the same height as a floor of a building in the Cafe Corner style. Once I figured that out, this idea seemed too fun not to try (even if it is a bit less traditional in appearance). Also, if you don't have enough plate-hinges in your collection to make bay windows in the Green Grocer style, you can try a studs-not-on-top approach to it with larger elements the way I did here. Photos are from my flickr set for this model.

I've also been bringing "partial" buildings in for displays put on by the North Carolina LEGO Users Group. My post on the NCLUG blog about DGXPO has links to some videos and some BrickShelf galleries of our most recent town layout. I've really been the "crazy idea guy" for our town layouts - some highlights I brought that you can see in Doug's gallery include a restaurant with Bionicle, Throwbot, and Technic parts used for detailing, a revised Metro Station set with real (non-LEGO) glass windows, an attempt at a town with floating boats and real water (originally this was going to be part of the main layout, but we were worried that we'd run out of DUPLO bricks to hold up the baseplates). In my own gallery, you can also see a building with Bionicle Katana blades used as windows (the use of polar bears as gargoyles and Soccer field panels as roof bits are a bit interesting too, but the 4.5V train track used as an arch was borrowed from another LUG's layout that I saw on Brick Town Talk).

Of course, you should look around that whole gallery - there are some other great buildings in the Cafe Corner style built by Carin Proctor and Matthew Kay. The large building with the Technic-enhanced crane was built by Doug Eaton.

As you can see, I'm really into finding interesting uses for non-Town parts in this context. I am, of course, excited about most of the models I see in this style as well, but I really love seeing unusual parts and building techniques. Feel free to e-mail any of your town models (or any others you've seen that I may have missed) to me at legomodeloftheday@gmail.com

Enough about me, though. In the future, I'll be less long-winded and post in the usual format for this site. Thanks to Richard (Brick Street) for taking me aboard the Brick Town Talk team.

Dan

New Authors

I am pleased to announce that I have invited Chris and Dan join the team writing this blog. If you would still like to become an author I will consider e-mailed applications.

Congratulations Chris and Dan - I look forward to seeing some of your models posted here first.

Richard.

Andcross



From Slyowl's gallery.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Join the Team

If you would like to join the authors of this blog - please send me an e-mail

Richard

brickstreet@hotmail.co.uk

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

New Set 10193

Revealed at The STEAM Exhibition yesterday in the UK.

Stunning set - which includes nearly all of the new System pieces for 2009 - telescope, fish, COWS!

Not new - but it includes a WHOLE COOKED CHICKEN - yey.

STEAM 4th-5th October 2008.
Read more at Eurobricks