Brave New Lego World: day CIV: 40025 New York Taxi + 40026 Statue of Liberty GET!

Day 104, 28/05/2013:

I keep telling myself to not check out places like Brickset, eBay or even retail stores like John Lewis or Myer if I know I’m not supposed to spend money because it’s almost guaranteed that I’ll find something I’ll want to buy. So colour me not surprised when I found something I had to get whilst perusing eBay for baseplates for the town: the 2012 Creator 40025 New York Taxi and 40026 Statue of Liberty.

Creator 40025 New York Taxi polybag

Creator 40026 Statue of Liberty polybag

I wanted the taxi more than the Statue of Liberty given the car is technically to scale and can easily fit into the city; the statue’s gonna be hard to place without looking odd however. Judging by the picture of the taxi, I’m not even sure you can fit a passenger to taxi about, never mind the driver him/herself…

Creator 40025 New York Taxi polybag- back

Creator 40026 Statue of Liberty polybag- back

As it always goes, this was only offered in the US, and only at specific retail stores for a short period of time. I sometimes wonder if Lego actually wants to sell some of their sets, otherwise why would they create a reseller marketplace that they gain little from?

Brave New Lego World: day XCVII: 3300014 2012 Christmas Set GET!

Day 97, 21/05/2013:

Whilst I’ve told myself that I’ll stick to the Lego City universe (to prevent myself from going broke and Lego-ing myself out of my own home :S), but I’ve allowed an exception for the seasonal sets that Lego does, as they meld in with Lego City quite well. I already have such seasonal sets like the 2012 10229 Winter Village Cottage and the 2010 10216 Winter Village Bakery (can’t wait to make them! :D).

So when I was browsing the seasonal sets and saw the 2012 limited edition 3300014 2012 Christmas set, I had to buy it. It fits in perfectly with the previously mentioned Christmas sets and includes an awesome minifig with a whip.

3300014 2012 Christmas Set (limited edition)

I was surprised I didn’t hear about this given it came out late 2012 but understood why when I looked it up: it was a promotional free gift for online shop.lego.com orders over 99USD during the Black Friday weekend. Being an Aussie, Black Friday means nothing, and even if it did I doubt we’d hear about it from Lego Australia…

3300014 2012 Christmas Set (limited edition)- back

When it finally arrived I was even more surprised at how perfect it arrived: usually online deliveries turn up with some sort of shipping damage; this one was in perfect condition 😀

Brave New Lego World: day LXXII: 60009 Helicopter Arrest + 40052 Springtime Scene + 850449 Minifig Accessory Pack GET!

Day 72, 26/04/2013:

Despite being sent out at the same time as the Pick A Brick order, the sets I ordered from shop.lego.com arrived two days later. I have not been able to find any retailer in Australia that sells the 2013 60009 Helicopter Arrest, so I decided to purchase this directly from Lego in order to get the free* shipping (*free for orders of 150+AUD). Edit: Toys R Us AU (and USA) have an exclusive on this set:

Lego City 60009 Helicopter Arrest

Lego City 60009 Helicopter Arrest- back

Considering the order hadn’t reached 150AUD yet (this set costs 79.99AUD), I also ordered the totally radical 21.99AUD 2012 850449 Lego Minifigure Accessory Pack duuude:

850449 Minifigure Accessory Pack

850449 Minifigure Accessory Pack- back

There should be some space around the beach to place this set (hopefully).

Still short of 150AUD, I also ordered the newly released 2013 12.99AUD 40052 Springtime Scene:

40052 Springtime Scene polybag

40052 Springtime Scene polybag- back

This set should fit in around the forest police sets/area on table 3 (assuming that doesn’t change). Lego was also doing a deal where I could get the 40049 Mini Soptwith Camel if I bought something from the Creator series, so in order to get, I purchased the 9.99AUD 626 Large Green Baseplate:

40049 Mini Sopwith Camel polybag

626 Large Green Baseplate

Figured I’d need a large green baseplate eventually and thought I might as well get it now whilst its purchase served an immediate purpose.

40049 Mini Sopwith Camel polybag- back

Granted the mini Sopwith Camel won’t really fit in with other airplanes due to scale, I reckon I can get it in somewhere without it sticking out like a sore thumb.

Brave New Lego World: day LXX: Lego City Footpath DESIGN!

Day 70, 24/04/2013:

Even though the road baseplates have a 6-stud wide footpath space on either side, I didn’t really consider them to be a footpath, given they were the same colour as the road, and also at the same level. It was only after seeing how a proper footpath could be done at this site a few weeks ago that I got serious about it and decided to focus some time on it. Whilst I could have taken the easy route and done the same sort of footpath as on the site (by using lots of 6×8 medium stone grey plates), I thought I’d try to come up with something more like a footpath you’d see out in the real world. I started by checking out various footpath designs pulled from an Google image search, then designing something with the Lego Digital Designer program:

Lego footpath ideas

I tried quite a few variations of a design where there was an obvious divider between the sections to try an emulate the gaps in footpaths like in this photo but couldn’t get it to look right. Then I tried to break up the monotonous gray with different coloured edges, but that didn’t also quite work. So I then tried to add a grass strip like in  this photo, which I thought worked. I tried putting various types of plants on it to maybe create this organic fence between the road and footpath, but probably won’t do it (for starters, plants/trees are expensive to purchase). The final design I’ve gone with is this:

Final footpath design

It has a 2-stud wide strip of ‘grass’ close to the road, separated by a 1-stud wide  medium stone gray ‘curb’, then a 3-stud wide medium stone gray footpath for people to walk on. Considering the footpath is only 6 studs wide, things are much narrower than reality is. By making the sections 8 studs long, it means I need a perfect 4 sections to cover one road baseplate (which are 32×32 studs in size), and by offsetting their placement by 4 studs, I can have them connect and hold adjacent baseplates in place :).

Probably what really kicked off this whole endeavour was Lego’s free* shipping promotion which goes from the 9th of April until the 31st of August (*free if you spend more than $150 T_T). I figured I would start with getting enough pieces to cover both sides of the road that goes down table 1, which would be 4 32×32 sections; a total of 128 pieces. This only came to 28.80AUD so I purchased some additional Lego items, pushing the order to 153.76AUD. Yes these items are full retail prices and I could get them cheaper elsewhere but Lego’s packaging is usually really good and I needed the order to hit 150+AUD 😛 Plus I got some bonus items with the order too (mini sopwith camel plane and a Lego Chima poster)!

The footpath pieces -and only the footpath pieces- arrived today (less than a week after ordering!):

Footpath pieces GET!

The other sets were sent in a separate box, whereas this came in just a parcel bag.

It was only when I was adding the pieces to the road plates that I realised that I hadn’t taken into consideration driveways @_@

Footpath in front of the garage

I’ll have to work out what driveways and how the footpaths join with them later; most likely do it at the same time I come up with a way to have the footpaths go around a corner. Not that I’m in a rush considering Lego’s free shipping goes until September! 😀

Brave New Lego World: day LXIX: 4438 Robbers’ Hideout GET!

Day 69, 23/04/2013:

The 2012 4438 Robbers’ Hideout is one of those sets I have never seen in Australian stores, most likely because it’s been quite some time since I visited Toys R Us. Turns out this set is a TRU exclusive in the US, which usually translates to a TRU AU exclusive as well. However, TRU rarely have a sale (nevermind a Lego one) and I’d rather not pay full retail price for it (it’s on their site for 84.99AUD) So I eventually decided to bite the bullet and just go to BrickLink and purchase it there; whilst I would save about 50% there (got it for about 44AUD), most of that saving disappeared in shipping costs 😦 Oh well, the downfalls of buying Lego overseas… But at least I wasn’t buying it at Australian RRP from Toys Rnt Cheap! \^o^/

Lego City 4438 Robbers’ Hideout

I’ve been having difficulties placing this set somewhere on the table, as I reckon this set should be hidden away; what’s the point of a hideout if it’s in plain sight from the road? However the design of the hideout building makes it difficult to squirrel in some corner (has a front entrance, garage entry on the left and an open back).

Lego City 4438 Robbers’ Hideout- back

I guess I’ll eventually figure out where to put this set; it’s most definitely on table 3, which I won’t start on until probably next year some time.

Brave New Lego World: day LXVIII: 30196 Ferrari Pit Crew GET!

Day 68, 22/04/2013:

I decided to go and get this polybag from eBay as I couldn’t be bothered participating in the Twitter-based competition that Shell, Coles and Lego were doing to obtain it. Given how unique the minifigs and their accessories are, I felt they were worth the $10 I paid for them:

30196 Ferrari Pit Crew polybag

Granted the polybag arrived quite crinkled, but as long as the pieces aren’t damaged I’m fine with it!

30196 Ferrari Pit Crew polybag- back

 

Brave New Lego World: day LXVII: Town Plan mkIII

Day 67, 21/04/2013:

After building 3182 Airport, it was clear that the current town plan I had would have to be redone. Due to the size of the 3182 passenger plane, the runway can’t be right next to the plane/helicopter bays:

Lego city plan 2

However, in order to accommodate a wider runway, my airport will have to drop the number of aircraft it can have parked 😦 Gonna have to relegate helicopters to the helipads I plan to build on to of the plane bays and maybe have a shelf to store the remaining planes.

Increasing the width of the runway also means that some sets on table 2 will need to be moved elsewhere, most likely the table I’ve been trying to leave for the 2014 sets (ie: table 3).

After a lot of redraws, shuffling of sets and compromises, I’ve come up with this:

Lego city plan 3

• As can be seen, the runway has half a tile of space on either side (16 studs a side), and going north-south instead of east-west; at least this way the plan doesn’t fly into the wall (though it will need to avoid the harbour building at the end of the runway .__.). Instead of being able to hold 5 aircrafts, the airport now only holds 4; this was achieved by moving 4429 Helicopter Rescue and 7848 Toys R Us City Truck to other locations
• To join the runway with the plane bays and airport building, I’ll need to purchase additional base plates; some to represent paths (darkstone gray in colour) and some to represent grass (green). I’ve not-so-visibly written on the plan what colour base plates I need to purchase; not just for the airport but also for the area in front of 4207 City Garage (darkstone gray) and the water behind 4645 Harbour, 60009 Helicopter Arrest and 4644 Marina. Lego doesn’t baseplates less than 32×32 in size on their website so I’ll have to source them from eBay and/or BrickLink; no idea how much they’ll be, if they’re new or used, or if I can get baseplates in the sizes and colour I want :S
• The airport building itself now faces south instead of east, meaning the arrival entrance is pointing the wrong way. I plan to design an attachment section that routes passengers from the runway, behind the airport building and into the arrival entrance; will need to use the Lego Digital Designer program to do this and buy the pieces off Lego’s Pick-a-Brick website
• Table 3 now has more buildings on it, which is good given it means less sets are without a place in the city, yet bad because table 3 was to be reserved for the 2014 sets (and table 4 for 2015). The space on table 3 will be even less after the second half of 2013 Lego City sets are released, which includes another huge aircraft and more boats
• I’m not sure if 4204 The Mine has enough space to fit several mining vehicles around it without taking up too much space; I’m deciding to leave that problem for another day. Further more, 4440 Forest Police Station has been positioned so that you can drive through the centre of it (past the secure gate) into the mining area… or at least that’s the current plan…

This version of the town plan feels complete as far as tables 1 and 2 go; all that’s required to truly call them complete would be adding the missing baseplates and coverings (eg: footpath, parking bay outlines, fire hydrants, etc.). Looking forward to using the Lego Digital Designer and seeing what I can come up with!