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! 😀
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