Archives for February 2018

MOC: Micropolis Broadcasting Corporation

Wednesday, 28th February 2018 By Caz

It seems I was able to cram in one final build before the end of the month. Today I was fiddling with some 1x2x5 bricks (2454) in light aqua, and teamed them up with some 1×2 in transparent neon green bricks – they looked quite funky together. This gave me a tall base to work with. Then I picked out a load of 4×4 bley plates and some transparent red 1×2 bricks, with a handful of other modified bley bricks and set to work.

I like the individual pods at each side of the main structure. I had used a 1×1 modified brick with handle (2921) on some corners, and felt that satellite dishes in trans red could hang off them to give some extra details. As I started adding the upper structure, I imagined they would be apartments, above an office space below. But then I had an idea – perhaps the bottom section could be large TV studios and these upper levels were were the journos had their desks, looking out across the city through rose-tinted glass?

MOC - Micropolis Broadcasting Corporation — MOC – Micropolis Broadcasting Corporation

I liked the idea more and more, especially once I had given the outside some pleasant landscaping, manicured hedges and plants.

MOC - Micropolis Broadcasting Corporation - Rear — MOC – Micropolis Broadcasting Corporation – Rear

Then another thought occurred to me – perhaps I could join this new build with another venerable old one – the Flatiron Building – similar to what a certain other National Broadcaster had done with their central London HQ? With much the same back story, clearly MBC had out-grown their original premises, which was mainly equipped for radio, and needed a shiny new development so they could properly expand their Television output to the populace. And so here we have, Old & New Broadcasting House.

MOC - Micropolis Broadcasting Corporation - Old And New Broadcasting House — MOC – Micropolis Broadcasting Corporation – Old And New Broadcasting House

This story is purely fictional. Any resemblance to familiar landmarks, living or dead, is completely accidental. No journos were harmed in the making of this module.

Watch the video on this Block by Blockhead:

MOC: Central Police Station

Sunday, 25th February 2018 By Caz

Micropolis has had a General Hospital and Fire HQ for a while now, so I thought it was about time I built the Central Police Station too. I opted for transparent light blue windows and canopies, some transparent dark blue half-cylinders and white with blue as my colour scheme.

There is a covered walkway to the entrance where a statue of the Police Commissioner stands guard. Once inside the building, access to the upper floor is via one of the two elevators in the darker blue pillars.

MOC - Central Police Station - Front — MOC – Central Police Station – Front

The first floor has a commanding view across the city, with a built-in helipad on top. Round the back is the pound for towed vehicles with room for a few patrol cars too. Odds and ends in white and dark bley provided the roof greebles.

MOC - Central Police Station - Rear — MOC – Central Police Station – Rear

The Police work closely in conjunction with their colleagues at Venom Security Inc., so I have decided to site the building just across the road in my layout.

Watch the video on this Block by Blockhead:

MOC: St. Octavius’ Church

Saturday, 24th February 2018 By Caz

A while ago I was messing about with some transparent boat studs (2654) and thought they would make interesting cladding for a Micropolis building. However, the difficulty using them is having to build the walls with plates facing studs-inwards. No the end of the world, but not as easy as studs-out would be.

It’s very straightforward to build square stuff with LEGO, but I also wanted to challenge myself to build something a little different, so I opted for an octagonal shape, mainly due to having an octagonal plate with open centre (6063) in my parts drawers, which I thought could possibly form the basis of the roof structure.

Octagonal Technique - Bodged Brackets — Octagonal Technique – Bodged Brackets

Getting the geometry right to make the plates fit snugly under the roof plate was tricky. I spent ages faffing about with various designs. The sides which were aligned orthogonally with the studs weren’t too difficult, but those on the 45° were proving to be a right pain. Eventually, I came up with this bracket arrangement. It wasn’t terribly stable and required some packing behind (the white plate and magenta tile in the picture) to stop it from wobbling.

The assembly was also quite tall, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to cram in another one lower down for stability. This would be required as otherwise the walls were liable to collapse at every opportunity. It was getting rather frustrating.

Octagonal Technique - Internal Bracing — Octagonal Technique – Internal Bracing

Eventually I came up with this internal bracing arrangement, connected in the middle vertically too, in order to stablise things as much as possible.

I got all eight walls up and the roof plate attached. So far so good. But then I put just a little bit too much pressure on one side when I was picking it up and – boom! – it was in pieces again.

Annoyed with myself, I gave up and went to bed.

Octagonal Technique - Walls Up But Fragile — Octagonal Technique – Walls Up But Fragile

Octagonal Technique - Revised Bracketing — Octagonal Technique – Revised Bracketing

As is the way with these things, a good night’s sleep brings fresh ideas. I kept the orthogonal pillars the same and reworked the angled versions. These are all held onto the plates via a stepped-off jumper (lime green in the picture) pushed into the hole of a 1×2 Technic brick (blue and bley).

The originals (with yellow bricks) had a decent gap between fixing points at each end of the big red plates. But the stud geometry, and the need to have a jumper plate on top of the diagnonally mounted walls meant they were a little closer together for those (see pillar with pink bricks). However, both versions were still much more stable and less prone to collapse than the first right angle bracket bodge had been. So I pressed on and reworked all four of the pillars for the 45° walls.

Right angled walls were held in place on the floor by being 1 plate lower than the tiles the remaining structure rests on. Diagnonal walls are mounted on an open stud at the bottom. The lowest plate’s middle tube underneath rests snugly in the hole in the round stud.

Octagonal Technique - Floor Tiling & Pillars — Octagonal Technique – Floor Tiling & Pillars

At the top under the roof, each of the yellow jumpers’ studs key into the single square extra pieces of the octagonal plate – marked in red here.

Octagonal Technique - Under Roof Attachment — Octagonal Technique – Under Roof Attachment

It’s much easier to see what’s going on from this low angle picture of a half-built structure.

Octagonal Technique - Try It For Size — Octagonal Technique – Try It For Size

As the roof wasn’t one continuous plate, I decided to put a pillar in the middle too, so it could rest on that if too much pressure was exerted in the wrong place on the roof. Once all the pillars were in place, it required a little bit of jiggling to get them all to line up with the underside of the roof plate, but when they do, it’s all rock solid!

Octagonal Technique - Walls And Central Pillar In — Octagonal Technique – Walls And Central Pillar In

I had proved the structure, but I didn’t want my building having red walls. Also, I didn’t have enough boat studs to cover them all, and what would it be?

In the course of ordering boat studs from Bricklink, I chose four different colours and thought they would look like stained glass windows. With some white versions around the base, I decided this would be a modern place of worship, St. Octavius’ Church. A few days later all the bits arrived and I am pleased with the way it has all come together.

MOC - St. Octavius' Church Front — MOC – St. Octavius’ Church Front

The main entrance is on the corner of the intersection, with a statue outside. Landscaping and flowers around the sides give another splash of colour. I wanted the structure to have a bit of stature too, so I left it on the 12×12 plate it had been designed on, and added white tiles to give a little step up all around the building.

MOC - St. Octavius' Church Rear — MOC – St. Octavius’ Church Rear

Watch the video on this Block by Blockhead:

Haul #14: eBay And Bricklink Orders

Saturday, 24th February 2018 By Caz

Postie brought me several packages today.

Haul #14, 24th Feb '18 - Packets — Haul #14, 24th Feb ’18 – Packets

The Bricklink orders included – lots of 2×4 black tiles and 2×14 black plates to make some nice edging for Micropolis modules; red 1×2 bricks and white 1×6 plates for a future MOC in progress; trans light blue and purple boat studs plus white 4×6 plates for a little modern Church which I have almost finished; varioius flower and foliage elements and some old printed slopes and plates from an eBay lot I had won.

Haul #14, 24th Feb '18 - Contents — Haul #14, 24th Feb ’18 – Contents

I can make use of some of these right away…

MOC: Air & Space Museum

Saturday, 24th February 2018 By Caz

As I have built more and more Micropolis modules, I have found that often, it’s one or two seed pieces which give me an idea. These can be far-removed from their original intent or use in sets they came with. A prime example is the Star Wars Jedi Interceptor (75038) which I dismantled in early November last year.

I have already used one of its four solar panels on my Micropolis MOC, Butterfly Batteries & Solar. But in that model, its purpose was the same.

However, I looked at the bubble canopy (10312pb01) from this set, plus the printed transparent black dishes (3960pb013) from this and Yoda’s Jedi Starfighter (75168) and thought, I must be able to use them somehow…

On 7th November I built my first Micropolis module, NE:ON Mall, which was effectively constructed from a load of table scraps. But the Micropolis bug had bitten. The next day I received the excellent Women of NASA set, complete with a tiny Space Shuttle. That looks about the right scale for Micropolis, I thought. I put it next to the canopy to see what their relative sizes were.

Soon after, I saw Magnus The Great’s super Pluppsala Science Block. I loved the classic space colours and those transparent yellow Brick, Modified 2 x 4 No Studs, Curved Top (6192) he used for skylights.

In my head, an idea was forming… and all those things were suddenly coming together. How would the canopy look for the entrance to my Air & Space Museum? I set to work with LEGO Digital Designer and noodled about with the building for a few days before I arrived at a structure I was happy with.

VIrtual MOC: Micropolis Air & Space Museum Designed In LDD

The downside was the cost… When I parted out the design on Bricklink it was suggesting I needed to spend a fortune on three elements – trans yellow bricks, blue grille profile bricks and those skylights I so admired. So I left the design on the electronic drawing board for several months.

Having acquired a pot with loads of regular blue 1×2 bricks in my Watford haul a few weeks ago, my thoughts returned to this design. I’m now a bit more savvy about ordering stuff from Bricklink, and realised I was better off making several orders (even accounting for postage costs) for the most expensive parts, rather than bankrupting myself by taking the algorithm’s suggested stores – which often work out much more expensive. Even so, I had to order the skylights from Germany and some of the blue grille bricks from the Netherlands. I slowly gathered the remaining parts and waited for postie to deliver the bulk orders. And today the last pieces came!

MOC - Air & Space Museum Overhead View — MOC – Air & Space Museum Overhead View

I have refined a few details here and there while building it for real, but the basic structure and design were mostly ironed out digitally, a first for me working this way. I’m more likely to fiddle about with a load of bricks from my drawers and see what I can come up with. But I am delighted with the way this has turned out.

MOC - Air & Space Museum - Front — MOC – Air & Space Museum – Front

That canopy makes a striking entrance space, complete with rocket, telescope and real space suit exhibits underneath. The Micropolis visitors are then encouraged to tour the three floors of exhibits in the main hall.

MOC - Air & Space Museum - Right — MOC – Air & Space Museum – Right

Those skylights make the space inside bright and airy, I’m sure!

MOC - Air & Space Museum - Rear — MOC – Air & Space Museum – Rear

The visitor is then lead across the bridge to the Annex where there are more exhibits about the future of Space travel, before they come down to the ground floor restaurant with access to the Rocket Garden where they can see the Shuttle, boosters, Apollo Command Module and Astronauts’ Memorial up close before returning to the exit via the Gift Shop in the main hall.

MOC - Air & Space Museum - Left — MOC – Air & Space Museum – Left

Museum entrance details…

The Astronauts’ Memorial in the Rocket Garden, where the Eternal Flame never dies.

MOC - Air & Space Museum - Astronauts' Memorial — MOC – Air & Space Museum – Astronauts’ Memorial

The Shuttle nose points towards this fine example of one of the Apollo Mission Command Capsules which brought the astronauts safely back to Earth… [No, I don’t have a headless Star Wars droid in my Minifig collection. Honest.]

MOC - Air & Space Museum - Shuttle & Apollo Command Module — MOC – Air & Space Museum – Shuttle & Apollo Command Module

Shuttle Endeavor has pride of place in the Rocket Garden.

MOC - Air & Space Museum - Rocket Garden Exhibits — MOC – Air & Space Museum – Rocket Garden Exhibits

It’s been an interesting journey for me, remembering how all these disparate things came together. I would be so excited to visit the Museum if I was small enough to fit inside! And it seems to be popular with bigger folks too – my pictures on Flickr were blogged by ArchBrick – I’m in very esteemed company, as I’m usually in awe of things I see on that!

Watch the video on this Block by Blockhead:

MOC: Belville Place

Friday, 23rd February 2018 By Caz

When I first discovered the Micropolis Standard back in November last year, I did lots of research online to see the modules that other folks had built to get some inspiration. The Virtual Micropolis website was a great starting point, along with the Flickr group dedicated to it.

One of the modules which caught my eye was Belville Condominiums by Nathan Stohlmann:

I downloaded the LDD file to see how it was built, and soon after acquired the big pink lattice pieces in a random eBay lot (parts 30016 and 6165 which were both in an old Belivlle set, the Sunshine Home. Belville was a precursor to the Friends line, aimed at girls, hence all the sugar-pink elements). Then I left it as I needed loads of navy blue and trans clear bricks to build the main structure, which I didn’t have.

After my recent haul from Watford, I realised I probably had enough of the trans clear bricks and could use the blue ones instead of navy for my version of the block. But I didn’t want it to be exactly the same as the original, so I did some experimentation with shapes. After a bit of fiddling, I came up with this – with the two ends slightly staggered from the main straight pieces.

Belville Place - 1/2 Block 3D Sketch — Belville Place – 1/2 Block 3D Sketch

I worked on it some more and eventually my 1/2 block of apartments, Belville Place, was finished. I put in on the shelf for a couple of weeks.

MOC Belville Place - 1/2 Block — MOC Belville Place – 1/2 Block

A couple of days ago, an eBay lot I had won arrived (see Haul #13 for more info) and that gave me two more pink lattice corners. Bricklink orders which arrived on the same day provided more sand blue 1×2 bricks with groove (4216) and some 1×2 bley grill tiles – I was never quite happy with the black studs showing on the edges of the roof of the 1/2 block.

I set about expanding Belville Place to a whole block, with another small tower on one side and a sunken garden filling up the last 1/4 block. Voila! A very up-market development which will sit right on the waterfront of Micropolis.

MOC Belville Place Complete Block - Front — MOC Belville Place Complete Block – Front

It looks very nice from the “rear” view as well:

MOC Belville Place Complete Block - Rear — MOC Belville Place Complete Block – Rear

The sunken garden provides somewhere to relax for the residents, while admiring the sculptures.

MOC Belville Place Sunken Garden Details

Watch the video on this Block by Blockhead: