I have used some of these large Belville lattice pieces before (see one of my very early videos, Belville Place. But I recently acquired some more in magenta, and decided this time I would use them as girders surrounding a glass skyscraper. So I present Dorsal Heights, the swanky new offices of Magenta Fish Software, an up and comping company who now have their HQ in downtown Micropolis.
MOC: Belville Place
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.
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.
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.
It looks very nice from the “rear” view as well:
The sunken garden provides somewhere to relax for the residents, while admiring the sculptures.
Watch the video on this Block by Blockhead:
Haul #13: eBay & Bricklink Orders
Postie brought me loads of parcels today. The first batch were various Bricklink orders I’ve put in over the last week, to finish off two projects which I will blog about very soon.
Next up was this big bag of mixed pastel bricks, plates and all sorts of stuff. Looks like someone has broken up another of those Belville Sunshine Home playsets – I recognise loads of the pieces in this bag! Very pleased to get two more of the pink lattice corner pieces (30016) – watch this space for why!
Finally, a random mixture of much smaller lattice fencing came. Not sure what this will be for yet, but it’s always good to have options when building.
