Town Hall build

The Town Hall modular set is a great looking building, and also fun to build.
The only thing I don't like is the size of it. It is way to small to be considered a town hall so I decided to take 2 town hall sets and turn them into one true Town Hall that can accommodate the citizens of my ever growing Lego town.
It is being built on 3x2 of the 32x32 base plates which will give it some space at the front and sides for lawn,  gardens and a fountain like a town hall should have.
I was going to make this from 3 sets, but I think I can get 90% of the parts I need form the 2 boxes and then just use some of my existing  brick and windows to finish it off. I also swapped out the 2x tan 32x32 baseplates and replaced them with 6x green 32x32 baseplates.

Here are the boxes with all of the bags removed.

Here are the parts divided out in brick by colour and size for the larger parts, and then general type for the smaller ones. this took me about 3 hours!!

 Here is the beginning of the floor outline

Progressing along nicely, I am trying to work out the best balance of windows to walls here. I have done the doors at double the size of the set. A town hall needs big doors to let the people in!

First floor is now complete, except for the interior which I will do at the end.

The start of the 2nd floor. I have decided to add windows to the sides all the way up to the top floor.

 2nd floor added onto the building.

 3rd floor complete with large balcony for viewing down during the town meetings once the ground floor seating is full.

3rd floor added onto the building.

And the exterior is complete.

Here is a rear view.

Here are the left over parts. I will use some to build the gardens, paths and fountains around the Town Hall. I had to add in dark orange brick, a variety of colours of plates of all sizes, and also a fair few windows from my own collection.

I have started on the gardens, laying a flower bed around the base of the building, and also putting in 2 fountains. There are two other gardens that will have a large tree in each bed surrounded by flowersTiles for the entry walkway and paths around the gardens have been started on.

All ground tiling complete on front and sides, tree trunks have been started and fountains also started.

And here is the completed Town Hall !!

Building the Ghostbusters HQ designed by Brent Waller

I saw this a few months ago and thought it looked like a really good build and wanted to make one for myself. The design is by Brent Waller, the guy who designed the Ecto1 that the Lego Cuusoo (now Lego Ideas) set is based on.
 I downloaded the LDD files here  http://www.brentwaller.com/lego/ghostbustershq.zip   and used the parts list to start  getting the parts out of my collection.
After 2 hours of pulling parts out of my storage containers, I had 3029 of the required 3657 parts. 400 of those were Dark Red 1x2 brick, the rest were a combination of plates, tile and brick that I need to get of Bricklink. Some of them I was just a few short of, others I have none of at all.
The most over priced part seems to be the Dark Red 1x6 tile which only came out in a few sets.
I made up a wishlist in Bricklink, and started purchasing. The only issue I came across was that the 8x16 black plate doesn't exist, so I will replace it with other plate from my collection.
The 6 orders I did have set me back around $200 , so it would be hard to estimate the actual cost of building this, but I would say around the $1000 mark is a fair estimate.
Here is a list of the main parts that I had to get off Bricklink:
Brick 1x2 Dark Red
Brick 2x2 Dark Red
Brick 1x4 Dark Red
Roof tile 2x3 Dark Bley
Tile 1x6 Dark Red
Plate 1x4 Red
Black Window frame triparte.

I will begin the build tonight and try and get as far as I can until my orders arrive!



Here is the completed HQ.
It was a fun build, and I had to substitute some parts that didn't exist or where hard to find. I have the Ecto 1 on order from Lego and I will display it with road plates all around it. I also plan on adding in the interiors as shown in the movies.

May the 4th be with you! The building of a 4m tall Darth Vader and 2.5m tll Yoda out of Lego

I was lucky enough to be invited along to help out LCP Ryan Mcnaught and LMB Dan Steininger build the huge Darth Vader and Yoda.
I helped Ryan finish of the Yoda that was started on Saturday and then moved onto Darth Vader for the last 2 hours.
It was an awesome experience that the crowd really got behind, with lots of kids dressed up as Star Wars characters and lots of show bags handed out to the kids.
With over 250000 bricks between the two models, it certainly was a sight to behold when Darth's head was put into place at 3pm.
Here are some pictures I took during the day.

Sydney Brick Show 2014

The Sydney Brick Show 2014 was held from the 24th - 27th of April at the lower Town Hall in the heart of Sydney.
Exhibitors from NSW,Victoria,  Canberra and Tasmania made this the biggest and best Sydney Brick Show to date.
There were many displays including a huge Simpsons layout, trains, a 10m long Golden Gate bridge, city, castle and many more.
Check out some of the pictures below.