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All:
Hi there! It’s been a while since I’ve posted a LEGO creation like this one.
I love microscale, and for years I’ve been noodling around with it in my spare
time, creating lots of little cars and 2-inch-tall buildings and things. But
they usually go unphotographed, and eventually get disassembled.
So I’m happy to share with you a microscale LEGO town that I built last month.
While not as detailed or adventurious as models like my Greenwich Village, it
was at least nice to be able to build a whole town full of people and cars and
trees and houses and things.
Pictures are on MOCpages and
seankenney.com
Situated at the edge of suburbia, the model depicts modern residential
development. A newly built cul-de-sac of single-family homes balances available
land with the high square-footage demands of today’s American families. Kids
with their backpacks wait for the schoolbus as a UPS truck, no doubt chock full
of goodies from Pottery Barn, lumbers into the neighborhood. An SUV, parked
crookedly, and sedans dot the driveway. Close by, local police have pulled over
a sports car driver for endangering himself with speeds in excess of 35mph.
Nearby Main Street has given way to newly constructed mixed-use condo
highrises... One’s already done, and another just like it is going up next
door.
I decided to use a very “studdy” construction, comprised mostly of basic bricks
and plates, unlike previous micro models
of mine that use highly specialized parts to garner their detail. It forces you
to work with basic, cartoon-like designs, and to derive a lot of the detail from
color. For example, rather than use
3x5 leaves to create the
kinds of realistic trees I normally do, I instead opted for a
blocky-lump-of-green design. I really like this look, actually.... it gives
the whole model a sort of “mini sculpture” feel. I hope you like it.
Sean
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Sean Kenney
LEGO Certified Professional
http://www.seankenney.com
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Wow, what can I say?
The school bus is great. Nice detail using simple pieces.
But the masterpiece for me is the house under construction. The framing is great
and even a board being sawed! Great details all around.
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Wow that timber framed house going up is a masterpiece! There some other nice
details scattered throughout your MOC, and the crane is definitely a worthy eye
catcher, but I keep coming back to that house, Great work!
God Bless,
Nathan
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In lugnet.build.microscale, Sean Kenney wrote:
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I decided to use a very “studdy” construction, comprised mostly of basic
bricks and plates, unlike previous
micro models of mine that use highly specialized parts to garner their
detail. It forces you to work with basic, cartoon-like designs, and to
derive a lot of the detail from color. For example, rather than use
3x5 leaves to create
the kinds of realistic trees I normally do, I instead opted for a
blocky-lump-of-green design. I really like this look, actually.... it gives
the whole model a sort of “mini sculpture” feel. I hope you like it.
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Yeah, it really shows! Excellent use of basic parts & colors to show detail.
Looks awesome.
-Bryan
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In lugnet.build.microscale, Ted Godwin wrote:
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The school bus is great. Nice detail using simple pieces.
But the masterpiece for me is the house under construction. The framing is
great and even a board being sawed! Great details all around.
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Thanks! The school bus was the first thing I created for the entire display,
and it helped set the tone of the whole model. There are some things I’d change
on the bus (it doesn’t have a door, for example) :) but what can you do? The
whole micro town literally grew outwards from the school bus, starting with a
little diorama of the kids getting on the bus, then the house behind them, then
some trees, then a car in the driveway, etc.
I have mixed feelings about the house under construction... because of its
design, it feels a bit like cheating to me. The plates are turned upright and
wedged in between studs, which isn’t very sturdy (and, as I’ve learned,
technically “illegal” by TLG’s design standards!). But most of all, the second
floor is simply balanced atop the first, which really feels like cheating. LEGO
is about interconnected bricks, not balancing colored plastic pieces atop one
another. :) Alas, I’ve never been a purist and it looked so cool that I just
couldn’t resist. :)
I also did another “illegal build” on the
cube truck. Although it’s hard to see from the angle in the photo, the truck’s
“window” is a black 1x2 brick
with pin. It’s only half-way inserted into a 1x1 technic brick. It stays in
place properly, but it stresses the pin and will eventually cause it to break.
(All this “illegal info” was gleaned from Jamie Berard’s great
presentation at Brickfest last
summer, by the way.)
And thanks for noticing the board being sawed at the construction site! When I
realized that the circles from the
minifig
pully lined up with the holes in a
1x2 grille, I realized I had
the perfect 4-piece-tablesaw. :)
Sean
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Sean Kenney
LEGO Certified Professional
http://www.seankenney.com
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In lugnet.build.microscale, Anders Isaksson wrote:
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I really like ... the lady(?) with the pram,
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Yes, it’s supposed to a lady with the pram / stroller. Micro makes very little
gender distinction! :)
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There are too few shots mainly of the houses,
though - I’d like to see more pictures of them.
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The houses are mostly the same as each other... In the true style of American
residential development, my micro folks were only given a few model homes to
choose from, which were all mostly the same. One resident opted for the
colonial design with black shutters and a red door. The rest took the same
style home but altered the color of their vinyl siding or selected a brick
facade. :)
I’ll see if I can put some more pictures of the houses online. I took a lot of
photos, so I’m sure I have some.
Sean
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Sean Kenney
LEGO Certified Professional
http://www.seankenney.com
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