How I Make the Raised Baseplates for my Modular Buildings

 

Hey brick fans!  

Some of you have asked me about the raised baseplates I'm using for my modular buildings, so this blog post will be a small tutorial and  closer look at how they are constructed.  Hopefully it will inspire you and give you some ideas for your own modular buildings.

It's still a work in progress, but I'm slowly migrating my modular building collection from classic baseplates to raised baseplates.  Classic baseplates have a tendency to warp over time and tend to flex when lifted. Raised baseplates give my buildings a cleaner and consistent appearance in addition to providing more structural integrity underneath.  

Just to be clear, my raised baseplates are not MILS plates, since mine have no connection points that allow the modular buildings to be connected to other plates such as roadways or other buildings.  Here's an example of what MILS plates look like: https://www.brickaddict.net/road-plates.  I don't need to have all my buildings attached to each other, because I like to rearrange them all the time for picture taking.

Today, we will look at how I make a raised baseplate for a 16x32 stud modular building, but the technique is the same if you have 32 stud wide modular buildings.  

Essentially we are making a sandwich structure with some blocks placed in between two sets of plates.  On the front of structure we place some SNOT bricks / technic stud bricks to which we will attach a fascia plate.

More on SNOT bricks here: https://bricknerd.com/home/snot-basics-geometry-techniques-and-pitfalls-3-18-2021

Here are all the parts you will need.   First we start off with a classic baseplate (that's the thinner single sided ones.

We then place some bricks on the classic baseplate.  It doesn't really matter the type of bricks that you use as long as you can attach them to the classic baseplate and then attach the regular plates on top.  For our example today, I'm using two pieces of 16x16 plates to place over the bricks, but you could use whatever you have on hand.  

You can use whatever technic bricks you have on hand, this is an example of 3 types of bricks you could use.  The 1x2 brick above will give you the greatest clutch power for attaching the front fascia. For most of my builds, the 1x1 brick with hole and blue pin is my preferred choice.

Here is example one.

Here is example two.

And here's example three. As I have said earlier, it's up to you to use whatever you have on hand and see which method works best for you.

Place the remaining plates on top.

These are the pieces we will use for the front fascia, 1 piece of 2x16 plate and 8 pieces of 2x2 tiles.  I've used dark gray for my fascia but you could use a different colour, just make sure that the plate and tiles are the same colour.

The completed fascia.

The raised baseplate with fascia attached.  It doesn't fit flush to the ground because of the lower baseplate and there's a bit of a riser where it meets your sidewalk.  I kind of like the setup though.

Now just finish off your sidewalk for your modular building.  It probably looks better if you have a contrasting sidewalk colour vs. fascia.  I'm using light gray tiles on my sidewalks so I use dark gray on the fascia.  But you can choose to make yours any colour you want.

There you go, that's how I make my raised baseplates with fascia for my modular buildings.  Hope you have found this information helpful and hoping to see how yours turns out.   Feel free to leave me a comment or question below.  Thanks for looking, bye!

How I enhanced the Cada C55018W Initial D AE86 Trueno (started out as a review)

 

*the above picture is not mine.  I found it on the internet.

Hello brick fans!  Just wanted to let you know that I recently won an Initial D prize pack that was part of a Cada contest on Facebook.  The prize pack included two small sets from Cada, the Fujiwara Tofu Shop C61033W and this Toyota AE86 C55018W.   

If you are interested in these sets, be sure to check out my Cada discount code at the end of this post!

Thank you Cada!

In this post I'll do a quick review of the Toyota AE86 set, a black and white drift car featured in the very popular anime series called Initial D by manga author Shuichi Shigeno.  The owner of a Tofu shop uses the car to make deliveries and ultimately it becomes a race car.

Here's some pictures I found on the internet of the featured vehicle.

Shuichi Shigeno standing next to his real AE86.

You can read more about it on the Initial D wiki page which can be found here: https://initiald.fandom.com/wiki/Initial_D_Wiki

After the short set review, I will detail the enhancements I made to my AE86 model.

Set Details

Brand: Cada

Set: C55018W Initial D Toyota AE86 Trueno

Piece count: 72pcs

Numbered bags? No

Stickers or printed parts? Both

Missing or deformed pieces: No

Extra parts: No

Minifigures: No

Lighting kit: No

Brick Quality and Clutch: Great

Measurements (approx): 1/35 scale

Age Rating: 8+

Unboxing

The Toyota AE86 set came in it's own box, but packaged together with the Tofu shop set.  Initial D artwork is featured on the cover of the box.  On the back of the box is the name of the Fujiwara Tofu Shop.

Inside the box, you get a thin booklet for the instructions, two sticker sheets and four bags of parts.  According to the Cada website there are a total of 72 pieces.

Unpacked, I counted a total of 75 pieces, 3 more than what Cada indicated.  Thr body panels, front and rear bumpers have printed details, but the fine details such as badging, lighting and license plates are added via the included stickers.

Assembling the AE86

As you can imagine, with only 75 parts, this is a very easy set to put together, great for kids.  

* not my pic, I forgot to take a shot like this.  Basically this is the original interior.

The Cada set is sort of a hybrid between a Lego style set and a plastic model kit with the pre-molded body panels, hood and bumpers.  The entire roof attached to the window panel but the rear window is blacked out.  You can even open the hood to display the engine block.  Other features include the side mirrors and the pop up headlights.

On the downside of this set, you can't open the doors or access the trunk, since there is no interior to speak of.  The car is supposed to be 1/35 scale which makes it slightly larger than minifigure scale which is estimated to be around 1/45 scale.  As such, no minifigures are provided with this set either.  But as we find out later, we can still put one inside.

So, I don't know why, but I got really distracted by the size of the wheels on the AE86. When I put them on the car, they look like giant marshmallows or steamrollers, to me anyways.  

At this point, I stopped taking pictures of the model and started rummaging through my parts bin to see if I could find some smaller wheels.  That's why you don't see any pictures of my finished original model, it's because I had already started to modify it.

Enhancing the AE86

Pictured above left are the original wheels and technic attachment axles used by Cada for the AE86.  On the right is the smaller diameter wheel and brick axle I decided to use instead.  It's a simple part swap that can be done by anyone if you have the parts.  

These are the same wheels used for the Lego caravan set 60182.

There's a lot more clearance in the wheel wells with the smaller tires.

I like that the new wheels actually lowers the stance of the car.  It actually looks more proportionate in my opinion.  So did anyone notice anything else what else looks different with the car?   There's actually two other things!

Did you guess the headlights?  Good for you!  So I also discovered that by replacing the headlights with a curved 1x1 brick, it puts the AE86 headlights into daytime driving mode.

Before.

After.  And I can swap the bricks anytime depending on how I want to display the AE86.

Here's a few more pictures.

I don't normally apply stickers to my building block sets, but the AE86 just wouldn't be the same without the Fujiwara Tofu Shop logo.

Are you wondering what's under the hood?  Oh yes, that may or may not be my minifigure representation of Bunta Fujiwara.  He was the best I could cobble together with the minifig pieces I had.  My answer on whether the Cada AE86 is minifigure compatible or not is Yes!

It's hard to see with the tinted windows, but you can definitely put a minifigure inside.

C'mon, you didn't really think I could enhance the exterior, yet leave the interior alone did you?  

There wasn't any interior in the kit, but I managed to squeeze as much detail as I could into the AE86.  This includes, a dashboard and steering wheel, a cup of water, and a stick shifter.   Initial D fans will understand the meaning of the cup.

My interpretation of tofu for delivery, lol.

Due to headroom constraints with minifigure added to the interior, I couldn't also add in a seat, so this was all I could do.  Can it be made better?  Let me know.

Some final thoughts.  Fit and finish were pretty good.  Some minor smudges on my roof panel which you might not notice if you don't look too closely.  All the parts fit together well and nothing fell off when handled.  The car rolls both well with the original and the retrofitted wheels.  I'm going to give this set a 4 out of 5 ,with points deducted for the large wheels, the lack of interior, the lack of minifigures and all of the stickers.  But it displays really well, if you just swap out the wheels.

Anyways, I hope you've had as much fun looking at the pictures, as I've had taking them.   Thanks again to Cada for the contest!

All three of the Initial D sets are available for purchase on the Cada website. Use my coupon code ITSNOTLEGO to save 5% at checkout.

Initial D AE86 Trueno C55018W

Initial D Fujiwara Tofu Shop Facade C61033W

Initial D Fujiwara Tofu Shop Modular Building C61031W

See ya next time, bye!

Review of the Briksmax LED Light Kit BX483 for Boutique Hotel

 

Hey brick fans, welcome back to Bricks and Figs!  Today I'll be reviewing the Briksmax LED light kit for the Lego Boutique Hotel.   As you can see from the picture above, the hotel looks amazing with all of the interior and exterior lighting.

Briksmax provided me with this awesome light kit to review so I wanted to share with you some behind the scenes shots of what goes into lighting up a modular building.   Check out their huge assortment of light kits on the Briksmax website.

Power Supply

If you've never lit up a Lego set, you might be wondering where the power comes from.

Briksmax provides a USB plug and battery pack (3 batteries required, but not included) to power all the lights in the kit.  If you don't want to use the double A battery pack, you can attach the USB plug directly into a USB power source.

The boutique hotel has an unused area in the corner, so I took the opportunity to make a small cubby to hold the provided battery pack and one of two first floor expansion boards.  This isn't required by Briksmax, but I thought it would make all the wires look less messy.  

Hotel Lobby, Art Gallery and Outdoor Bar

On the lower level I used a total of three 6 port expansion boards:

1.  for the streetlamp, hotel lobby ceiling and the upper floors of the hotel.  

2. for the room keys light and front entrance lights

3. for the adjoining art gallery and outdoor bar lighting

I placed one expansion board under the stairwell inside the first floor and the other sits outside behind the art gallery.  The boutique hotel came with a dumpster behind the art gallery, but I decided to remove it from my set so that I could accommodate the battery pack and expansion board.

Briksmax provides step by step instructions in the provided manuals, but I decided to freestyle my lighting runs.  In the pic above, I used my own 1x2 technic hole brick to feed the connecting wires from the power supply into an expansion port inside the building.  I did this to avoid crimping the wires under the bricks.

At this junction, power is distributed three ways:

1. Feed wire to the El cubo Art gallery expansion board and hotel main floor lighting expansion board (see the powers supply pic).

2. Feed wire to the wireless contact point between the first and second floor (see pic above).  I deviated from the instructions by placing all of my wireless contact pads for each floor in the hotel stairwell.  The wireless connectors supplies all of the power to light each floor of the hotel.

3. Exterior street lamp connection.

Briksmax provides a light-up streetlamp to replace the standard one that comes with the hotel.  The wiring for the street light is connected to the expansion board under the stairwell.

The wireless contact pad provides power to the art gallery ceiling light and it's dedicated expansion board.

See how the colour changing LED light transforms the static sculpture into a vibrant work of art.

The lighting for the El Cubo sign is a bonus add-on by Briksmax.

Here's the ceiling light strip for the art gallery ceiling. All the wires to light the outdoor bar terminate at the expansion board pictured above.

Here's the underside of the first floor ceiling.  The wireless connector feeds power to the light strip and then upwards to the next floor.

Hotel Second Floor

In their lighting kit, Briksmax provides LED lights for the desk lamp and bedside lamps (see orange circles), but I chose not to apply them, since my focus is just having the general interior lit up from the ceiling lights.

It's not pretty but here is the ceiling lighting for the second floor of the hotel.  Power from the wireless connector goes to an expansion board that connects the main LED light strip and three other LED dot lights.  In addition to the light strip, I put a dot light in the stairwell, the small bedroom and in the entrance to the larger bedroom. A wire feed will forward the power to the third floor.  I used my own circular gray pieces to hold the wires in place, but it's probably a cleaner look if you hide the wires under the long white plate pieces as per the Briksmax instructions.

Hotel Third Floor

The third floor wireless connector will power the ceiling lights and the light in the spire on the roof.

Briksmax provides led lights for the TV and bedside tables but again I chose not to use them opting only to use ceiling lighting.

For the third floor, I've placed dot lights on the ceiling bathroom, in the ceiling rotunda and in the stairwell, and the larger strip light all terminated to the expansion board.  The spire light on the rooftop also feeds down into the same expansion board.

The orange pointer shows you where the LED light is situated.

Summary

So here is a complete list of all the Briksmax components I used to light up the boutique hotel modular building.

- battery pack

- usb plug

- 5 expansion boards

- 4 strip lights

- 13 dot lights

- 1 colour changing dot light

- 1 light standard

- 4 sets of wireless connector pin/pads

Briksmax provides some substitute Lego parts to use as well.  I also supplemented these parts with my own to make it a bit more custom, but you can achieve the same results by just following the Briksmax instructions.  I can make use of the unused lighting parts in future building block sets.

As you can see, there's not a lot of exposed wires showing for the viewable areas.

Here's a few more shots in the dark around the hotel.

I didn't have any defective parts in my kit but if you did, Briksmax will send you free replacement parts if required.  I've used other LED light kits before Briksmax, but find that they give me the most flexibility in choosing what I want to install.  Their instructions are easy to follow as well.

If you missed my Briksmax lighting kit unboxing post, you can find it here.

Well, that's it, hope this post helped you to decide whether Briksmax is the right kit for your Lego lighting needs.  Bye for now!