Monday, August 12, 2019

Hsanhe 6410-1 Starbucks Shop MOC modular building gets new colour scheme


Hey brick fans!  Welcome back to Bricks and Figs, my blog about Mocs and Minifigures.  Today, we will look at my latest changes to the Hsanhe 6410-1 Starbucks building since my last update which was back in 2016.

This is how the Starbucks shop looked like when we last updated it.  You can see how the 2016 version used to look here.  My new design departs from the original by using a more complementary colour scheme.

The tables and seats have been removed from the front of the shop and will be relocated to the back of the coffee shop.

In my previous iteration, the Starbucks included a rooftop terrace, but I no longer think it's relevant anymore, so it's gone now.

I'm still working out the details inside the shop and out back so this might change a bit.


A new tile floor has been added to the interior.  Furniture placement to follow soon.

The employee minifig from the set has gone AWOL, so I've hired a new barista until I can find him again.

Here's how all the Hsanhe modulars look like right now.  The McDonalds, 7-11 and Apple store are completely finished, whereas the Starbucks needs an interior so it's about 90% done.   The KFC shop will get a new facelift after I'm finished with the Starbucks building.

Bonus pic!  I just finished adding a couple of floors to the Starbucks building in which I will provide more pics and details in a future blog post.   Thanks for visiting my Bricks and Figs blog and see you next time.


Monday, July 1, 2019

My latest Not Lego MOC modular - 14 Stud Wide Townhouse


Hey brick fans, welcome back to Bricks and Figs!  I want to show you my latest modular building MOC (My Own Creation), it's a 14 stud wide townhouse al composed of non Lego bricks.  Why 14 studs, you ask?  

Here's the story.  I store many of my modular buildings in my Ikea Billy bookcase, which has the perfect depth, but if you try to place three 32 stud baseplates into the shelf, it won't fit.  The shelf can only accept a total stud width of 32 + 32 + 30 studs.  So the 30 studs can be split into one modular that is 16 studs wide leaving a remainder of 14 studs.  So in order to make the most effective use of the space, I created a 14 stud wide modular building.   As you can see in the above picture, all my buildings now fit perfectly together.

A warning that his blog post has lots of pictures!

The Concept Building




Here was the preliminary building I started with.  The building sits on a number of different sized plates that total 14 studs wide and 32 studs deep.  I initially envisioned a store on the main floor with two more levels of living space above.

But the realities of trying to squeeze in a staircase on each floor made it hard to come up with any kind of store with useable space on the ground level.  The staircase runs up the rear of the building.  I have had these red windows from a long time ago but never had a chance to use them until now.   Masonry bricks adorn the second and third floors.  

This is what I started with before adding the staircases to each level. I put down red and grey tiles on the main floor and red and white tiles on the upper floors to match the red exterior awnings of the concept building.

The Final Product


After I added the interiors, I realized that the my townhouse looked too much like a commercial building with it's red/red and white awnings, although it no longer housed any kind of storefront.  I decided to replace the red and red/white awnings with black ones to give the building a more residential feel.

My townhouse is completely modular, which means you can take apart each floor of the building.   Here's the four sections of the building all separated.

The First Floor - Living Room and Bathroom



So in place of any kind of commercial shop, the first floor of the townhouse is composed of the living room and a two piece powder room, with a staircase leading to the second floor.


On the ground floor outside, there's the sidewalk that follows the standards of other Lego like modular buildings.  I used a big bay window that was from an Enlighten brand police station.  Above the front door is a grille for ventilation.
The black canopy roof runs the entire width of the building.

Here's how the first floor looks after removing the rest of the building.  Because the main floor has higher ceilings, I had to use a long and a short stair part separated by a landing.

From this viewpoint, you can see the doorway that accesses the powder room located beneath the staircase.  The yellow brick walls are sourced from a Brick Tech set.

With the front of the building removed, you can get a better view of the living room.  The green armchair is taken from the Lepin brand Sanctum Santorum set.  The wall unit is from one of the Xingbao brand home furnishing rooms.

Here's another look at the furniture accessories on the main floor.  There's a stand with a potted plant.  The wall unit has several drawers and storage shelves with stereo amplifier.  For entertainment, there's a flat screen TV and ghetto blaster.  The powder room wall has been removed, so that you can see the sink, toilet and small window.  On the walls are a clock and the HVAC system tied into the vent over the front door.

 I'm thinking about pushing the back and front walls out by a stud or two to make the ground floor larger because it's a tad cramped.  Another project for another day.

The Second Floor - Kitchen


On the second floor is where the kitchen is located.  Despite the small space, I was able to add a few lower and upper cabinets with an oven with cooktop and sink on one wall.

On the other wall is a contemporary counter depth fridge with french doors.  Flanking the fridge is a shelf for mugs and a mop.

If you're interested in the kitchen design, the build tutorial can be found on Jaystepher's Youtube channel.

Rounding out the accessories on this floor are the kitchen table and chairs, another HVAC unit and clock.  The staircase continues up to the third floor.
On this floor, the stair wall is made up of flesh coloured bricks and army green accents.

The Third Floor - Bedroom


Here we are on the third floor where we find the bedroom.   The desk has two drawers, a table lamp, a computer, mouse and a mug.  The built in ladder rungs on the wall provide access to the rooftop.

 From this view of the bedroom, you will find a guitar and a working murphy bed.

I busted open the front wall for better viewing.  Oh yeah, I forgot there's another HVAC unit up here as well, but no clock because you can get the time by checking the computer.

The murphy bed design is a slightly modified version of the one found in the Lego/Lepin Parisian Restaurant modular.  Here is the bed in the down position. I ran out of flat tiles for the bed cover so I had to use two similar coloured jumper plates at the foot of the bed.

Ok, let's put the bed away, shall we?

Lots more room with the bed tucked away.

The Rooftop 


I was going to leave the rooftop empty, but then I decided to use some of the furniture from my recently acquired DG brand Corner Garage.  That's where the red lounger and umbrella are from. Other fun accessories are the charcoal grill, some fish and some hot dogs.

The access door is taken from Peter Parker's apartment aka Sanctum Santorum.

 Well, that's it!  Thanks for staying until the end.  I got lots of my spare brick pieces rom Aliexpress.  Hope you enjoyed looking at my 14 stud wide modular townhouse.   See you next time!

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Hsanhe 6409-2 Apple store MOC modular building gets a makeover

 

Hi and welcome back to Its Not Lego!  Today I'm showing you a re-build of an older set that I had previously built.  It's the Hsanhe 6409-2 Apple store.  Here's the link to what the build looked like last.   I got tired of the white windows and the footprint of the building was a lot more complicated than it needed to be.

 So in this iteration, I've decided to keep it simple again.  The Apple store returns to its signature all black facade while staying on the 20 stud wide custom baseplate.  On the sidewalk, I replaced the tree from the previous build with a standard street lamp.

When I built the last version of the Apple store, I didn't have enough white bricks for the side walls hence I used a lot of the window pieces I had accumulated from the Bela friends sets.  The new walls have now been sourced from Block Tech brand bricks.

The rear wall hasn't changed much other than being expanded to slot in between the two side walls.

As with all of my other modular MOCs, the roof lifts off to reveal the interior.

The interior of the store has been completely revamped.  I used white and light gray tiles for the floor.  There are banks of computers on both sides of the store.
The table in the front center was kept from the original build. 

The back wall has glass shelves for merchandise display and pulls away easily to provide better viewing of the interior.  I added a long counter for product checkout.  I just ordered some keyboard and monitor printed tiles from Aliexpress to replace the blank tiles that are the existing computers.

It's a slow day in the store so there are only three customers inside and a store employee however there's a lot of room if I wanted to add more minifigures.

Here's the view looking towards the back wall behind the counter.

Hey what's that Google home mini doing in the Apple store?

Outside of the Apple store, I have three more minifigures going about their business.

Overhead drone shot.

Finally, here's the new version of the Apple store situated in between my Hsanhe McDonalds restaurant and Hsanhe 7-11 convenience store, which are also completely revamped both inside and out.   Hope you enjoyed this latest update to my Hsanhe Apple store. What do you think, do you prefer this version or the previous version of my Apple store moc? Let me know in the comments section below.  See you next time!