Monday, September 27, 2021

My latest creation is the motorcycle shop modular building!

 My custom motorcycle shop modular building




Hi brick fans!  Welcome back to bricksandfigs.blogspot.com!   Just wanted to show you a few pics of the motorcycle shop modular building I made last month.  If the ground floor shop looks somewhat familiar to you, it's because this moc originally started life as the Lepin 02047 Service Station set (Lego 60132 City Service Station).

Here's how the service station looked in my review on my Its-Not-Lego.blogspot.com blog.  


Here's the full modular building consisting of three storeys which sits on a 32x32 stud baseplate. There's two floors of furnished apartments above the motorcycle shop. This MOC is comprised of bricks from the Lepin service station and lots of other bricks from spare parts stash.


The Building Design



This contemporary style modular building features a central tower flanked by different coloured wall sections.  As you can see, I'm missing a few pieces so the building is about 98% completed (for example, I'm waiting for delivery of the smaller gray windows on the main floor.  I wanted the building to have different tiers so I added some balconies, terraces and a sloped roof for visual interest.  The 7up sign was an afterthought but I've included it into this latest picture.  The light fixtures from the Lepin gas station were replicated on the third floor and the billboard.


Here's the side view of the modular building.


And here's the rear of the modular.  Kind of reminiscent of those buildings made from stacked shipping containers, lol.  The exterior wall bricks are from various brick brands, hence the colour variations.  And some bricks are just old, sorry about that! To maximize the interior space I pushed the building footprint all the way to the back of the baseplate. I used crappy Brick Tech windows for the second and third floor.  The entrance to the second and third floor apartments is through the burgundy door.

The motorcycle shop


As I mentioned earlier the front facade of the motorcycle shop was taken from the Lepin 02047 Service Station, but I also added a garage bay with roll-up doors.  Unfortunately, the doors don't move as the tolerance of the doors is too wide for the track, so it's permanently stuck in this position. That's the downside for using not Lego bricks, I guess!  Outside, there's parking for several bikes.


Inside the garage is a fairing hung on the wall and another bike waiting for service.  


This motorcycle shop provides both sales and service.  The front of the shop has Batgirl's motorcycle on display as well as several retail items such as helmets and whatnot.


The store manager is sweeping the floor while one of the mechanics is repairing a bike at the back of the shop.  Extra supplies and parts are stored under the stairwell.
There's a service counter with cash register and a trophy.


I still need to create a portable tool cart, but for now all of the tools are located on the staircase wall.  There's also a drill press on the counter.  Bike parts hang from the walls inside the shop and garage bay.


The Second Floor Apartment


The second floor apartment is completely furnished with living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom with hardwood flooring throughout.  The terrace is accessed via the bedroom.  The living room has floor to ceiling windows and has a sofa and TV.


The functional kitchen has a fridge, stove, sink and drawers with more storage in overhead cupboards and a fanhood.  I need add a couple of extra burners to the stove!  There's no dining room, so you would have to eat your meals in the living room.  I should add a coffee table in the living room.


The bathroom is also a shower room that houses the sink and toilet too.


The bedroom features a single bed and two nightstands.  Just need to add a table lamp.  The patio is covered by the awning I took from my Sembo Hong Kong flats building.

The Third Floor Apartment


The third floor apartment also has hardwood floors, entrance to it is at the top of the lighted stairwell.  Apartment has living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, pretty much the same as the apartment below it, except the layout is different.


The selling point of this apartment is the large bathroom with tub, toilet and sink.


The drawback to this apartment is the very small kitchenette.  There's just enough room for a stove and sink with open pantry on the wall next to it.  The bedroom is tiny too but does lead to a small walkout balcony.



Hope you've enjoyed this tour of my motorcycle shop modular building moc!  Let me know what you think in the comment box below. See you next time, Bye!

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Here are all the not Lego minifigures I got in June 2021!

Hello fans of the brick!  Welcome back to my blog!  Today's quick post will update you on my latest non Lego minifigure acquisitions from Aliexpress.  I'll put a link to the stores I got them from at the bottom of this post.

I'm always on the lookout for inexpensive minifigures, especially those that I can get for less than one dollar each.  I found a store that was selling batches of 10 to 12 minifigures for around $6 CDN.  I also found another store that carried the latest minifigures made by World Minifigures, Kopf, and Pogo brands.

I'm just displaying the minifigures in no particular order.  At the time of this writing, I might have already changed some heads or hairpieces of some of my new minifigures, so don't expect yours to look exactly like mine, if you get them.


Here are some fine ass kicking ladies from the Kopf and Xinh brands. Pictured left to right KF1276, XH1678, KF599 and KF515.  I swapped the 2 heads on the two leftmost minifigures, so that the first one looks like the bride from Kill Bill.  These ones I bought from the Cheering Minifigure store on Aliexpress.

Some more minifigures you might recognize from the Stranger Things, Fortnite and Wandavision franchises.  Chengyi brand CY008 Joyce Meyers (leg swapped), Xinh XH1651, Kopf KF600, and XH1673.  These minifigures from Aliexpress Cheering store also.

The remainder of the pictures are some generic minifigures, I'm not sure of the branding. There are 4 or 5 different sets sold by the Leyu2018 store onAliexpress, each set having 10 or 12 minifigures.  This store is the one I have found selling these sets of minifigures.


In this first picture, I got a male and female security team, a person from the military and a special ops minifigure.


There's a couple of minifigures here that look like they are from the Friends franchise. The other two, I don't know but I can place them in my not Lego city.


Here's some more generic minifigures for my city.  I can't tell if the short one is a boy or girl.  The guy with the banana shirt has a Harry Potter face.


The lady in the red jacket has an id tag, not sure what her profession might be.  I can certainly use the barista minifigure for my coffee shops.  I could see the lady with the gray jacket as being a flight attendant or someone who works in a mall.  Not sure how I can use the guy sporting the british colours.


Here are a couple of painters, a young lady and a female tennis player.

Sunday, June 6, 2021

I tried improving the Lego Ideas Garbage Truck MOC C5333



Hi brick fans, thanks for stopping by my blog Bricks and Figs!  Hope you enjoy today's post!

The other day, I acquired and built the Garbage Truck MOC C5333.  I posted some pics and a review on my other blog Its Not Lego.

I wasn't very happy with the inferior bricks that were used in the set, so I wanted to see if I could make this set better.  Let's take a look and hope you can let me know if it was a success or not.

The original set had a white cab but a lot of those bricks were yellowing.  I thought about simply replacing those white bricks from my own stash, but got to wondering if I should make my version of this MOC a bit more unique so I made it entirely green.  There's still a few colour inconsistencies in the green bricks I used vs. the ones from the set, but not much I can do there.  I don't have a lot of green bricks in my parts stash, so thankfully I had enough to modify the cab.


The original cab from MOC C5333 didn't have an interior.  I don't believe that the original model, from which this MOC is based, had one either.  I ended up rebuilding the entire cab so that I could include a steering wheel, a dashboard, and two seats.  I added a driver's side door so that the driver can get in and out.   

A couple of bonus items I added to the cab include the obligatory red mug that you see in most Lego truck sets, and a dog who happens to be the driver's pet.  The dog likes to come along when his master is on the job.


I also extended the cab so that the garbage man had a place to stand instead of hanging off the side of the truck.  In case of inclement weather, he can duck inside the cab.  Unfortunately I only had one green cab door part, so this side gets no passenger side door, but you can still get inside via the ladder.  I realize that I have no side mirrors on the cab, so this is something I'll have to fix in the future.


As a result of the extended cab, I also had to lengthen the truck chassis.  In the original garbage truck model the designers included a broom and shovel but the C5333 MOC only had a stick and an axe (don't ask me why).  My version restores the original tools to the truck.


To further differentiate my re-MOC of the C5333 MOC, I used decided to use yellow as an accent colour instead of making the truck only green.  The yellow accents can be found on both sides of the truck, on the back door and also inside the truck as well.


I replaced all of the axles and wheels and now my truck rolls freely.  I also replaced some of the technic pieces so that the garbage can loader now works more consistently.




My version of the garbage truck includes a driver minifigure and a garbage man minifigure.



Anyways, that wraps up my custom modifications to the Garbage truck C5333 MOC. Let me know what you think of the changes and any other improvements you can think of.   Thanks and see you in my next post, Bye.