Summary for the week Feb. 19 - 25

I'd like to start off by assuring you I do not intend to post once per week on this blog long-term.  I've just been a bit more overloaded than usual of late, resulting in the need to trim a bit from even my regular routine.  This most recent week has been a prime example of the phenomenon, with a rush to move New Jang City forward being unexpectedly interrupted by the Toys R Us release of some cool cars and embargoed live-action superhero sets.

Avengers Infinity War reviews:

• LEGO Avengers Infinity War Sanctum Sanctorum Showdown review! 76108
• LEGO Avengers Infinity War Thanos Ultimate Battle review! 76107
• LEGO Avengers Infinity War Hulkbuster Smash-Up review! 76104
• LEGO Avengers Infinity War Corvus Glaive Thresher Attack review! 76103
• LEGO Avengers Infinity War Outrider Dropship Attack review! 76101

Speed Champions reviews:

• LEGO Speed Champions Ferrari Ultimate Garage review! 75889
• LEGO Speed Champions Porsche 911 RSR & Turbo 3.0 review! 75888
• LEGO Speed Champions Ferrari 488 GT3 Scuderia Corsa review! 75886

Custom builds:

• New Custom LEGO Cargo Ship -- dry bulk carrier MOC
• Custom LEGO ISO Tank Container MOC & build techniques
• Custom LEGO Road-Rail Switcher / Shunter MOC
• Epic LEGO ship MOC reveal! 😆

Only a small handful of early March release sets remain before I return to custom work, unless the Jurassic World sets suddenly appear in the wild.  My goal is now to have New Jang City ready for another full tour video in time for the beginning of this Summer.

Summary for the week Feb. 12 - 18

Well that was a productive week!  At times I felt like I was really having to push myself to work ever faster, but taking a look back at the before & after, the progress isn't half bad.  I received & unboxed quite a lot of loose pieces, but better than that is the fact that I used a lot of pieces!  In New Jang City, the port area has really come together and just needs a couple more ships and some custom vehicles to finish it up for the foreseeable future.  The big terrain feature has started to get its final layer of detail in some areas, though other parts need more foundation work.  The mine display that I just started last week is already approaching "done for now" status.

Last but not least, I snuck a few reviews into the mix to maintain variety, including the second of the two biggest Power Miners sets.

New Jang City:

• LEGO city update: Hillside foliage, mine backdrop, & more Feb. 18, 2018
• LEGO city update: Port tiled, mountain smoothed, mine sprinkled Feb. 16, 2018

Hauls:

• LEGO parts, that I bought, from Bricklink 📦 #221 (delayed publishing)
• LEGO parts 📦 #220
• More LEGO parts from Bricklink that'll be mostly used up by the time you read this long title 📦 #219

Custom builds:

• LEGO Container Handler AGV custom MOC!
• New custom LEGO container ship MOC!

Reviews:

• LEGO Star Wars Kylo Ren's Shuttle polybag review 30380
• LEGO Power Miners Underground Mining Station from 2009! set 8709
• LEGO car polybags: City Police Car 30352 & Juniors Fire Car 30338!

Summary for the week Feb. 5 - 11

This week has been all about 1) using up parts, 2) getting more parts, and 3) returning to 1.  The land side of the cargo harbor area went from a field of plain baseplates to a 3/4ths tiled-in yard with a "done for now" warehouse and an admin/operations building.  The terrain to house my Planetary Defense Force base has very nearly reached its final height and the second (of four) layer of parts has been painted across its entire outer surface.  Oh, and I used up still more pieces setting up the major terrain features for my underground mine.

Videos:

• Mining scene Under the LEGO City begins! Feb. 11, 2018
• LEGO city update: New harbor building, taller hill, moved warehouse Feb. 9, 2018
• More LEGO parts from Bricklink! 📦 #218
• LEGO city update: Harbor warehouse, rail crossing, more tiling Feb. 7, 2018
• Four LEGO part lots from Bricklink opened 📦 #217

LEGO city layout plan & queue (updated May 21, 2019)

The basic plan for my LEGO layout was formulated when I began in 2013.  When I moved to a new house in 2015, I gained some space and added a handful of items to the list.  Any empty space you see in any photo or video is already reserved for future build. Anything that looks incomplete is incomplete, and will eventually be completed to my specs over time.  Any official LEGO-designed structures or vehicles are only stand-ins and will ultimately be replaced by my own custom builds.

With the exception of the isolated underground "Mellemby District" section, this is not a crowd-sourced project.  While I appreciate that many viewers have ideas for how they would do things if New JANG City belonged to them, this is my own personal project, being designed & built by me, in my own home. I do not use viewer suggestions for changes or additions at this time*. The number one, key, core reason for any of this to exist is for me to freely express my own personal creative interests & desires. I do not add, remove, or change anything on request.

Here's how the build queue looks as of the date in the title of the post...

I will include:

• Metro area (with at least 4 very tall office buildings)
• Industrial area with factories, etc.
• Residential neighborhood with custom houses
• Planetary Defense Force base (above and below ground)
• Small city maintenance crew yard
• Pet store
• Chinese restaurant
• Dance club
• Cars, Trucks (passenger and commercial), other normal vehicles you'll find in any city
• People
• Trees & plants
• There will be much more that's not on this list!
• I do not add to this list on request -- as explained above, this city is all about my own inspiration & creativity.

Already added:

• One skyscraper (the first of at least 4)
• Police station (currently awaiting full rebuild)
• Fire station
• Shopping mall
• Small boat marina
• Zoo (to be rebuilt larger some day)
• Gas station with car wash and adjacent car repair/service garage
• Arcade + Ice cream shoppe + Bike shop
• Musical instrument store + Laser tag arena
• Rail systems:
• Two 9V standard-gauge rail loops
• Two standard-gauge rail yards
• One locomotive maintenance shop
• Elevated narrow-gauge rail loop
• Large passenger train station with elevated rail connector
• Second mainline passenger train station
• Second elevated narrow-gauge passenger train stop
• Underground mining scene with some official sets
• Stand-ins for residential area
• Custom small high-end apartment building
• Cargo harbor including:
• 2x piers
• Multiple cargo ships
• STS container gantry crane
• 2x rail sidings
• Level luffer crane (awaiting completion)
• Small warehousing building
• Harbor ops/admin building
• Various vehicles
• Work in progress, incomplete terrain to house Planetary Defense Force (military base) 
• Start of a small underground dinosaur/prehistoric zone (work in progress)
• Underground Minecraft overworld & Nether displays
• Temporary Nexo Knights battle diorama
• Start of an underground "Mellemby District" area driven by viewer suggestions (the sole section of the room where suggestions are strongly encouraged and acted upon)

I will not include:

• Airport.  NO AIRPORT, PERIOD!  An airport would ruin the plan for the entire city by taking up an absolutely enormous amount of space (if done to my satisfaction, and everything in my city must be done to my satisfaction).
• Heliport.  Same as above, just smaller (but equally undesirable)
• Above-ground parking garage.  Again, tremendous waste of incredibly valuable space (would need the area of at least 4 modular buildings to be even halfway decent).  Maybe an underground one some day, way off in the future?
• Big ol' bland, basic parking lot. Same as for the parking garage, except even worse since a parking lot is only one level and thus an even worse waste of valuable space that could be used for an entire multi-level commercial building, residence, or at least a park.
• Super Heroes area
• Ninjago area
• Chinatown or Japantown
• Star Wars area
• Race track
• Minecraft End City
• Sports stadium
• Certainly countless other things will not be built in my layout.  Stay tuned to this blog and my YouTube channel to see what I do build!

*These unfortunate disclaimers have had to be added in response to increasingly large numbers of increasingly rude viewer demands for additions to & removals from my layout, at worst numbering in the hundreds per day when major updates are posted.  The enthusiasm behind normal, casual suggestions is appreciated, but demands for changes are simply unacceptable.

Summary for the week Jan. 29 - Feb. 4

This week I got to mix a few reviews with some substantive work on New Jang City, in addition to finishing that new small passenger train (pictured above).  With countless pieces added onto and beneath my little corner mountain buildup, I find myself in that ever familiar state of needing parts to proceed.  With relevant Bricklink orders at various states of fulfillment & shipping, I've begun to divert attention towards other works in progress.  Gotta keep the momentum going!

Reviews:

• LEGO Ninjago (Juniors) Zane's Ninja Boat Pursuit review! 10755
• 60 Years of the LEGO Brick set reviewed! 40290
• LEGO Ideas Ship in a Bottle review ⚓ 21313

Customs & layout related:

• Work In Progress: Custom LEGO passenger train MOC update 2
• Farewell LEGO NEXO Knights! Final year 3 display & retrospective
• A better LEGO city update! Terrain, train, mess, etc. Feb. 1, 2018
• LEGO city update: Harbor tiling, terrain rises Feb. 4, 2018

Other:

• LEGO 60th Anniv. Black Seas Barracuda in the Ideas bottle

LEGO Ideas Ship in a Bottle review 21313

This evening I completed my review of this beautiful, well-constructed, practically 1:1 realistic scaled collectible display piece.

• Video: LEGO Ideas Ship in a Bottle review ⚓ 21313

To my utter shock, I'm seeing a lot of fan negativity towards this wonderful fan-inspired product.  While I agree that the ship in original Ideas submission looked much nicer, there were some pretty strong & inescapable factors that made duplicating it completely unreasonable to expect:

1. Total ~1,800 pieces, which would have made it a $140+ USD set, twice as expensive and accessible to a fraction as many potential buyers.
2. Bottle diagonal dimension of 9" (double) vs. this 4.5", and a similar (if not greater) difference in ship size
3. Fully glued masts to cheat away the inherent instability of the design
4. Use of numerous cut pieces (clearly illegal)
5. Use of discontinued pieces (not available to use)
6. Complex string rigging (completely out of the realm of allowed techniques for LEGO's techniques)

The original looked way better, unquestionably, but LEGO can't put just anything on shelves.  They have rules, standards, and basic logic & reason to contend with.

Regarding price, as I briefly explain in my review, the inclusion of 284 loose studs to represent water (per the fan designer's original idea) skews the overall price/part ratio.  However, if you pretend those 284 pieces don't exist at all, or have absolutely zero value, simple arithmetic generates a number of $0.10 USD/piece, the magic number that's been synonymous with good value for some years now (and probably overdue for an inflation adjustment).  There are indeed more 1x1 and 1x2 pieces in the set, but that's the case in most sets.  What's most uncommon, however, is the inclusion of four of the oversized and rare 6x6x9 double-curved panel pieces, which as of this writing have been averaging over $4.50 USD each.

I have to begin to wonder if I simply look at the world through rose-colored glasses in contrast to the deep negativity I see directed in so many directions from so many teen & adult LEGO fans, but even deep subjective bias can't change actual hard facts.  What am I missing?  Is the old addage, "You can't have your cake & eat it" a dying concept these days?

New Jang City: New terrain, new train

Hey!  More work in progress!  My last update was pretty boring & pedestrian, covering a lot of little grunt work, cleanup & basic chores that had a subtle, but important effect on the overall appearance of the layout.  Now I've undone some a bunch of that tidiness, but mostly in the corner where the Planetary Defense Force base is going.  I've put up a lot of Big Ugly Rock Pieces with Duplo supports and completed most of the first sweep of smoothing & randomizing, with at least two more such passes to go.

• Video: A better LEGO city update! Terrain, train, mess, etc. Feb. 1, 2018

In this video I also show the "done for now" form of my latest passenger DMU train, which thankfully runs smoothly the first time out.