Meg's MOC Update - The Devil is in the Details

Nearing the top of the building!

I promised in my last post that I'd focus in on some of the details in the Old Firehouse that I'm trying to replicate in my MOC. Because the building was created in two stages, the two sides are rather different from each other - despite having a few similarities. The older/left side of the building has details that are all created through the placement of brick or the addition of red sandstone. There are several points where the brick juts out just a bit here or there to add texture. Unfortunately, since a 1 x 1 brick is equivalent to a foot across, and these bricks on the building jut out an inch or less, I have a hard time showing that detail in my MOC. Sometimes I did capture it because I thought it was an important and noticeable detail of the building. Other times I had to add the affect some other way (change in color, change in brick type).

Notice the white stone, then brick that sticks out.

The white at the bottom is the stone, the orange is the unpainted brick that sticks out. 

The area above the downstairs windows - where Happy Lucky's Teahouse is - is what I focused on today. The more I look at the photos I have, the more detail I see. And since this is the "newer" (1901) part of the building, for some reason they used a lot more wood detailing, which means the details become finer and harder to emulate in brick.

If you start at the dangling holiday lights and work your way up, you start with a really thin colored line. (I don't even know what to call that color of paint that they used. It's like a cross between salmon and skin tone. Ugh. For my MOC, I'm just calling everything that color - orange. That way I have three main colors, red/white/orange. And since it's paint, it can always change. But since the red sand stone is actually rather orangish, I'm going with orange. Alright, back to the details...

Colored line... white line... colored line.. bigger white line but not so big that you could show the distinction in brick... colored line with squares of white sticking out on it, colored line, white line, colored line, brickish line, red sandstone. Pull hair out now! 

Here's how I tried to recreate that back and forthing of color. I couldn't really show the ins and outs of it, though, because each forward or backward of wood detailing is too small to catch with Lego bricks. So I used some door rails to show a bit of jutting out action, but I had no orange door rails so they're all white. (I did order some, but I wasn't able to find a store with enough that I could go orange/white/orange like I should. So instead I'm going to make it white/orange/white and stick my tongue out at anyone that points out the difference.) For those that don't know (and I didn't until my son told me about them) a door rail is a plate (that's a very thin Lego piece. Three plates equal the height of one brick.) that has been modified by having a bit of a rail stuck off the side of it. So when I put the plate into place, the "door rail" sticks out past the rest of the Lego bricks.

You only get a sense of the white jutting out bit by the shadow showing up between the white squares. 

Oh, and then there's the windows. Oi Vey! The windows! Bricks help us, there is no such thing as a window that's three studs across in Lego-land. What's with that? So despite the fact that there should be 4 evenly sized windows across the top bit here, I had to go with a 2 stud window, two 4 stud windows and another 2 stud window instead. It breaks my heart to be that far off. I could leave the spaces and scrap the windows like I did for the two large windows below them. (They do make windows that would fit those spaces, but they're all currently located in Europe and I don't have time for two little plastic windows to get onto a boat and float over here.) I don't know. Maybe that's what I'll do yet. But for now, we have 2 - 4 - 4 - 2. And a wincing motion every time I look at it.

Here's a picture of the front of the building so you can compare the windows and share my pain.

I found this photo on the web and it has been such a help. There's currently an awning over those four, evenly spaced windows. So having this photo that showed me how it was all supposed to look under the awning has been a huge boon.  ... Well, it would be a huge boon if it meant that I could see there are evenly spaced windows under there, find Lego windows that would fit, and then fit them into place. Instead, I wish Lego made a brown awning with Happy Lucky Teahouse printed on it to cover the four evenly spaced windows that I haven't been able to reproduce. *takes a moment to cry into her hanky*

I have a week and a half for new bricks to arrive before we leave for Brickcon. At that point, what's not built is going to remain not built. So I at least need to get enough done that I'm not going to be mortally embarrassed in front of all those MOC masters.

I sorta forgot that the turret sort of thing at the top has more than just one side to it. I quickly ordered some windows for the sides today. Hopefully I have enough red brick to finish this off. (I should. I still have piles of the stuff. And lots of other stuff that I ordered "just in case" and I haven't needed. Then again, some "just in case" stuff turned out to be very handy. I envy the Lego builders who work in Lego filled workshops where anything they might ever need is at their finger tips.)

I'm still not sure how much I'm going to do on the inside of the building. I'm realizing that once I put the floor for the second story in, you can't really see much inside on the first floor. So even though I have some book shelves in there, I'm not sure how much I should fill them out. I need some little lights for the inside of my building. (I did order one. We'll see how it works.)