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My Winter Village Project
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Thanks!
I'd like a Christmas Family Home, with Christmas dinner on the dining room table, a roaring fire in the lounge, stockings hung over the mantelpiece and bedrooms for the children with easy access to the roof! Or have they done that already?
Ice rink?
Woodland diorama?
A bridge over a frozen river?
And I have to mention it, and I know it won't ever get made, and I know the reasons why but I still can't help myself: A church
#41323 Snow Resort Chalet
#41319 Snow Resort Hot Chocolate Van
#41324 Snow Resort Ski Lift
Currently a pass on the Ice Rink and Off-Roader sets.
As the typical "Friends" color scheme doesn't quite fit the typical Village color scheme, what would be recommendations from everyone on colors to exchange to make these sets match better?
I see it's on Backorder currently on S@H. I assume that doesn't mean it's retiring soon?
I'm kicking myself for not pulling the trigger on a local offer for that set for significantly less a couple of months ago. But I'm afraid I'd kick myself even more if I didn't just go ahead and get it now before it retired and jumped even more in price. I'm hopeful I can grab this and potentially the new WV set on a double points weekend. I just don't want to wait too long for those stars to align and miss one or the other.
It's usual for a Winter Village set to be available for 2 Christmas seasons, with limited availability for the remainder of the year. Most likely this will be the case for this set as well.
You're actually lucky in the US that they have it available from S@H during the remainder of the year; this is not the case in Europe. On EU S@H this set isn't even listed at the moment. Should be back in September though.
I'd also be looking to motorize #10254. I know the instructions list the IR remote and receiver. I assume these wouldn't be required? Could I just get away with #88000 and #88002 and manually turn it on/off?
Also, if I wanted additional tracks, is there a recommended track-only set I could purchase? I found #7499, but it doesn't seem to have the greatest reviews. I have a TON of old gray tracks (#3228b and the curved versions), but not sure if they'd work...they certainly wouldn't match the included tracks.
(That's how I sorted mine).
I'd go with the IR receiver/transmitter combo, or maybe get the expensive rechargeable battery pack as it has a speed control. But this (+ suitable power adapter if you don't have it) costs more than than the IR receiver+transmitter...
@sid3windr - Thanks for breaking it down for me. I'm not sure how fast "full speed" is, but I know I'd like to run it a bit slower considering my layout is fairly small and a runaway train hauling through town isn't really the feel I'm going for (yet...).
Considering the option to go with something like #60051 instead, the rechargeable battery + crazy over priced power adapter seems like a bad option. I still appreciate knowing that the option exists though!
I showed her what I had in mind. She looked around our living room for likely locations it could be displayed, and then said, "That's way too small! You should put it in that corner so it can be bigger."
It was one of those moments where I just smiled and nodded, maintained eye contact, and slowly backed out of the room in fear that the luck would be broken if I blinked or breathed too heavily.
So...I guess back to the drawing board with bigger ideas!
My obvious challenge with a bigger layout and the desire for an eventual brick-only landscape is more bricks needed. I've never undertaken a "brick city" of sorts, so I feel like I'm biting off more than I should. The logical side of my brain says to just stick with my original layout. The rest of my brain is nervous that I'll lose the go-ahead with the larger footprint if I don't just run with it.
I'm working on completing a draft that I'll post here for some input.
It's almost the exact same problem as I have with the UCS MF, actually...
I'm cheap in general, so forking out huge amounts of cash at once has never been an easy thing to do. I would love the chance to add the Post Office and Market scene to my village, but currently anticipate having to do it through slowly acquiring pieces over time. I guess I then run the risk of paying more than I would have if I had just bought it all at once.
I saw one photo in another thread of a small mod to the Train Station. Has anyone else expanded it? My current thoughts are to expand the plates on the "interior" and add some seating for waiting passengers as well as a ramp on the right side like @eMJeeNL did.
I informed my son last night that I would need to raid his storm trooper army once the village was set up.
...he was less than agreeable for some reason
lots of WV inspiration there!
Finances likely won't let me, but I did find a local seller with the WV Market who has a pretty reasonable asking price. I doubt the Mrs. will be on board with it, but there is a slim chance I could add that to the mix as well!
To clarify, the bagged sets on the left are the Winter Cottage and small Christmas Set (#3300014-1), the bagged sets on the right are the Winter Village Bakery and power functions necessary to motorize the Train.
I looked through a bag of minifigs I bought several months ago as well and found a couple handfuls of figs that I'll also include in the scene.
SO PUMPED!!!
Personally, I don't like the look of the Winter Market Village. I don't know if it's because a lot of it just looks like random small buildings or because I've never seen a carousel being run outside in the winter before.
However, part of me thinks the Post Office and Bakery will be redone, so if I were in your shoes I might just hold off. I have bought a lot of stuff in the aftermarket which I love, but there are a few ones I bought which I sort of regret sometimes. You seem like you are determined to get them all though. Kudos to you if you end up making a Winter Church. I love seeing MOC stuff, but have never tried to MOC something even if I had instructions because I hate bricklinking all the pieces.
there are some, like this one?
in a small town in France.
It'd probably look pretty good in a European-style Christmas ski resort, if as tamamahm suggests it's matched up with the friends sets (chalet, ski lift)
@tamamahm, I've thus far resisted the urge to buy the Friends ski resort sets this year...but I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hold out. I like the look of most the sets, but would likely MOD the brighter colors out to blend more easily into my other sets. I'm just glad there are other options out there to incorporate!
As much as I want to be a completionist with the already released WV sets, it will take the right deal for me to end up with the Post Office and Market sets. I had thought the same about the Cottage and then found the deal mentioned on page 1 of this thread and got the Cottage and Bakery (as well as a couple of other smaller sets) for $150, so crazy things can happen!
My ultimate goal for the Market set is to have a town square with the large tree from the Toy Shop, games, festivities, food vendors, maybe a gazebo of some sort? I think that set would really help fill the town square out.
I've also decided to add some caves (eventually) for my Caveman minifigs I just got with the current promo. It'll likely be a continuation of the same cave system I'll (eventually...) have my train run through.
Did you see the two mini 9.99 sets? With the Christmas tree and train? That would give you six more characters for $20. Those are some nice holiday filler!
Agreed on the Friends sets likely being found on sale. If I'm lucky (which I never am), maybe I can raid a local Walmart on some super crazy deal and stack up some sets to merge together.
I saw them at a store late last week, but it looks like they are also online now.
https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Christmas-Train-Ride-40262
https://shop.lego.com/en-US/Christmas-Town-Square-40263
@Switchfoot55 The bright colours in the Friends sets are easy to mod out, at least on the outside. The inside requires a bit more work, but depending on how you'll display them the interior might not be visible? In that case you can either leave out the interior altogether or live with the pink inside as you will not see it (the approach I'm taking).
I'm hoping to be able to create some stickers for mailboxes that would match the Post Office logo. That way every resident/business in my village has matching mailboxes.
My personal plan is to use built-up 32x32 baseplates, about one per set, connected by technic pins. Then build up scenes with those as the anchor point. Beginning design:
I like the modular baseplate feel for several reasons: ease of storage after the holidays; the ability to more easily move items around and rearrange; the potential to more easily hide wires should I choose to add some LEDs to my village.
I was able to acquire a handful of the large gray baseplates that will likely serve as my foundation for this year. I've been meaning to upload some of my ideas for my layout. I'll hopefully get those up here shortly for some feedback.
@Cyberdragon (or anyone else), could you explain more regarding the jumpers you referred to above?
Just finished placing my very first orders on Bricklink. I found minimizing the number of stores and overall costs to be a fun challenge. I'm sure the "fun" doesn't scale with the size of the order, however!
I picked up the instruction manuals for the Cottage and Bakery. I know I could just download them online, but I'm definitely a tactile sort of guy and something about having the actual manuals in front of me makes me feel like I fully own the set. For about $10 total, it wasn't a huge expense either!
Also got the 30 or so pieces I was missing from the Cottage and Bakery sets I picked up several months ago, so those sets are officially complete. I certainly don't plan on selling them any time soon, but, aside from a box, I could advertise a complete set (including minifigs, but minus the extra pieces - so maybe not technically "complete").
I had finalized my modifications for my Winter Station in LDD. Then while I was placing my order, I modified it again in my brain to add one more section. Fingers crossed I ended up ordering what I actually need!
Having orders already going out, I threw in a few other items that seemed to be at a decent price and would help expand my scene this year. A few 16x16 white plates, some additional trees, a pair of 21L String with climbing grips for some more Christmas lights, and other small bits and bobs.
Definitely learned a valuable lesson in not sitting on an order for too long trying to make up your mind. There was a store that had almost everything I wanted to order, including both sets of instructions. They sat in my cart for the last two weeks while I dragged my feet. When I finally decided this morning to pull the trigger, both instruction manuals were gone. Go figure!
The debate raged in my head prior to making the order as to whether I should attempt a trip to my nearest Bricks and Minifigs store to see if I could sort through their bulk tables and find the majority of what I needed. In the end I decided that, based on what I was after and the uniqueness of some of the parts and colors, that it wasn't worth spending at least a couple of hours sorting through mountains of bricks to maybe save me $2-$3 in the end. Moving forward, when MOCing buildings or doing additional modifications, it'll likely be worth it. But for now, I'll pick sanity of savings!
My wife and I have a getaway weekend planned and will be leaving Thursday evening. I'll likely set a build schedule shortly thereafter to get everything up and ready and then can finally start placing buildings on the table!