Lego City planning approach

Comments

• scottdd2 Member Posts: 168

  August 2020

  Good old graph paper for me, I still have a folder of cities I designed as a kid, some went to the point of tracing paper overlays marking vehicles, trees, buildings. (A bit of OCD came into play there).
  Now that I'm doing 1 large sustained city that will take some time, I have done the basic layout on graph paper then more detailed design work in LDD. I'm not keeping buildings to a standard 32x32 etc so I have them closer to the road than if I had a modular plate just next to a roadway plate so the digital version helps there.
  Oddly enough I just started to play around with Excel as well to map out some plans.

  

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• daewoo Member Posts: 846

  August 2020

  I use BlueBrick for track layouts and I've got a few possible city layouts as well.  I just don't have space (a room) to set up the tables upon which the city will be built.

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• SumoLego Member Posts: 15,235

  August 2020

  scottdd2 said:

  Good old graph paper for me, I still have a folder of cities I designed as a kid, some went to the point of tracing paper overlays marking vehicles, trees, buildings. (A bit of OCD came into play there).
  

  I'm relieved that I'm not the only one using graph paper.  I also do cut-outs for the footprint of the modulars to simulate actual spacing on my table.

  

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• klinton Member Posts: 1,256

  August 2020

  I find the best Lego cities are where I just place a bunch of sets randomly on the floor and let my turtle go full Godzilla on them. He freaking loves it! :)
  

  

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• SumoLego Member Posts: 15,235

  August 2020

  Turdzilla!?!?!?

  

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• 560Heliport Member Posts: 4,237

  August 2020 edited August 2020

  SumoLego said:

  Turdzilla!?!?!?

  Now that is a horrifying monster!!!

  
  

  

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• Astrobricks Member Posts: 5,555

  August 2020

  SumoLego said:

  Turdzilla!?!?!?

  That was my first thought!
  

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• CCC Member Posts: 20,554

  August 2020

  I don't feel the need to plan. It's lego. It's easily moved. It's not like a real city, that once you build a building it is permanent.
  
  If you work off the same module size (16 or 32 stud, for example) then things for together.

  

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• Speedman29 Member Posts: 2,337

  August 2020

  As my street is made up of a few modular buildings, I just place them on the board I use for the layout and shuffle them around until I'm happy. If I want to MOC something to fit I'll make up a series of plates for the footprint I have available and then play around with the bricks. Occasionally I use Studio or LDD
  
  

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• Afoltv Member Posts: 33

  August 2020

  We use Adobe Illustrator to do a layout, prior to placing anything down! Of course, computer layouts are only a base template for the actual city... once you start laying things out, it often shifts or changes in real life. 

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• NateMN2020 Member Posts: 41

  August 2020

  I thought I’d ask this in this city planning thread. How do people feel about mixing City, Modulars, and even some Classic Town sets? I’m not super creative, so like 95% of my city are premade sets I place where I want. Some of my old Town sets I love so much like the Launch and Load Seaport, but I fear the scale next to the modulars is almost comical. Do people modify these old sets so they fit in better in a city with Modulars?

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• SumoLego Member Posts: 15,235

  August 2020

  You have to remember that the Modulars are a weird scale as well.  (Under-scale, to be precise.)  They're large enough to accommodate minifigures, but also comically small in comparison to actual building dimensions.
  

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• Switchfoot55 Member Posts: 3,475

  August 2020

  @NateMN2020, It's completely up to you and what you like. Although I don't have a city with modulars, I am heavily invested in a Winter Village layout. I've used a number of different sets to fill out the village. Sure, some of the scale looks off. But it feels like what I want it to feel like, so I'm good with it. 
  
  This could be partially due to the fact that even the official WV sets are out of scale with each other. Just set the Fire Station next to the Post Office or the Gingerbread house next to the Bakery. The scale isn't crazy off, but certainly not "in line" with each other. 
  
  To help this, I have added some additional scale to some of the small buildings (non-WV sets that I've repurposed) to help them feel a little more like they belong. 

  

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• MrJackson Member Posts: 454

  August 2020

  @NateMN2020 I have all three in my city. I'll take some pictures when I get home. The trick is which buildings you put next to each other. All the modulars are in the center block together, so scale isn't an issue, while #6389 Fire Control Center is next to one of the builds from #31026 Bike Shop and Cafe, so it doesn't look too oddly sized.  Similarly, my Central Pricinct HQ is near the corner of town surrounded by some of the 3-in-1 buildings from #31038 Changing Seasons. And my Century Skyway is at the edge of town so in context and overall scale it is more of a small airstrip than a major airport.
  
  I find I run into trouble with some of the old 4-wide Town vehicles. #6506 looks ridiculous no matter what you put it next to, for example. 

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• NateMN2020 Member Posts: 41

  August 2020

  Thanks for the feedback everybody! I have the Modulars in their own section, a amusement park section, a creator houses section, and all that is separated by a large waterfront with the aforementioned seaport and eventually a marina. I’m working on connecting the two sides with a working aerial lift bridge, if I can figure out the mechanics of it. They make things like that look so easy on Lego Masters!

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• NateMN2020 Member Posts: 41

  August 2020

  I also am having a hard time with vehicle size. The four wide town vehicles all look kind of the same imo, so I’ve gravitated toward using the more detailed (mostly) six wide city and speed champion cars. But then the big trucks next to my cargo ships dwarves them. 

  
  

  
  

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• Switchfoot55 Member Posts: 3,475

  August 2020

  You should check out Alex Nunes on YouTube. He has a massive Lego city and includes buildings from every era/size. Perhaps you could get some inspiration from him?

  

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• NateMN2020 Member Posts: 41

  August 2020

  Seeing the old seaports in his city on Youtube actually was what inspired me to include them in mine. I’ll work on positioning and try to have more “town” scaled vehicles and buildings in the waterfront area which should help. It’s hard to not let OCD take over though and start comparing sizes of everything. 

  

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• 560Heliport Member Posts: 4,237

  August 2020

  Don't let it bother you! Nothing LEGO is really "properly" scaled: the proportions of minifigures are way off, for instance. If a 4-wide vehicle is cool (by your standards) then it's cool! I like seeing layouts that have a mix of stuff. And Launch & Load Seaport is way too cool to worry about the size of the truck!

  

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• Lordmoral Member Posts: 934

  September 2020

  terryoleary said:

  Curious to understand different approaches to city planning? I've blogged about mine here: https://youtu.be/7k4EzOmEs4Q

  
  

  But what does everyone else do?
  

  
  

  
  
  

  I do this:
  https://forum.brickset.com/discussion/30492/my-lego-city
  

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• SumoLego Member Posts: 15,235

  September 2020

  NateMN2020 said:

  I also am having a hard time with vehicle size... But then the big trucks next to my cargo ships dwarves them. 

  I find that the Speed Champion cars are too long - although I appreciate their detailing and design.  The City cargo ships are way, way, way out of scale.  Even the Maersk Triple-E is nowhere near approaching minifigure scale.  The Imperial Flagship and the TLNM Destiny's Bounty are the only ships that look somewhat in scale.  
  
  Plus, if you use the roadplates, wider cars look even more out of scale.
  
  I have been trying to limit myself to the vehicles that bridge the scale gap, rather than just inundating my City with vehicles everywhere.

  

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