LEGO Architecture "World's Tallest" Custom Series

[Doctor Octoroc]

Two more models, sets of instructions and cover pages finished! The Princess Tower, a relatively simple one and by request, I did the Oriental Pearl Tower, which was a challenge at this scale but managed to make creative use of a gun piece for the three legs - I only wish this and the Technic pegs I used were available in tan to match the main tower shaft.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[d-delay]

Great to hear that there will be plenty of material for Series 2 or 3 of this Theme :)

[Doctor Octoroc]

Another one finished - a second request for City of Capitals. I found some other builds in a similar scale where the builder used 2x2's with center studs to offset the sections but I found it more appealing to offset them with 1x1 plates on the corners.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[legolijntje]

[...]

It took me a few days but I finally finished the instructions for Makkah. I think my graphics card has an incompatibility issue with LPub3d as it's constantly crashing :-/

[...]

There's a new LPub3D update (you might have already receiver an update notification in LPub3D itself ;) ) which fixes a bunch of crashes. Maybe it fixed (some of) your crashes too?

[Doctor Octoroc]

There's a new LPub3D update (you might have already receiver an update notification in LPub3D itself ;) ) which fixes a bunch of crashes. Maybe it fixed (some of) your crashes too?

I'm not sure, but I get similar problems with Google Earth, Lego Digital Designer and select other programs that I believe all use OpenGL so it's probably that. I downloaded it last week so it was probably the newest version unless they just released that update within the past few days.

[Doctor Octoroc]

I'm on a role today haha. One more for you, another request for the Trump Tower in Chicago, IL. This one took awhile to get a good look - I wrestled with various angled slopes to no avail then decided to get a bit more creative with a combination of curved slopes and cheese wedges around the outside. The result isn't as accurate to the shape but the overall appearance and layout is much better than anything else I could come up with.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[d-delay]

Excellent work :)

[Doctor Octoroc]

This one was a challenge. I tried a dozen other methods just to create the general shape at this scale and nothing seemed to work while trying to use flex hoses, hinges, etc. In the end, I ended up using four sided studded bricks at alternating 45 degree angles to suggest the rotation and get the shape right.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[Matt The Tuba Guy]

Not bad. At this scale, it is quite hard to build accurately!

What scale are you building at? around 1:2400 by my calculation

I have considered doing this myself, although at a slightly larger scale (1:1000 probably)

.

[Doctor Octoroc]

Not bad. At this scale, it is quite hard to build accurately!

What scale are you building at? around 1:2400 by my calculation

I have considered doing this myself, although at a slightly larger scale (1:1000 probably).

Yeah, it's about that. "Exact" scale is 1:2466 so you can round that up or down as you please. I generally round each model up to the nearest "plate" height as determined by the guide I created where I have a specific height I resize each building reference image to the same fraction of its actual height and place it on a set of rows that represent LEGO plates. That's how I determine how many plates high it needs to be to be the right size in comparison to the others and how I make sure certain features of the building are as close as they can be to their respective plate heights in that reference guide.

Also, another model done - I was never very happy with the official model for the John Hancock Center so I took a stab at my own build of it. It's the same concept with offset stud plates being used to 'step' up for the the angle of the structure but I utilized side stud bricks and tiles to create a more textured look and have one antenna higher than the other as it should be. I also built the additional small structures to the side to be more accurate to their actual size so instead of an oversized parking garage using 2x2 round plates I used 1x1 round and square pieces to represent that and the other building beside it.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[Matt The Tuba Guy]

Any particular reason you are using 1:2466? is it related to imperial/customary units in some way?

As a metric user (i.e. not an American), 1:2466 seems an odd scale to pick.

[Doctor Octoroc]

Any particular reason you are using 1:2466? is it related to imperial/customary units in some way?

As a metric user (i.e. not an American), 1:2466 seems an odd scale to pick.

I didn't choose the scale ahead of time, it just works out to be that. I started by building the Burj Khalifa and scaled everything in relation to that so I counted the height of the Burj in LEGO plates and then determined, based on its actual height, how tall each LEGO plate would be and it worked out to be 25ft per plate so I used that to calculate how high each building image in my reference file needed to be where each plate is 4 pixels high. It was totally arbitrary and I didn't think about what the actual scale would be beforehand. But since I scale most of the buildings up to the nearest plate, that would drop the scale down a little so 1:2400 would be the closest standard scale to mine.

Edited January 29, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[Doctor Octoroc]

Another model finished, the Ostankino TV Tower. I love these towers because they're not too difficult to get the look right, it's just about finding the right pieces and combination of rods within to hold it all together!

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[Doctor Octoroc]

And one more for the night, 432 Park Avenue in New York, NY.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[Doctor Octoroc]

I wasn't entirely happy with my previous build of the Jin Mao Tower, plus it was a bit too tall - must have miscalculate the height before building it - so I revamped it at a slightly smaller scale and I think the result is better than the previous incarnation.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[Bugbot2008]

Great series! These all look awesome and you are very consistent with the quality. This is quite an enjoyable thread to follow, please keep it up!

How about some More Europe love? My local London Shard would be nice :), Moscow's Federation Vostok Tower has an interesting shape and the TV towers in Tallin and Vilnius I have seen in person and are quite awesome

Edited January 30, 2016 by Bugbot2008

[Doctor Octoroc]

Great series! These all look awesome and you are very consistent with the quality. This is quite an enjoyable thread to follow, please keep it up!

How about some More Europe love? My local London Shard would be nice :), Moscow's Federation Vostok Tower has an interesting shape and the TV towers in Tallin and Vilnius I have seen in person and are quite awesome

I'll add them to the to do list!

Also, two more finished - 23 Marina and Cayan Tower!

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[Doctor Octoroc]

By multiple requests, the London Shard! A few iterations before I settled on this one, I think it turned out nicely, especially at this scale and compared to other models even at larger scales.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[Bugbot2008]

Looks great! :D

[Steve309]

Since the last time I wrote. These are still awesome.

Some mentions of my favorites

Makkah royal clock hotel. Really well done.

Oriental pearl tower

City of capitals

London shard you pulled off at this scale.

I like the original Jin Mao tower better. But I'm not comparing it to scale with others. Which the second one does work better. But as a stand alone I like #1 :p

I know I missed many but they're all well done.

Just hard to type and read pervious posts. When on mobile.

Here's one to look into Absolute Towers in Mississauga Ontario.

[Doctor Octoroc]

Since the last time I wrote. These are still awesome.

Some mentions of my favorites

Makkah royal clock hotel. Really well done.

Oriental pearl tower

City of capitals

London shard you pulled off at this scale.

I like the original Jin Mao tower better. But I'm not comparing it to scale with others. Which the second one does work better. But as a stand alone I like #1 :p

I know I missed many but they're all well done.

Just hard to type and read pervious posts. When on mobile.

Here's one to look into Absolute Towers in Mississauga Ontario.

Thanks for the kind words! I do like the original Jin Mao as well, just needed it to be at a more appropriate scale. I personally think the newer one looks more refined but another reason I wanted to change it is how similar the build was to Two International Finance Centre and I wanted it to be different. What did you like better about the original one?

I also completed the Burj Al Arab but am having a hard time getting the flex tubes accurately represented in the render and instructions. MLCad has a very difficult to use method for creating flex tubes and the part from Lego Digital Designer didn't import so I'm exploring another program, LDCad, to see what I can do to incorporate it.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[Doctor Octoroc]

Taking a break from the more complicated builds to bang out another TV tower. They're not super exciting but they are part of the tallest structures and deserve their representation! This one is the Borj-e Milad.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc

[legosamsonite]

Could you maybe do the original world trade center? As a tribute?

[Doctor Octoroc]

Could you maybe do the original world trade center? As a tribute?

Sure! Anyone else have requests? I've done many of the requests thus far that I could manage, some of them at this scale just don't look good (although I keep revisiting them) but I have attempted Burj Al Arab, 30 St. Mary Axe, Transamerica Pyramid and Bank of China. For the BoC there's literally only one way to build it within any amount of accuracy and someone else already did it so I'm hesitant to basically copy their build. There also isn't any feasible way to get the antenna on top with the build style so while I finished that one I'm not sure it's good enough for the series.

[Doctor Octoroc]

I'll be doing the original WTC twin towers next but in the mean time, I decided to do another shorter skyscraper - Central Plaza in Hong Kong, China. I'm especially thrilled with the way the top portion turned out. I attempted a few other methods using plates and hinged antennas but the look wasn't right. I finally opted to use mini fig skates on the end of the four spokes of a hub.

Edited April 23, 2016 by Doctor Octoroc