Modified Ninjago City & Docks

[vepsi]

Well, this was an epic project. It took two years and several complete iterations get things the way I wanted to. Frustration at times was high but I learned much.

Ninjago City and Docks are both great sets but I wanted to modify both by adding one more level below street level so that these sets would better fit next to my other modified modular buildings. Adding another level also works really well when there's a ship docked, picture of that comes later in the post. Another level also gave me a change to include one even more older level of ninjago city. I will add photos here from each layer. I'll start from the top and remove rooms one by one.

Toilet/Tower was moved away from sushi restaurant to decrease the overall hight of the building. There is now more room for ninjas to enjoy lunch, under a cherry tree if they wish. Entrance to the restaurant is through the dragons mouth, and the dragon itself is an elevator connecting every level. (Ninjas - please leave your hidden weapons at the entrance.) The yellow room on the right and the turquoise tower on back are identical to original set.

Small changes to crap restaurant and to the comic store so that they can be removed from main build without the street.

The arcade is now slightly larger and I was able to to fit one more game inside. It is a Kill Bill themed sword game. When restaurant and other builds on the front are removed, you can see that there is an access to the toilet tower through ladders, not an easy path but accessible anyway. In the middle of this structure there is an opening that goes all the way down to the very bottom level.

These rooms are quite similar to what they were originally in Ninjako City Docks. Behind the dojo there was small space unused, It has a shrine or golden armor inside now. Behind the toilet there is a young boy firing a rocket. The original city Dock clearly had two facades, front and back, both very well detailed. I only need one side to look good so I did try to get all possible details on the front side. It was sometimes incredibly difficult to get modified builds to fit together, it would have definitely been easier to just redo all rooms with new design :)

The second street level is one single build and it connects everything together. This layer makes the whole building very rigid! The cash machine in front has a new mechanism for getting money out. You can see the green topped piece connected to a techic axle in the images above. This axle is connected to a lever in front of the street and by pulling the lever, money comes out. This mechanism works really well and is easy to use because lever is at front. Below the second street level are food stalls and small shops, several builds borrowed from Chinese New Year Temple Fair.

Teehouse and the bedroom are very similar to the original build. The round window might be new, and the cherry tree behind it looks and feels nice.

Cleaning robot is moved one level below. Builds from the Temple Fair added.

It is really crowded in here and a lot of stuff from the Temple Fair. I like how the advertisements on the second floor wall look like. They are angled downwards and kept in place by ninjago swords. The second floor on back also has a minor play feature, the gray barrel can be dropped onto the street level to cause mayhem. I'm depating with my self if street levels should be covered with tiles or not. Here I kind of like the look but on the outside streets I would probably prefer tiled streets. The middle market part can be removed separately.

This new room is for map maker. It includes some parts from the City Docks. Small storage inside the cabinet and below the bed. Below this build are more food stalls.

And now the last level. It has full heigth and minifigures can easily fit in here. This level includes space for robots, fishery, mason's workshop and metal workshop. On the front there's a hidden compartment for posters.

Fish processing has a small room at the back. It is connected to the elevator by a drawbridge and fishingboats can moor right next to it. On the front, next to mason's workshop is the room for maintenance robots.

The walking robot is the same one from Ninjago City. The boat robot is new and it's responsibility is to keep the waters clean. The robot floats even if it falls overboard for some reason.

The last room in this building is the metal workshop.

Workshop has a sliding door, lathe, drill and several metal pieces. Friends photo poster doubles as a girl calendar :D

On the front there are two smoking pipes and under the workshop table there is a secret hatch to a room underneath. These indicate that there is something even more older below this level.

Here's a photo of the building when everything possible is removed. Yes, the dragon is tall, really tall in real life when other builds are not present.

Elevator can be moved by a wheel which is on the other side of the dragons head. A string is connected to the elevator platform and unlike original elevator in the Ninjago City, this one is a single structure and elevator can easily move all the way from the bottom to the top. There are some ladders in this building but everything is mainly accessible by the elevator. There are a lot of different builds in this and the feeling when I put everything back together is really rewarding :)

Here are some final photos of this building with Destiny's Bounty docked.

 

All these photos and more in greater detail can be found from here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/133282349@N03/albums/72157719033114520

 

[brimbolet]

Very nice modification, especially the workshop level.

[Carbohydrates]

There's so much to take in, it's almost overwhelming. You've really made it your own, and it's outstanding! I love that little strip of roof made of handlebars. The use of a die/dice tile under the drill press is really clever. The new interiors you've added like the fishery and machine shop are just really excellent - they look as if they match and belong perfectly with the sets' original aesthetics. Really great stuff here!

[Umbrage82]

What an incredible update! I've been thinking about how to approach a new bottom level because I want to integrate ... ninja turtle sewers >.>

 

[GeoBrick]

Its incredible what you've done here, vepsi. You made a bustling town into a hectic one.
Now what's left to do is include the City Gardens in your build. 

[badbob001]

Do you have any photos of this connected with the rest of your modular buildings? Unclear how the extra floor makes it fit better. Perhaps you added a sewer system to the rest of your city?

[cjtonic]

Incredible work. Love every brick of it. Thanks for sharing. 

[vepsi]

On 5/18/2021 at 2:11 AM, Umbrage82 said:

What an incredible update! I've been thinking about how to approach a new bottom level because I want to integrate ... ninja turtle sewers >.>

 

Thanks! Ninja turtle sewers would be great! Below ground level adds a lot of possibilities for city building.

On 5/18/2021 at 12:22 PM, GeoBrick said:

Its incredible what you've done here, vepsi. You made a bustling town into a hectic one.
Now what's left to do is include the City Gardens in your build. 

City Gardens will be added :) For that I'm still missing some more inspiration. I might want to combine Palace Cinema or some other modular building into City Gardens, but before that I will do at least one other moc.

On 5/18/2021 at 6:06 PM, badbob001 said:

Do you have any photos of this connected with the rest of your modular buildings? Unclear how the extra floor makes it fit better. Perhaps you added a sewer system to the rest of your city?

No photos of connected sets at moment, sorry. I do have modified modular sets with basement levels but they don't fit at all next to this set. I'm currently working on a moc that is designed to extend this set, I will post photos of that in 6 months or so when it is done.

Here's link to my modified Old Fishing Store. It almost fits next to this set but because styles and heights are little different, I have decided to redo the Fishing Store.