Wharf Shop

Since my Octan Gas Station is in the process of being built and with the Mechanic's Garage designed, I moved onto my next creation, The Wharf Shop.

I saw some buildings designed in one of the new Lego Commercials for the Cargo Airplane. (Awesome sets which are a must buy for me) One had caught my eye initially from the Coast Guard commercial. Upon examination I discovered that the buildings in the commercials were being reused. Its also interesting to analyse the shots used in the commercials. Each commercial is only 30-40 seconds so it is amusing to see how the product placements jump around. 

This building that I am reconstructing, and will figure out what I want on the inside as I have to place multiple staircases and floors, was originally sand green I believe. Its a toss up really could have been lime green. However when I checked on the prices of Sand Green I recalled that only one set to date uses such pieces, the Green Grocer. At prices varying from $1-2 per pieces it is not practical to use that colour. My blue colour choice however I think will also pose problems as its from the Market Street. We shall see. 

It is a challenge to reconstruct something from blurry and vague images. I have a sharp eye so I do not think I am off the mark too much. I had thought of using Brick Yellow (Tan) and light grey to emulate the Museum Break In set (60008). I wanted to back the museum onto the front of this building (the portion I have not filled in yet) but upon seeing how tall the building actually is, which is about 4 floors, I decided to leave it as a stand alone building. 

I was designing one other building I saw which I may use a government building is this:

Just an initial façade at the moment but will see how it goes. I did want to try my hand at a real bank building in downtown Toronto but that is another project.

Update: July 9th, 2013

So I was struggling with my design for the Wharf shop. I basically wanted to reproduce a building I saw in a Lego commercial. In order to improve upon it I would have to convert it into a modular. No easy task as essentially the original design is a brick building with no back and the amount of floor space to board over is quite a bit. However I think for the time being I will shelve the idea until I have some epiphany on how to convert it.

 I have not polished it off but this is essentially how it would look. I wanted to have a spiral or grand stairwell on the bottom to the upper floors. Also thought about an elevator. However a grand stairwell will only serve to take away from the space of the shop on the first floor whereas a spiral staircase utilises the space more efficiently. I was thinking of having an artist studio on the second floor and then 3 apartments on the third and fourth floors. The colour is also an issue as this was originally in Sand Green and as any AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) knows, that is expensive! I honestly do not know why TLG (The Lego Group) does not produce more sets or extra bricks in this colour. New Dark Red, Earth Blue, Sand Green, Earth Green are all popular colours for builders out there and also hard to come by. How amazing would it be if they just made a bucket of bricks in these colours to use?