City Advent Calendar - Day 13
Posted by MeganL,
The parade of microbuilds continues, and the roads on the placemat on the advent calendar are starting to fill up. I'll post of picture of all the builds on the placemat at the end of the calendar. Let's look at what the next door has in store for us.
Today's addition to the city is a bank, as indicated by the brand new printed tile piece with the dollar sign. The designer using the 2x4 angle plate is an interesting choice. I like it aesthetically, as it adds some interest to the build, but it does make it a bit challenging to photograph as I'm so used to having the front of the build flush with the camera.
As for the microbuild itself, it's another effective treatment, but I'm at a loss as to whether it represents a City set. The closest I could find is in 60245 Police Monster Truck Heist. However, this little build has a tree on one side of the building, which isn't found in 60245.
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The bank sits well enough next to the police station but the petrol station looks a bit odd when I line them all up. The problem with the holes in the front of each of the buildings (and my lack of getting all the angles flush) when they're all lined up together makes the street look derelict. :)
Reminds me of the Code Geass R2 meme, you know the one (if you don't, google it and you will know). Just more of the same after the police station(?) and the gas station.
In this model's defence, at least it's a little easier on the eye but I still don't see this being a hit.
The bank's roof needs fixing :)
Nice little build. I don't understand why LEGO chose a dollar sign though. What is the currency in the LEGO universe? Studs?
Yes, a bit disappointed they've gone with the dollar sign too. It'd be fine in cowboy era sets, but I like to think minifigure currency is something other than dollars!
@Joefish said:
"Yes, a bit disappointed they've gone with the dollar sign too. It'd be fine in cowboy era sets, but I like to think minifigure currency is something other than dollars!"
Well, there is that print of a coin that's worth five... something. (Cents? Dollars? Euro? Who knows?)
There is something about the front of the bank that looks to me like an odd caricature of a face.
@Golem25 said:
"Reminds me of the Code Geass R2 meme, you know the one (if you don't, google it and you will know). Just more of the same after the police station(?) and the gas station.
In this model's defence, at least it's a little easier on the eye but I still don't see this being a hit."
Which meme do you mean? I've watched the series but can't think of anything to do with the bank? Do you mean the one with Nina's face? That would be the first season.
Anyway... I think this minibuild works fine as a representation from the magnet heist set. Even though that actual building is rather lacking within that set.
@Taco_Bill:
Go back to the gas station, and I wrote up an explanation for how to easily adjust the alignment of all these 1x1 parts.
@Reinier:
For starters, "$" is probably the most recognized generic symbol for "money". It also works in the "$ is for $tuds" aspect.
@Binnekamp said:
" @Golem25 said:
"Reminds me of the Code Geass R2 meme, you know the one (if you don't, google it and you will know). Just more of the same after the police station(?) and the gas station.
In this model's defence, at least it's a little easier on the eye but I still don't see this being a hit."
Which meme do you mean? I've watched the series but can't think of anything to do with the bank?"
It's screencap of the Emperor of Britannia that has been photoshopped such that the subtitles of the scene read "Notto Disu Shitto Agen," a poor Japanese-like way of saying... well, you can imagine. I brought it up because this isn't the first time we see a less-than-stellar-minimodel
Would have been better on a 3x2 collectable minifig stand plate. Then the pavement would have been straight.
@Judgeguy:
The fold-down panel on this calendar does feature a couple blocks where the road passes at an angle, and I originally thought that was why they were using wedge plates as the bases for these buildings. However, there are only two angled blocks, and three buildings so far with angled bases (and none with parallel bases). Plus, the police station base angles the other direction. I suspect it may be more about keeping the sidewalk flat, as studs at that scale look like a row of round benches. You're right that minifig stands would work better, but there may have been cost issues with making that jump. They would nearly double the amount of plastic used, but it's in 14 other sets this year, so it's not a Q element.
@Reinier said:
"The bank's roof needs fixing :)
Nice little build. I don't understand why LEGO chose a dollar sign though. What is the currency in the LEGO universe? Studs?"
Maybe if British pounds get away with using a funny L symbol then studs can use a funny S symbol?
@Polynices:
The dollar sign, which is also used to denote pesos in many countries, is old enough that the origin of the symbol itself is lost to speculation. The dollar itself, though, was pattered after the Spanish peso, aka the "piece of eight", which was the first world currency, so it's not surprising that both currencies generally use the same symbol. Many international currencies adopted the practice of adding one or two lines to a letter from their own alphabet to represent their currencies. The British pound sterling uses an "L" because it represents the Latin word "libra", which was the closest Roman equivalent to the pound, and is why weights in pounds are denoted with "lbs".
Depending on the shape of the character used to represent a currency, one or two lines are added either horizontally or vertically. The yen and yuan use a Y with two horizontal lines, the ruble uses a P (Cyrillic, not Roman) with one horizontal line, the won uses a W with two horizontal lines, and a few other countries have broken with tradition and come up with their own barred letters to represent their specific national currency in cases where they use a currency format that's similar to those of other nations.