LEPIN makes my LEGO CITY PROJECT work
The things you need to know about build a LEGO CITY with entire LEGO modular buildings
LEGO’s series of Creator Expert Modular Buildings started in 2007. The Modular Building Series was skyrocketed in popularity with collectors. The unique detailing designs, advanced building techniques, and connectable nature of the sets make them a collector’s dream to get them and build a LEGO CITY.
I would like to build a LEGO with the entire modular buildings and I did meet many challenges. One big challenge was there are currently 14 modular buildings, 8 of which have been retired. The following graph shows the lifespans of all modular buildings, both retired ones and currently available sets.
As you started building a LEGO city in 2019, another challenge was the cost. Even you were able to resource all the collections, the total cost would be USD$8617 (Shipping fee excluded).
I believe most middle class seem to be struggling to spend almost $2000 on a single LEGO set. With $2000 we could buy a used car in working condition. We could probably live off $2000 for about 3 months if we were not eating out. Feels like LEGO leaves us no option but buying some lego clone sets instead to make the Lego City Project workable. We still prefer genuine LEGO because the city to build is “LEGO CITY”. My solution is to get the most three expensive sets Green Grocery, Market Street, and Cafe Corner from alternative brands. LEPIN is the first option as they are LEGO Clone NO.1. If MOC the LEGO CITY with LEPIN and the cost will lower down to $ 3600(3 LEPIN buildings+11 LEGO buildings). Here is the price reference of LEPIN Modular buildings, expect corner garage.
I brought my first clone modular building Green Grocery from Lepin with $125.99, Just want to give a try to see how’s the quality and whether it could connect with other LEGO buildings smoothly. Here is my review of Lepin Green Grocery compatible with LEGO Pet Shop.
Shipping of The Lepin Green Grocery is faster than I expected, it takes about 10 days, arrived in a plain brown box with instruction books. Parts come in numbered bags. The most obvious difference is each stud on LEGO blocks has “Lego” micro-printed on it. Lepin does not have this.
Lepin quality control isn’t as good as Lego. At the least, you may notice some a slight oily but harmless residue on blocks that you may want to wipe off
Lego is just slightly more glossy than Lepin and some of the Lepin blocks were visibly scratched due to the way they were packaged. Such as windows are less clearer with Lepin compare with Lego.
Parts are 90% similar. For example, LEGO Streetlamp is in cream white, and Lepin one is in plain white.
One important thing you should realize is The Lepin base plate is in two pieces and is thicker than a genuine Lego to the point where it won’t match a genuine Lego building if placed next to it. This is a challenge to connect the LEPIN building with LEGO’s, So I have to replace Lepin one with genuine Lego base plates #10700. You can easily order it from LEGO, to combine the Lepin building with LEGO modular buildings.
The overall quality of Lepin is about 85 %. If Lego is a 10 on the quality scale, I would put Lepin at about an 8.5. you won’t be able to visually tell the difference when placed among by other Lego modular buildings I honestly can’t tell them apart.
Here are the challenges and solutions I found in building LEGO CITY with modular buildings. Again I am not encouraging people to buy LEGO clone instead of genuine LEGO. The BBC NEWs report LEPIN sells 75 billion annually in over 140 countries. I wouldn’t buy any clone set other than those retired ones, because the price after markup is just ridiculous. In a prospective of project management, thanks for those clones it makes my LEGO CITY PROJECT work within budget and scope.
