Be Excellent To Each Other

Excellent. I’ll be interested to see what you end up with.

That big Millenium Falcon looks amazing.... wow



It's finished now, it was quite nice spreading it out across a while so the kids could do some bits and be part of it.



The internal structure is quite interesting. It's quite strong too. There's a lot of symmetry but also some of the pieces are 'handed'. It must have taken a lot of thought to design this.



Considering there aren't really many truly/naturally round pieces, this little detail section on the venty-looking bits is neat. Looks a little wonky in the pic but it's not so noticeable in the flesh plastic.



The second stage had some really funky pieces to assemble and click in. Was good to see it coming together. Nice use of colours too.



It's pretty tall when all put together. The stages separate really easily and can be used to actually play with. The detail has been astounding actually.



Taller than 2 out of the 3 kids in fact - it's over a metre tall when all assembled. I really like the fact it can be actually playesd with, so in that respect it's far better than the Revell / Airfix Saturn V model that my dad built for me when I was small. This lego one can be carried around we can pretend it's flying, making all the whoosh noises and that.



Although I'm not sure that's quite how the lander (the boy insisted it was a robot) worked but check out how it can be a fun little diorama. Theres one of the capsule splash landing back on earth too.

And yes, the lander does fit inside the appropriate part of the rocket, so we can do a play scene of the separation, rendezvous, landing, and return. I have really had so much fun with this I'm considering buying another one that I can keep safe and then give to the boy when he's older and maybe has his own kids to build with.

Do it.

My kids both got huge boxes of classic lego (one 1500 pieces and the other 900 pieces) and we got them two large grey base boards. I'd say they've played with it more than anything else this Christmas.

I finished it in 3 days - they were pretty long days though! Less than 30hrs but I wasn't very efficient on day 3, as I wanted to stretch it out longer. It was over too soon.

It is huuuuge. There are three minifigures in the cockpit, to give an idea of the scale of the rest of it. Most of the top panels are basically only laid on so you can access the inside areas. It's extremely cleverly designed, as are most sets these days. The detail in them is astounding.

I have my eye on a newly released Creator Expert garage building to go in my street next, and the Ningago city buildings.

That's a great idea!

Zardoz, I used to spend all my time when I was a kid playing with Lego. I absolutely loved it and had mountains of it. I was really, really precious about it too so it was all sorted into colours and types, all in a boxes - granted, the miscellaneous box was the biggest - there was no danger of any stray crayons being in there though!

It's no Falcon true, but The Boy and I have just finished bag 1 of 5. KILLER CROC!

Bag 5 complete. Fucking tank tracks took ages!

Nice Saturn rocket, Sir Taxalot. What if someone offered to fire it up in the air?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sIfKS8iiLc

Little bit high energy, low content - they don't quite show you what happens to the thing. But whoooo, rocket!

Whizz to 2:30, money shot fans.

Gosh yes, high energy indeed. Disappointed not to see the result of the 'landing' but it was a fun little video. I liked that the oldtimers seemed pretty nonplussed by the youngsters energy but admired the rocket anyway

With young kids myself I foresee a lot of rebuilding in the future for myself anyway, and that's with a drop from only however tall a child is (a meter or something )

Got me a starship.

You all need to support this.

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/8ca5f24 ... 77193069cc

An few years ago I did done a series of Twin Peaks minifigs. I can't remember if I posted them here though. So now I will.

Next line.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dimrillda ... 7428927631

There.

They are glorious! I can’t believe I’ve not seen them before. You need a Denise, though!

I had planned on doing more once the new series was announced and made, but never got round to it.

My current Lego room, soon to be superseded by Lego Room 2: The Bigger One. I had to push all my buildings up into the corner and take the tracks apart recently because I made my mum a quilt and needed the drop space off the edge of my table. Even when I set up my trains and modulars, as shown below, they don't all fit in the space. Plus, being on the floor is very sad. It's also a bit annoying not having a properly separate space for sewing. My new room will have a big Lego city display table, and a sewing table, and another table for building that will give me easier access to my storage. It also means I can swap between hobbies without having to massively change and move everything in the room.

Modular buildings and Technic are my favourites. Favourite Technic build is the bucket wheel excavator, and my favourite Creator Expert modular is a tie between the Detectives Office and Assembly Square but my all-time favourite building that fits in the modular scale, is Ninjago City. I also like the big, big sets with lots of parts.

This week I ordered the Pirates of Barracuda Bay for maximum nostalgia reasons, Bookshop modular building, and a box of 1500 piece Lego Classic. Next on the list is the Liebherr R 9800 Excavator, which I cannot wait to build - and then strip for parts because it comes with an incredible number of motors. I have been considering the Topgear Rally Car just for the motors, Smarthub and gears.

I'm currently in the middle of building a range of motorised outdoor events of my own creation, which I had intended to take to a very small local thing but it has been postponed so progress recently halted in favour of quilt making! I'll post a video of that, one is very much a WIP.

I also made a puzzle box, which is on the shelf under the bucket wheel excavator, that has to be unlocked in sequence but I'm not happy with it just yet. It's not always clear which part is supposed to have more force applied to make it work, and which part can be forced to get past the lock without completing the steps. I was going to make a video of that and put it on a Lego group to see if anyone could give me any ideas how to overcome those challenges. Obviously, the biggest issue with a Lego puzzle box is that you can just smash it but I like the idea of it and the mechanics behind making it work.

So, yeah, I love Lego.

I don't know how to do videos on here, but here are my working models!

http://imgur.com/a/kc0BZ5l

wow, love the falcon

I think I need to find somewhere to display mine.

You need a Lego Room!
Your Lego Room is amazing, Flis.

Completely awesome, Flis. I realise it could be just the photos, but I really feel like I ought to be able to see the dust from here, but can't, for which you get extra credit. I don't dare go too close to mine; realising the white on the X-Wing is actually grey would spoil the effect a bit.

The stuff on the shelves gets dusted sometimes! But for the stuff on the floor, I think it's well disguised by the photos. Generally, if I'm having a bit of mental block I'll investigate my existing builds or go pull some stuff apart to see how the amazing people at Lego get things to work and I'll dust as I go! Make-up brushes are extremely good for it, I currently use an angled highlighter brush for dusting! I re-purpose the free ones that come with my make-up or gift packs but you can get very cheap uses too. If it's particularly bad - sewing creates so much dust!! - I hold the nozzle of the hoover far enough away to pick up the dust kicked up by the brush but not suck up the Lego.

A nice little article about Lego by Christian Donlan (or the brick separator, specifically)

"Lego has lasted because you can take it apart. Sure, the licensing is extremely creative and tinged with genius - I am desperate for the Bjarke Ingels Lego House set, and the Ghostbusters HQ - but this stuff lives on so long and passes from one generation to the next because you can take down what's old and rebuild something new. It's reinvention and imagination, and who doesn't need a handy tool to help with that?"

I love the Lego separator tool. It is so handy and works incredibly well!

It's disarmingly mighty, isn't it?

It really is. The lever, especially.

I got the Pirates of Barracuda Bay set from Lego Ideas a few weeks ago and got round to building it over the evenings this week. It's incredible, one of the best sets I've built. And it's huge!! It's based on the 1989 Black Seas Barracuda, which was Redbeards ship from the original Lego Pirates series. There were 15 stages in the set, and probably 25 bags in total. The final bag is not used in the build below as that is the parts you need to take the ship off the island and connect it all together back into it's sea-worthy form!! So amazing!

That’s amazing, Flis!!

I have a couple of questions, if I may? I see all of your Lego storage behind. In what way do you ‘sort’ your bricks? By type, colour, set, etc?

Also, what does this mean? I don’t think I quite understood it (but the biggest lego things I’ve ever built are little motorbikes, horse and cart, ice cream truck type things from the little instruction books in Darwin’s ‘Big tub of Lego’ type boxes.

That is awesome..

Yes, that is lovely!

Thanks, Mimi! And I love Lego related questions so thanks for asking The answer might be a bit long though as I am rubbish at explaining.

Currently, my collection is sorted in a couple of ways because it's not massive. The more it grows, the more trays I buy and start sorting by sub-sections or into colours.
The building bricks (2x2, 2x3, 2x4, 2x6) are stored by colour shade. So all the green hues together, red hues together etc. There are 33 'regular' colours, so I would need 132 trays just for those 4 brick sizes if I sorted by separate brick size and colour!
The other 'regular' bricks like 1x2, 1x4 etc. and plates are stored in groups according size and in mixed colours.
Special or modified bricks are sorted by type in mixed colours. So all the modified 1x2 bricks together, all the modified 1x1 bricks together etc. A modified brick would be like the masonry effect or other moulded face brick, or bricks with holes through the face etc.
All the full arch bricks are together in mixed colours.
All the half arch bricks are together in mixed colours.
Slopes are separated by slope size 1x2, 2x2, 1x3, 2x4, 1x4, inverted etc. but stored in mixed colours.
Other bricks are stored by function, so if it's a hinge or can be used as part of a hinge, it's in one tray.
Bricks with studs on the face are in one tray, too.

I sort like that because if I know I want to build something with a hinge action, for example, I can go through the tray to find a hinge that works best. Sometimes you don't know specifically what you're looking for until you see the pieces.

Most of the boxed sets come as a series of numbered bags inside the box now. The only ones that generally don't are the 3-in-1 Creator sets and the smaller (under £15-20) sets. You work your way through the numbered bags in sequence so that you're not swimming in hundreds of pieces you don't need until the final step! Below are the bags before I started building. There were 3 bags with '1' on them, so you empty all those out together for the first stage of the instructions.

Sets are great, and you learn lots of new building techniques from following the instructions but I love the big mixed buckets of Lego. I think that for kids it is the best way for them to play, especially once the sets are taken apart - chuck it all in the same box. I know when I was little I would start off wanting to build a house and by the time I'd sat in the middle of all my Lego all weekend, I'd have a space hotel with wings and an ejector seat.

Will have to disagree on this point (:D) but when I’ve had a look at Darwin’s Lego box and felt the compulsion to sort it (I haven’t, though he’s started to sort things himself) that is how I’d go about it, too.

Darwin is very fond of making ‘sock factories’, which are huge, sprawling landscapes of Lego. The sock factories produce only odd socks. If you request a pair the factory sets to work making you a pair of odd socks, but it’s completely random as to which kind of socks you get.

We built a small (about 18x12cm) Lego house once. I think it lasted nearly a year before it was taken apart, and only then because he wanted to separate the bricks into various colours.

Our cockatiel Loki has decided his new toy is my Bag End which sits next to his day perch. He's slowly dismantling it the little swine.

The fun is in building it, maybe he's just giving the opportunity to have fun!?

Just finished the Aston Martin DB5. It was a great build, with ejector seat, wheel spike, machine gun lights, bullet shield and rotating radar.

Rebuilt my Falcon last week.

that is nice

Is that a Technic stand? Does it work well? I was thinking of getting one for mine but just haven't got round to it.

Yep, it was clone parts rather than genuine Lego from eBay. Cost £28 and works well enough. Easier to attach to a part built set rather than at the end.

Not my Lego nor my building skills, but here’s the little set Darwin got for his birthday that he built. It’s supposed to dissemble to make three different dinosaurs, but I think it may have immediately found its final form

I have that set! Dave the Dinosaur sits on my work desk.

As I am a massive child, I'm very tempted by the new Sesame Street sets.

They look really good.

Why did the guy on the far right have a microphone?

To address the crowds at Nuremberg?

Anyone have the bricks for this?

http://imgur.com/gallery/4gRHRFH

Haha!!! We definitely do. It’s a shame that picture isn’t slightly higher res; I can’t quite make it out.