How do you do Lego?

[Ahzeal]

Hi Guys,

I'm just getting back into LEGO. I've purchased and been gifted a few Speed Champions Cars that I've enjoyed building and displaying on my desk. I'm a huge Star Wars fan and I just recently purchased the AT ST and then went about modifying it and following the thread here at Eurobricks. I've then just in the last few days made my first bricklink orders so I can build anothergol custom ATST. 

Now I'm trying to decide what I want to do with my Lego hobby. I thought about purchasing all the Rogue One Set's, I really like the mini figures from them but I've also seen how easy it is to get these outside of the set from eBay and Bricklink. I've been looking at a lot of LEGO vignette's and diorama's. This interests me a lot I'm not sure though if there is then much value in getting the normal sets just for figures and parts or if it would be better getting the figures separately and the specific parts I need for specific MOC's and Vignett's from PAB and Bricklink. 

So as the title says how do you do LEGO? Are you focusing on one theme? collecting all the sets in a theme? just picking and choosing sets you like the look of? not getting sets at all? Whats your goal with your Lego hobby? 

[Brickus]

I think of myself as a collector, I dabble in a range of different themes, including but not limited to, all Star Wars, all Super Heroes (DC and Marvel), Modular Buildings, Creator Expert, Large Exclusives, and Ideas. I mainly just build and set them up in displays in my various LEGO rooms.

[8-Bit Ramen]

I just kinda get whatever I want or can afford for various reasons. I also keep whatever I'm given. I collect, display, and I won't lie, I enjoy just playing with my Legos. No shame.

[makoy]

Hello. Welcome to Eurobricks.

It's interesting how narrow or broad the answer to you questions can be... and there are lots of questions but let me share my experience getting back to LEGO after my dark age. First, I started with minifigures because I travel around so my main collection are CMF but as much as I can, I don't buy the entire series. Also due to space constraints I need to focus on something so I decided that for sets - I'll get only Star Wars for licensed theme and Ninjago for non-licensed (action) theme. I do get other themes like City and Creator during clearance to part out interesting parts and set aside some common parts for creating MOC. Also due to space limitation, I have a list of priority sets that I wish to buy even without discount. Then there are sets that I will only buy if there is a promotion to get a better value. 

Lately I decided not to purchase any Ninjago vehicles again because it's getting repetitive.. so I just Bricklink the minifigs or source them from my local hobby shops. If it's not a playset, I just don't buy the sets. For Star Wars, I kinda went the opposite direction because I didn't have much spaceships for MOC so I bought the ships with the most screentime from the movies because I know I can use them for MOCs over and over again.

For collecting, my ultimate goal is to complete all the Ninjas from the classic Castle Ninja line, and then Ninjago. I already have the up-to-date collection of Ninjago characters and I am only getting the classic Ninjas next year. For Star Wars, I collect droids and astromech. Once I complete them, I will move to Jedi & Sith  -- seeing that this is an ever-green theme I just want to get the best version of every Jedi and Sith possible, so I am not in a hurry to buy them all now. 

Edited December 13, 2016 by makoy

[BubbaFit45531]

I go for something that looks great like 31039 Creator Blue Power Jet, and some Lego Dimensions mini figure characters I like and smaller sets with my favorite DC/Marvel/Star Wars mini figure characters. It's rare that a big set will motivate me to buy it... and figure out where to put it.

[tafkatb]

Mostly I just buy stuff I like, I guess. I plan to one day have a decent-sized city layout, so any (minifig-scale) set I buy tends to be something I figure I can add to that. That's a pretty broad criterion, since I'm not really concerned with realism - my city will have plenty of superheroes and time travelers and dinosaurs hanging around - or the difference between minifigs and minidolls, so plenty of themes are fair game. I don't aim for a complete collection of any given theme or anything, since that way madness lies. I very rarely buy individual parts or minifigs; mostly I trade among friends if there's something specific I'm after.

[AmperZand]

I'm into minifigures, mostly fantasy/mythology/Tolkien/horror/historical and superheroes (Marvel and DC) with a few sci-fi/Classic Space and Star Wars ones. I have bigfigs, animals/monsters (mostly moulded but also a few brick-built too), buildings and vehicles to go with the minifigures but the minifigures are at the heart of my display collection.

Some of my minifigures are as sold by LEGO, but most have some degree of MOCing including quite a few with third party parts by BrickForge, BrickWarriors and SI-DAN - I'm not a purist. I don't go into modding parts when I can avoid it. The main exception to that is that I do yellow the ears of my LotR/Hobbit elves. I abhor fleshies. 

I'm not a completist in any way. I just get what I like and can afford.

You can see a small sample of my collection in my Brickshelf gallery. 

      

[Vindicare]

Since getting back into comics more heavily, my LEGO has taken on new life. Now I mainly focus on Supeeheroes & City. I pick & choose from a few other themes as well when I can. Modulars, of course as well. For Superheroes, I'm more or less a completionist. As long as I'm able to, I get them all. City stuff is more sparse. I have a tabletop town, so stick mostly to buildings, vehicles when they're interesting or something really new. 

Trying to cutback on comics so I have more money for LEGO, there's just too much greatness I'm missing. 

[Peppermint_M]

I build my own things. I do get sets with good designs or in a theme that interests me, but all are destined to be parted out to supply my designs. 

[Littleworlds]

I think it really comes down to what interests you and what you want to do with your Lego. Me for example i started with medieval fantasy themes and quickly realized, since the themes were about to been shut down, I had to expand my range a bit. I eventually ended up with buying across all sorts of themes, with the exception of friends/elves and technic. It has to be minifig compatible for me 

So right now my Lego universe encompasses fantasy, city, star wars, pirates, ninjago, nexo knights, classic space - and I am quite happy with it 

I have written a guide for buying Lego where I delve a little deeper into the topic of building up a collection in my blog. Feel free to have a look!

[Esvald Forceswoop]

Well I'm returning from my "grey age" (not really dark age, since I still picked up LEGO once in a while), first I picked up a non Star Wars set (90% of my collection is Star Wars) 41180 - Ragana's Magic Shadow Castle. After putting LEGO and Star Wars to a hold I got into the fantasy theme (with animes like Sword art Online, Log Horizon, Tower of Druaga, Re:Zero etc, video games like The Elder Scrolls, Mabinogi, Aura Kingdom, Dragon Age etc and the Game of Thrones books) so despite my dislike for the minidolls (which also seems lifting) I couldn't resist buying this cool dark castle I can use for many custom themes.

Since I'm working full time now, I'll be able to pick up more Elves stuff (mainly looking for 41078 - Skyra's Mysterious Sky Castle and 41174 - Starlight Inn) as well as buying tons of new Star Wars sets (need to catch up with like 6 battle packs and wanna buy the full Rogue One wave. And next year is almost here, Y-wing, Grand Admiral Thrawn, pure awesomeness, wallet is sad though.
I also want to save up for the new Death Star.

Offical themes aside I really want to start my custom Galaxy Angel theme (need my brother's help with this, since he's good with designing ships, I'm the minifigure maker) and continue developing the my Sword Art Online minifigure collection. Actually the Elves stuff like the castles or the inn are fine for a medieval fantasy VRMMO setting like Sword Art Online, so that's also very nice.

I am also really disappointed about the lack of Fantastic Beasts related sets - the Harry Potter license doesn't seem to rise once more the Dimension sets aside. For my collection only (not owning the game) it is quite expensive, but I know I'll get Tina Goldstein, cause it's still more than nothing. I'll need a therapy to forget about the price after though haha.

So that's about it. Growing the collection, MOCing themes LEGO never ever gonna make (also MOCing into themes LEGO already makes like my custom Venator or T2B Tank from Star Wars), that kind of stuffs.

[Ahzeal]

Thanks for the response guys. Plenty for me to think about. Going to build the custom ATST and then decide how to progress from there. Think I'm definitely going to collect some Star Wars minifigs and probably get all the Rogue One Sets then take it from there. Fancy doing one of the custom Snow Speeders I've seen on here also... :) 

[Ahzeal]

13 hours ago, Littleworlds said:

I have written a guide for buying Lego where I delve a little deeper into the topic of building up a collection in my blog. Feel free to have a look!

Thanks that article was interesting and useful. 

[robertgorman2505]

I tend to stick to the superhero themes (both marvel and DC but mainly DC nowadays, especially with the lego batman movie) and star wars sets, but sometimes I'll get a set from another theme if I really like the look of it or I think I can turn it into something from comic books that lego hasn't made yet. I do get quite a lot of lego, but I've also got to balance it with other hobbies such as comic book collecting and video games, but lego takes up most of my hobby money.

Edited December 14, 2016 by robertgorman2505

[quark12000]

Other than getting all the modulars, I just get whatever strikes my fancy.  I've recently got the Santa and Elf helper sets and Moana's Ocean Voyage.

[Elysiumfountain]

I would say I just buy stuff I like. I haven't bought a large set in many years though, mainly it's been Bricklink orders that are my source of new pieces. I don't think any of the sets I originally had are in one piece anymore, they've all been applied to be used for MOCs. 

[J_C]

I buy, build, take apart, MOC something, take apart, build something different, take apart, meanwhile buy something else, build, take apart, design something new, take apart, rebuild again, take apart....I can carry on, but you get what I am saying. 

[TomOOO]

I buy mostly (flagship) technic,trains and the ideas; being quite old I fortunately have quite reasonable pocket money allowance.  I have some 50+ sets which I try and keep complete, but occasionally MOC something which combines a few sets.  I have a busy job and care for some terminally ill so quite often I just pick a technic set and build it over a period of a few days then take is apart; I build it slowly just to chill out, perfect solution for me.  I also often fill a room with trains and have just completed a MOC of "evening star" to go with some 10 other train sets and lots of MOC rolling stock.  

I have got to the stage where storage is a problem as I like to keep the boxes in good condition so I am not sure what to do with the 2017 technic sets - 2016 was a "bad" year for me as I bought so many, I am not sure about the plane and the boat but I bet I end up buying them.  

[dulsi]

I have a few sets put together but mostly I use my legos to build MOCs. I use bricklink to get a lot of pieces. Often I prototype with a mix of colors and build a digital model to select proper colors. Then I order the pieces from bricklink.

[BubbaFit45531]

Lately, I've been browsing pics of upcoming sets, current sets, on Amazon and other Lego sites, then deciding what to look for in stores. I also find stuff in stores, then go home and look up what parts are in the mildly interesting things I found in store and decide if I want to go back to buy it. I like the Lego sites that have scans of instructions so I can see if it includes interesting parts.

I keep checking Lego sites to see if there's something interesting coming soon.

[Orange Leader]

I'm foremostly an enthusiast that tends to build his own stuff and sorting. However, before that I collected and displayed themes. Especially Star Wars, even though I got bored out of It having little interest in the PT (they are however good sets) or buying a third landspeeder. LEGO Rogue 1 sets are growing on to me, maybe I'll buy some of those.

LEGO's own themes are good for temporary displaying and end eventually in my storage to build as said before my own stuff. I'm also looking for extra parts and buy thus a lot of loose pieces as well.

[rodiziorobs]

On 12/12/2016 at 8:14 PM, 8-Bit Ramen said:

I just kinda get whatever I want or can afford for various reasons. I also keep whatever I'm given. I collect, display, and I won't lie, I enjoy just playing with my Legos. No shame.

 

On 12/13/2016 at 11:56 AM, Peppermint_M said:

I build my own things. I do get sets with good designs or in a theme that interests me, but all are destined to be parted out to supply my designs. 

These quotes almost perfectly sum up my Lego behavior.

[Faefrost]

I dabble and wander, but I do find it best to limit myself to some core focuses. My main interests are the Modular Buildings, Star Wars (primarily ships and vehicles), Marvel Super Heroes, Ninjago, a healthy sampling of D.C. Superheroes, and pretty much anything with a ship. Most of my moc'ing goes towards custom Modular buildings to expand my growing city. Although I have been starting to blend them with Superheroes. I have comic version Dr Strange's house and Avengers Mansion on the drawing board and will probably try and work up a Ninjago themed Modular after that. Maybe the Mojo Dojo or Chen's Noodle House. I will occasionally pick up random other themed sets, if something about them strikes my eye ( parts, figs, clearance pricing, etc.) 

[BubbaFit45531]

On swooshable, I finally came across some nice MOCs where the creators were generous enough to share the parts list and instructions! The thing is I don't have anywhere near the necessary ingredients. I'm going to try to make a point to consider buying any polybags I come across if they have parts I want, where before, if they didn't come with any good minifigures, I'd ignore. Gonna try to see if any parts sets have good parts. The last parts set I bought was a Basic blue brick tub.