Building sets in The Lego Adventure Book

aaronk

I got The Lego Adventure Book recently, and it has a lot of great looking models in it. However, my collection of Lego is limited to the original MindStorms set, a brick tub, and a few scattered sets. That doesn't get very far when it comes to building these models.

I wonder how you would advise getting parts for some of the models in the book. I started shopping for parts for the first model (the Idea Lab) on BrickLink, but figuring out and searching for parts is extremely time consuming.
Any tips that might ease the process of acquiring a good variety of parts?

I'm thinking of skipping to the truck, as that's a smaller and simpler model (albeit doing it in a different color scheme). It also seems to have less obscure parts. Then perhaps I'll try to build its trailer, which does not have step-by-step instructions.

More broadly, I'm curious about others who have this book (and others like it). Are you building the models, or just looking at it for fun and inspiration?

akunthita

@aaaronk, I have both of The LEGO Adventure books. I assume you are talking about the lime-green and purple truck in the first book? I absolutely love both books and have built several of the models, and also used them for inspiration to build my own models.

If you have a small selection of parts, my suggestion would be to build up your stock by getting a few official, currently available models in the general theme you are interested in. This is actually going to be the cheapest way to start getting into custom model building.

Once you have a good stock, you can tackle the models in the book. You may not have the exact colors, but you will learn the concepts quickly, and will become familiar with parts. Also, it will help you familiarize yourself with searching on BrickLink as each set listed there has a full parts list. Once you know the parts, shopping is so much faster.

And when you really like a model you built and would like to take it further by getting the exact color sceme, etc. you will be able to get the missing parts a lot easier on BrickLink or at the Pick-A-Brick selection at the online LEGO shop.

Building custom models is not cheap, and it is almost always going to be more expensive then buying official LEGO sets. So I would suggest that you first clarify your goal; are you really attached to the models in the book and really want to build specific ones, or you just want to learn building techniques and general concepts?

If you want to build specific models from the book let me know if you need help finding the parts. I'm very familiar with BrickLink and LEGO parts in general, plus I have both volume 1 and volume 2 of the LEGO Adventure book...(c;

If you just want to get back to the hobby and build some cool models without breaking the bank, I would actually recommend another book that I think would better suit your needs. It is called Amazing Vehicles and comes in two volumes. The author - a former LEGO designer - uses a handful of the same basic LEGO elements to build 20 models (in fact they all come from one official LEGO Creator set!). It is by far the best book I have seen to get someone started tinkering with LEGO. And the models are excellent! I have written a full review on the books here: http://thebrickblogger.com/2013/08/lego-book-amazing-vehicles/

Hope this helps some. Let me know if you have any other questions...(c;

aaronk

Thanks for the feedback @akunthita! Yes, I'm talking about the green & purple truck (and trailer).

I thought about building up stock with official sets in the beginning (this strategy only seems to work if one is not in love with the official set as it is). I got discouraged when looking up the parts from the Idea Lab, and finding that many of them had not appeared in very many sets currently in production. Then again, that's going by the exact colors/pieces in the instructions... it would be much easier with a little flexibility, like a blue roof (Apple Tree House).

So I started using BrickLink to shop for parts for the Idea Lab, and that became quite a chore... and I decided that a fairly standard building wasn't worth the effort. The truck is a smaller and easier goal to reach. In fact, the new SUV (#60058) would get me the hood, wheel wells, and tires in more agreeable colors (though I'd come up short if I try the trailer), along with some other parts needed for the Adventure Book truck. Still a number of parts that I'd be missing, but none of them look too obscure except for the windshield.

Some of the models in the book look pretty cool, and I'd like to build just about every one I see... but I suppose my goal is really to learn techniques, in order to be able to build my own models. I was inspired by pics of space MOCs 6 or 7 years ago and bought a number of sets thinking I'd like to create some myself, but never got far enough along.

I saw your review of that Amazing Vehicles book before. I don't like the style of the vehicles as much (I prefer City vehicles to the Creator stuff), but it's pretty cool that one set would get you all the pieces for every model in the book (in theory... that set is now out of production).

btw, speaking of BrickLink... ever used BrickOwl? Its UI seems to make shopping a LOT easier in some ways. You can specify quantities in your wishlist, and once you have items in your wishlist you can add all the parts that a given store offers with a single click. As far as I could tell, the BrickLink wishlist makes you deal with the parts one by one.

akunthita

Yeah, the models in The LEGO Adventure book are very fun. What I usually do is to just build them from the parts I have and not worry about color at all. But I do have a fairly large collection. Once I built it, if I really -really like it, I will find the parts in the right color on BrickLink.

Actually, my strategy for building my own MOCs (and MOCs from books like The LEGO Adventure Book, Amazing Vehicle, etc.) is to have a large selection of gray pieces. I pretty much have every possible LEGO piece in gray. This way I can design the concept of any model with real LEGO parts without being distracted by a rainbow of colors.

BrickOwl is a UK based site and most sellers seems to be there. I'm in the USA so it doesn't offer me nearly as much as BrickLink. Also, I'm very familiar with BrickLink and for me it works fast and flawless. BrickLink also has the same feature of finding everything from your wish-list in a store. When you visit any store, in the left-hand side-bar right on top there is a link: Show all items this Store has on my Wanted List. Just click that button. And of course it seems like you already know how to quiry by shop, which will show you which seller has all or most of the items you want...(c;