Newbie with newbie questions...

[Richey1977]

Hi. I'm a newbie here. I made a spontaneous purchase of a small Lego kit last month (60019 Stunt Plane), and as I enjoyed it, I reckon I'll now be designing and building a little diorama. I remember having some Legoland town kits as a child, and I'm torn between hunting down some of the old 1980s kits on eBay, or simply building quite similar things from scratch.

Some questions for you experienced AFOLs:

- Rear walls. The kits of buildings are often three-sided, to allow access to the building's interior. When you AFOLs design your buildings, do you stick to that, or make them more realistic with four walls and enclosed interiors?

- Studs. Are studs showing on surfaces such as pavements and car parks, or do you tile over them?

Thanks very much for any advice. I think I'll be getting some of the 'City' sets for my diorama, although I'm a bit disappointed that most of the sets are Police or Fire sets. I guess the designers at Lego have a low opinion of the crime and arson in Legoland… would be nice to see some less 'eventful' sets such as post offices and restaurants etc., but I guess I can find the old Lego Town ones, or design them myself.

Cheers.

Richey

[Brick & Blue]

Post offices and restaurants don't sell, cops and fire do. You would need to buy the Creator houses and the expensive sets if you want a decent city.

I use three walls, saves bricks, no one will see the back most of the time as I only do one street, but it depends on what you are building. If you are doing a whole city I'd do four walls.

I do a tile road or no road, the road plates are the biggest rip off in the world.

[Zeya]

No hard rules. You can build whatever you want; that's the fun of Lego. That being said, I think most AFOLs who build a diorama or a mini city tend to make buildings with all 4 walls, and studs may or may not be exposed. For a lot of stand-alone models (like just one big building), those would typically be tiled over. It all depends on what you want.

As for acquiring bricks... If you get bricks form the '80s, they're only going to come in certain colors, especially the old city/town stuff. Those would only use red, blue, yellow, white, mainly. Even green and gray would be less common. The sets and stuff sold today have a much wider range of colors that you might like, such as earth tones like brown, green, and gray. My vote is to buy new sets you like for parts and color you want, and don't be in a rush to acquire mass quantities of brick. Buying old parts can be tricky; they can come pretty worn/chewed/faded, and like I said might come with too much of that bright, primary color palette of yore.

Also a thing to learn is the difference between the old gray colors and the new ones. Before 2004, there was (what is now called) "old light gray" and "old dark gray" (and some more obscure variants). Nowadays the color is different and called "light/dark bluish gray". The new versions have more of a bluish tint to them. The implication is, if you mix old and new colors, they won't be uniform on your model. This might be bad for building a house that you want to look perfect and clean, but at the same time is great for castle builders who want their wall to look varied and medieval, or making a pathway that looks to be made of different stone.

Have fun! And welcome!

[Richey1977]

Thank you. Looking forward to sharing pics when I get some stuff done.

[scotth510]

Welcome. I would suggest spending many hour on flickr or mocpages and look at the variety of awesome creations made by everyone. Its almost addictive. Enjoy.

[dho7622u]

I think Zeya hit the nail on the head. But I will tell you, that I have converted all of my creator sets (fire brigade, cinema, etc) to the 3 side form. I like to see interiors and don't have a personal problem with it. But unless you are contributing to an AFOL lay out do what feel right.

I also had fewer bricks in the beginning and found that the fourth wall might use up more bricks than I had.

Good luck and have fun.

[NIGELTTF]

Or if you do want the completeness that four walls brings, you can build the rear wall on hinges to all access to the interior. I've done so on some of my models.