Building with Lego-A Beginner's Guide to the Lego Hobby

It's been years since you last ran your fingers through a pile of Lego building blocks. You used to build the most exciting toys you ever owned with them. Entire epic stories were played out on the kitchen table or on your bedroom floor. Whenever your birthday or Christmas came near, you asked for the coolest stuff you could get...and Lego; always Lego.

Something happened though; grade school rolled into high school, then collage or the military, or whatever else life inevitably brings to us all when adulthood clashed with childhood. The Lego was packed away and stored in an attic or garage, maybe it was handed down to a sibling or other family member. The Lego was soon forgotten as adulthood engulfed you.

Years went by and something else happened. You walked down a toy aisle for some inexplicable reason and saw something you had forgotten about; shelves filled with Lego. And then it happened; the memories came rushing back and you found yourself picking a box off the shelf and shook it. The sound of the bricks inside hadn't changed. The box had undergone some changes, yet it still felt the same, even the weight was right. When you left the store, in the backseat of your car was the largest box of Lego you could afford that day. You spent hours putting the set together after you got home, and for days you couldn't stop looking at it.

Welcome to the world of Lego.

For newcomers and returning fans alike, the Lego hobby begins with a single purchase and a solitary building experience. After tinkering around with the first set of pieces, the builder soon realizes that more are needed for bigger and better projects. Soon dozens of boxes are lying around and all sorts of odd containers are being used to store the pieces. Eventually the builder comes to a point when they want to know more about the brick and one of the first places they go is online. The first Lego search brings up the Lego home page. But there's always more to a hobby than the official source of the preferred product.

The Lego community is quite varied and offers a tremendous amount of support. From the general Lego shopping pages and the more technical selections found at their educational site, to fan-created shops that sell not only out of stock sets, but also individual pieces. Everything is there that a new builder needs to expand or specialize a growing collection of Lego parts and accessories.

Eventually a new builder becomes curious about what other fans are building and so a new search begins online to find other like-minded people. It doesn't take long to find them; they are everywhere on the net; from galleries to theme-specific fan sites. There are tutorials on how to take quality pictures of your Lego models and blogs about the best methods of sorting your growing collection. For the more media oriented fans, there are even Lego movie sites.

Whatever your specialized interest might be, there is a web page for it.

The Lego hobby can be a fantastic journey of artistic endeavors and creativity, or just socializing with like-minded people who have their own fond memories of building with Lego in their youth. However, the hobby is not without its frustrations, as this pseudo essay illustrates. But, sorting issues aside, building with Lego is just plain fun. So head out to your nearest toy store and seek out the Lego aisle, who knows what you'll come home with and how it might change your life.

Play on.

http://www.lego.com/en-US/default.aspx?domainredir=lego.com, lego.com homepage

http://shop.lego.com/Default.aspx, Lego shop

http://www.legoeducation.com/store/default.aspx?CategoryID=162&by=9&c=1, Lego education page

http://www.bricklink.com/, fan-created shops

http://www.brickshelf.com/, a Lego fan gallery

http://www.classic-space.com/news.php, a space theme fan site

http://www.baylug.org/ninja/original/Photography.html, a photography tutorial

http://jdorganizer.blogspot.com/2007/09/15-lego-storage-options.html, sorting methods

http://www.brickfilms.com/, Lego movies

http://news.lugnet.com/storage/?n=707, a look at storage issues for a growing collection

-Kirby R. Warden

Lego enthusiast, Associated Content Producer