subject: Creativity Inspired by BrickTrainShop [print this page] Creativity Inspired by BrickTrainShop Creativity Inspired by BrickTrainShop
BrickTrainShop.com addresses the most common asked question by its customers,
I have my design but can't find the parts I need, how do I solve this problem?
Our answer:
I would say creativity is THE right way to solve any design difficulty with LEGO bricks. After all, that's what LEGO is all about. Of course I cannot tell you how to design your models with your own parts collection, but I can give you some general advice:
- Choose common colors for your designs. Yes I would like to build with dark green or dark blue all the time, but your collection is probably as full of red and yellow parts as mine. Green and orange are cool also but even less common than red and yellow. According to peeron(4), the most common colors are black, white, greys, red, yellow, and blue.
- Some parts are no longer available. But often, the discontinued parts are replaced by others with only small changes in the shape. Windows(5) are a well known example, as noted in Jake McKee's book "Getting Started With LEGO Trains". That is wise advice: when you can't get certain part, try to replace it with a similar part.
-Be careful when looking for Lego Parts online as many fraudulent parts made in china have surfaced recently such as the "enlighten" line of bricks, these are not Lego and although they look the same they are not, these fraudulent ads look convincing but it's just a big RipOff.
- Colors are sometimes not so important in the complete design. If you can't get a part in certain color, try to replace this part in a neutral color. What is neutral? Neutral can be white, grey or black, or a lighter/darker hue of the same color. This could even lead you
into a totally new and eye-catching livery (colour scheme) for your engine.
A perfect illustration of creativity based on limited part collection is the LEGO Hobby Train set (10183). The set has only 1080 parts but 10 LEGO adult fans have built more than 30 different models with them (one at a time).
Conclusion
Of course, creativity is not everything. You need a nice collection of parts to be creative. But a good designershould not blame his part collection limitations for his lack of inspiration.
