Lego Rest Breaks

Every so often while packing up my house, I’ve been taking breaks reading, writing, painting, Lego building breaks and far too many hours scrolling through social media feeds. But, probably my brick collection will be the last thing I pack.

It’s Thursday 29 December 2022, the middle of the Christmas/New Year break. The apartment complex where I live is almost silent with no soundtrack in the background of kids in the pool or kids racing around role-playing their version of cops and robbers.

To cut the quiet, I’m piping Geneva by Russian Circles (post-rock band) into my ears, by way of the Blue Tooth connection between my modem and my hearing aids. Philos is the last ‘song’ and my favorite. Coming up. Still seems funny calling them songs when there are is generally no singing. Better than the superseded tech of ‘tracks’ I suppose.

So, although I’m still building, I’ve put the village aside and am concentrating on ‘furniture’ the elements that will liven up the various scenes. This week I’m looking at how the brick experts build trees. Tips & Bricks has some really good posts. Brick Crafts too. And then it’s up to me adapting.

I’m never going to have as vast a collection as brick-professionals or extreme hobbyists, or their large scale set-ups. My 4-seater dining tabletop is it. Space enough for seven 🙂 whole MILS plates, and maybe 6 to 8 half plates. When the table is needed—like for eating on—the village has to be moved to the shelves adjacent.

This tree is still experimental. As most of my green leaf pieces are in the Christmas Wreath build above, this tree must make do with lavender leaves. The dark green part is a piece of seaweed made-over. The tree trunk? Not much to look at yet. It’s a work in progress.

Learning Lego

Yesterday I was reminded that Bosley & Co need at least 2 more hard hats to be able to pass building inspections. Off went another order to BrickResales.com.au for hard hats, a few other building site necessities, and a trio of frying pans for the new outdoor dining setup. LBT’s (Australian delicacy: lettuce bacon and tomato sandwiches) coming up.

While most of the structures I build are MOCs, aka My Own Creations–for the ongoing story– every so often I buy a set for what I can learn from them.

This week, I tackled the (shown above) Campervan Model #Lego60283. Took me a couple of thoroughly enjoyable hours to put it together at the same time learning two techniques that’ll help me keep the interiors of my own models accessible.

First there is the camper’s easily lifted off roof. This has made access to the vehicle’s roof spaces so easy, I’m planning to use the technique for some of the apartments in Bosley & Co’s proposed multi-storey build.

Starting with the ground-floor cabins, I discovered that once you put a roof on a place, the windows and doors are too small for adult fingers to access the interior. Furniture, for example, that needs to be installed inside, has to be done during the build, or the build carefully dismantled and done again with extras included.

In that mode, there are cabins on the site that have been built three times. Jackie and Jed Cranedriver’s now very fancy hut is a case in point. Version One looked like a grey box. Version Two had some color in it.

Third time, this time, it has a swing-open wall similar to the one in the camper-van. I love it. Though it will take further study to get the colors matching where they are meant to. I can foresee a fourth rebuild.