The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide

The net offers such easy access to information that I’ve always thought of it as a way to help people find out about and then find out more about The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide.

Apotome.com sat with nothing more than a “Coming Soon” page for nearly 4 years before I finally turned it into a resource for the book. And while I’m not yet done I have now added a page that I think will really help people find out more about what’s inside the book and in turn help them make the decision to buy it.

That page is called (appropriately enough) —> Inside the Book

It talks about the book in much greater depth than you’ll read on Amazon.com or even on the back of the book itself. It also includes all of the FAQ questions/answers I’ve already posted here on the blog, but in a much more organized and easy-to-read fashion. I think this gives a fair, detailed and interesting look at the book. Hopefully you agree.

Oh, and if you’re really bored, try —> About the Author

All the best,
Allan B.

Question: There are a lot of topics covered in The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide. What’s the best way to get the most out of reading it?

Answer: The answer depends on who you are. That might seem odd, but let me give some examples to help illustrate what I mean.

Although you can certainly read the book from front to back, it’s not entirely necessary to do that. In fact, depending on who you are and why you’re reading the book, you might want to take a different route. Keep reading to see what I mean.

Let’s say you’re the parent of a younger child (perhaps a child under 7 or 8 years of age). You may want to skip right to some of the model instructions and work together as a team to build them. In this instance I would recommend starting with something simple like the microscale house in Chapter 6, or the basic sphere in Chapter 7. You may also want to try building one of the jumbo bricks from Chapter 5 or perhaps just build some of the different types of columns and beams described in Chapter 2. Although these might seem a bit plain they teach some important lessons in creating strong stable connections between LEGO elements.

Now what if you’re the parent of an older child? I would suggest having them read Chapter 2 to get a grounding in the basic construction techniques. Then, they might want to tackle a model such as the train station in Chapter 3 or follow along with the design excercise in Chapter 10 that results in the mini space shuttle. Both the language and tone of the entire book are suitable for older children and they should therefore be able to work through much of the text on their own. Of course, joining them in their building adventures is also highly recommended.

Finally, let’s look at older adult readers. Maybe you’re someone who had LEGO sets as a child but hasn’t touched them in years. Or, perhaps you’re an adult who never really got to play with much LEGO when you were younger but you’re eager to get into the fun now. In this case I see every reason to start with Chapters 1 and 2 to familiarize yourself with some key terminology and principles. After that, you can continue reading the book in order, or skip to a section or chapter that you find particularly interesting. That might be the sphere, a mosaic, the shuttle model or even brushing up on the sorting and storing techniques described in Chapter 12.

Of course the Appendices are intended to be used at all points along the reading journey through the book. You can, at any time, refer to the Brickopedia (Appendix A) to learn more about a particular part or an entire category of parts. When needed, you can also flip to Appendix B and learn more about how best to use the Design Grids that are often mentioned in the book.

Ultimately there is no right or wrong way to read and enjoy The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide. My feeling is that the chapters, while connected each other in many ways, are also strong enough to stand on their own. Each can be read as a separate unit. So where you start is up to you. Of course, where you end up on your building odyssey is also up to you, the book is just here to help.

Best regards,
Allan B.

Question: Why do all the internet links in the book point back to your own website? How come there aren’t links to other good LEGO-related websites?

Answer: The decision to not include links other than those related to www.apotome.com was not one made lightly. Throughout the writing process of the book there was more than one person who suggested including links to sites where people could buy LEGO pieces or where they could learn more about software for virtual LEGO building.

In the end I went with the decision to include only links to apotome.com (and pages linked from it) so that I could have complete control over those links. At first read that probably sounds like I’ve got a big ego, but that’s not entirely the case. Rather, by having only links that point to a web domain that I own, I can ensure that those links remain active for many years to come. When including links to other sites (that you do not own) you run the risk (perhaps quite small, but still a risk) of having those links become broken.

Rather than have that happen I decided to set up a links page on apotome.com that will be kept up-to-date and will indeed provide the information that people suggested might be useful. This will hopefully allow The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide to remain timely for as long as possible.

Regards,
Allan B.

Question: My child is interested in making some of the models featured in The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide but we don’t have all the pieces. What’s the best way to find/buy LEGO pieces?

Answer: In speaking with parents of kids involved in LEGO building, this is perhaps the one question that comes up most often. The answer, unfortunately, isn’t cut and dry but before I tackle that let me back up just a bit.

One important thing to point out about the book is that every attempt was made to include instructions and examples that could actually be built by kids or adults with limited sized LEGO collections. It’s simply not realistic to believe that everyone who loves LEGO also has 100,000 pieces sitting in their basement. With that in mind I attempted to design the models in the book to be fun and instructive but at the same time be constructed with fairly common pieces or at least pieces that are reasonably easy to obtain.

Which brings us back to the question, “what’s the best way to buy LEGO pieces?”

Of course the first and simplest answer I usually give people is to visit their local toy store or to check out LEGO’s own Shop At Home service. But what sort of products are you looking for? Again, not a straightforward answer, though not hugely complicated either. In some cases you’ll want to try and find nothing more than the large assorted buckets and tubs that LEGO typically has for sale at any given time. The contents of these assortments changes every year or two but the idea is always the same: lots of basic bricks for not a lot of money. Here’s a pic of two recent offerings along this line.

Buying those types of LEGO products will give you lots of basic bricks, but what about some of the more interesting specialized pieces? For that you may wish to turn to some of the themed LEGO sets. That could include Harry Potter sets, Star Wars sets, or even LEGO’s own Designer sets. All of these offer fewer pieces for more money but also offer a wider variety of elements that you may find useful for your own models.

Another way to go, if you want to buy specific LEGO pieces, is a site called Bricklink. Here you’ll find hundreds of virtual ’stores’ where you can pick out only the parts you need in the colors you want. You may find that individually these parts seem a bit more expensive. But what if, for example, you wanted 10 red 1x4 arches? It’s entirely possible there’s no single LEGO set on the shelves today that contains that many of that piece in that color. However, on Bricklink it’s quite likely you’ll find someone who can sell you just those pieces.

Finally, there’s the ever popular eBay, though like anything else on that site you must adopt a ‘buyer beware’ attitude when bidding on LEGO items.

The point of buying LEGO is that it’s not always cheap and sometimes takes a bit of creativity to find what you want. But in the end the reward is more than worth it. LEGO bricks today still connect to and work well with bricks made 10, 20 and even 30 years ago.

Regards,
Allan B.

Question: The description for the book talks about learning to build spheres. Is this true? Will the book really teach me to make a sphere?

Answer: Yes! Absolutely. In fact, the entire 1st half of Chapter 7 is devoted to the subject of creating a sphere. The particular sphere described in the book is not very large, but the concepts used to build it can easily be applied to larger versions. There are step-by-step images included and although three dimensional models like this can sometimes seem daunting the process is thoroughly explained. Best of all, the sphere in the book requires only 220 basic bricks in order to build it. Virtually anyone, of any age, with even the most modest LEGO collection should be able to build this fun model.

I do want to be clear on one issue though. Obviously this is not the first sphere ever to be created out of LEGO elements. Not by a long shot. I don’t in any way claim to have thought up the idea of building a model like this. However, creating a sphere or spherical shaped models is a cornerstone of learning to be a more skilled LEGO builder. And thus, by teaching you to build a sphere I hope to give you some of that skill and in turn the confidence to design your own models.

Allan B.

Question: What is the Brickopedia?

Answer: The Brickopedia is a feature that is unique to The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide. This section of the book is technically Appendix A, but I have always referred to it as the Brickopedia to better describe what readers would find in it. It is, as the name suggests, an encyclopedia of sorts. And of course as you can guess it’s an encyclopedia of LEGO elements.

Does it contain all the available LEGO elements? No, it doesn’t. Instead, It contains nearly 300 of what I felt were some of the most core elements to the system. They are among the most basic and reusable pieces that represent the elements most useful to just about any LEGO builder. Theme specific pieces, or pieces that were too specialized were not included. However, many of the pieces that were included will no doubt remind even the most hard core builder just how amazingly versatile the LEGO system really is.

Here is a sample entry taken directly from the book:

As you can see, the Brickopedia isn’t just a collection of pictures of parts, but rather tries to provide some contextual information to help builders judge the usefulness of each part. Additionally, the Brickopedia is organized in a somewhat different way than other databases used to track LEGO pieces. It is broken down by the similarities shared by pieces, rather than by a strict taxonomy. I felt that it was time to revisit the way pieces were categorized and named and in some cases I made minor changes to better suit the way the Brickopedia was set up.

The Brickopedia was created specifically for The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide and is not meant to replace any of the other systems out there used to categorize bricks. Rather, it is simply meant to provide another perspective on the system and of course to match the descriptions given within the rest of the book.

Question: Is The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide an Idea book, or a book full of instructions?

Answer: Both really. The book does indeed contain several complete instructions for LEGO models. Specifically, a minifig scale train station, a small sphere and a mini space shuttle. The intention of including the instructions is not simply that you follow along and build the model (though that’s fun too!) Rather the hope is that by explaining why the model was built that way you will better understand how to design and build your own models.

As well, the book contains some basic techniques intended to provide you with skills that again are usable when constructing any type of LEGO model. Specifically, Chapter 2 looks at the different ways to connect bricks, also known as bonding patterns. These include stacking, overlapping and staggering.

Beyond just showing you construction techniques, The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide also looks at things like scale, design theory and how to substitute parts when you may be short of a specific part or two.

The book even looks at topics like sorting and storage of your LEGO bricks. It offers solutions that should apply to collections both large and small.

So rather than being just an Idea book or just an instruction book, the guide tries to offer an overall introduction to the entire LEGO hobby.

Regards!
Allan B.

As more and more people become aware of The LEGO Builder’s Guide I find myself being asked more and more questions about the book. I had been planning on putting together a set of ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ to go on the website but rather than add them all at once I thought it might be interesting to compile them here first - one at a time.

I will add FAQ entries here, in no particular order. They will either be the most recent question that I’ve been asked or just whichever one happens to be on my mind when I go to post to the blog. I hope these answers to those questions will benefit people who are wondering about buying the book. Of course if you have a question that you don’t see answered here please feel free to email me and I’ll both send you the answer directly as well as post it here.

So on to the first entry!

++++++++++++++++

ULBG - FAQ entry #1

Question: Why is the book in black and white? Won’t that make it difficult to understand the instructions/techniques inside?

Answer: The main reason for printing the book in black and white is simple: price. To have printed The Unofficial LEGO Builder’s Guide in color would have nearly doubled the cover price. This is simply a reality based on the increased cost to print a book like this in color. I made a decision very early on that I wanted to keep the cover price as low as possible in order to keep the book accessible to as many people as we could.

As far as how the images will look in black and white, let me just say that I’ve spent countless hours over the last several months rendering and rerendering hundreds (literally more than 600) images for the book. I have used very high resolution settings to produce what I think are very clear and easy to look at images. I’ve used varying combinations of white, grey, dark grey and black bricks in order to create a sense of different colored bricks while still maintaining the ability to print in black and white. You can see a sample image below:

This illustration was taken from Chapter 2, which focues primarily on basic building techniques. I think the contrast between the light and dark grey looks quite nice. As well, the edge lines drawn around the bricks give it that old school look common to older official LEGO instructions.

I don’t believe that working in black and white hurt the book at all. In fact, in many cases it forced me to be even more creative when trying to explain certain things.

Best regards,
Allan B.