ToysWorld are thrilled to present the first of our articles in partnership with the fab folk over at Tips&Bricks!
Adults building LEGO sets is one thing that the general public might find surprising, but AFOLs (Adult Fan Of LEGO) using LEGO as an art form? Most people might have seen large LEGO sculptures in their local LEGO store or LEGOLAND and someone has to build those right?
Well beyond these sculptures, there’s a whole community of dedicated Adult Fans of LEGO or AFOLs that go beyond building just LEGO sets and who use their creativity and imagination to craft these bricks into whatever creations they want! These creations can range from Star Wars ships to real-life objects, from microscale builds to minifigure scale masterpieces!
Check out some of these epic custom builds for example:
Hogwarts Castle by Alice Finch, made of about 400,000 bricks and took 12 months to build.
Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bippitybricks
Microscale City by Jeff Friesen.
Link: https://www.instagram.com/jeff_works/
Battle of Crait by Solid Brix Studios.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/user/legoboy12345678
The Hobbit Vignette by Thorsten Bonsch
Link: https://www.flickr.com/photos/xenomurphy
Everyday Tools by -derjoe-
Link: https://www.instagram.com/_derjoe_/
Any models that people build without instructions are called My Own Creations or MOCs for short. There are plenty of MOC builders out there, who collect loose bricks as well as LEGO sets, all to build their own models. Think of practically anything in the world, and you can almost be certain they’ll be a LEGO model of it that an AFOL has built.
These MOCs don’t have to use thousands of parts, but once you start on the custom building path, it can be hard to not be drawn in, and AFOLs often find their house can become filled with LEGO very quickly. Many adults use LEGO as an escape from normal life, looking to the hobby for a relaxing and creative pass time, while others love the challenge that comes with building models without instructions.
We’re going to be posting lots of other articles on the topic of custom building, written by LEGO blog founder, Alex Johnson, who has been within the AFOL community for 5 years now and running his blog Tips&Bricks for 3 years. The blog specifically highlights the building techniques that AFOLs can employ to build custom models, as building impressive or detailed models without instructions and with every brick you can think of is no walk in the park!
Do you have a custom LEGO set you’d like to share with us? Let us know in the comments box, below!
