Building a city; need brick buying advice

Littlebrick · Post by **Littlebrick** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 10:11 pm

Okay, I have a set in my upcoming film where I am going to need several buildings on a city street; maybe 4-6 first floors, at least. I can do 3 first floors, maybe more, but as I get deeper into the buildings I'll have to do more floors. So, I've got about seventy-five dollars to spend, and I need to know where I can get a good deal on about five doors, at least 20 windows, and lots of bricks and plates, maybe some arches, with some money left over for shipping (and extra goodies). I was thinking Bricklink, but I think it would be a huge hassle with the different prices, different shipping rates, and stuff like that. I was also thinking LEGO.com, because I would have one shipping price for the whole thing, and I would be able to build the sets beforehand and see what I would be able to do with the bricks I'm getting; but LEGO.com is pretty expensive. eBay won't work, because I've got a deadline, and there is no guarantee that I'll get the bricks.

So, what do you guys think? LEGO.com or Bricklink?

draugaer · Post by **draugaer** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 10:41 pm

well on brick link you're going to be able to find just about any piece in any color you could want, its also the cheaper option.

pick-a-brick on lego.com is easier to navigate, and you'll be getting new pieces (brick link ones may be weathered a bit). However you're going to have a limited selection of colors and pieces, and its going to cost a bit more. Theres also more of a guaranteed delivery date.

In your situation (with the deadline) I would check out lego.com first, if they offer the pieces you need, get them there. If not, use bricklink.
-btw you dont have to use factory to get the pieces you need from lego.com. I'm pretty sure Pick a brick offers some color/elements that factory doesn't

Littlebrick · Post by **Littlebrick** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 11:02 pm

Hmm. Bricklink is definitely cheeper; I can get twice as many Bricks for half the price. I'm still worried about the shipping, though. I'll probably end up shipping from several different places, so prices could get annoying.

castlebuilder100 · Post by **castlebuilder100** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 11:15 pm

Shipping really isn't that bad imo. When I buy stuff I usually order from a bunch of stores at once and it's not really that much.

tiberium_blue · Post by **tiberium_blue** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:31 am

Stick to stores in your own country for bulk orders and check the splash pages for silly fees and you should find the shipping isn't so bad.

Dunechaser · Post by **Dunechaser** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 5:43 pm

Bricklink, definitely. You've already ruled out eBay (correctly, I think), and the LEGO Shop has a limited parts selection.

I built my very parts-intensive fire station almost entirely from Bricklink orders, and it cost me about $100. If you're willing to build with more standard bricks than the hundreds of headlight bricks and tiles I used, you could probably squeeze two or three buildings out of $75.

One way you might consider saving on brick costs is to build interchangeable facades for your buildings. Where the appearance of an interior behind the facade is less necessary (long shots), you could line up more facades. Where an interior is necessary (close-ups at street level or true interior shots), you could swap in a modular interior.

Another way to save on overall costs is by being willing to pay slightly more for shipping from stores with much larger selections. I never pay Bricklink average prices, but I've still been able to find stores with large selections that don't overprice their bricks and have reasonable shipping and handling. I've ordered several times from Precious Princess Palace.

If you're here in the US, shipping from Canada can be really cheap (depending on the size of the order, even cheaper than shipping within the US). Don't rule out Canadian stores.

Hope that helps!

Littlebrick · Post by **Littlebrick** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 9:33 pm

Thanks for the replies, guys. They're really helping. I kind of figured out already that I'll have to ship bricks from somewhere nearby, after telling my mom that I might be shipping some bricks from England.

And I forgot to mention that I'll only be doing the outsides of the buildings, after about building One or Two. Any "interiors" will be blurred, so I won't need to pay any attention to them really.

And if you need to know, I am in the USA.