Toys

LEGO

After the Gundam build I thought about buying more Gunpla models (and I think in the future I absolutely will), but I wanted to bring it a bit back to basics and looked at LEGO.

A year or two ago I got the LEGO Saturn V my brother, and I realised while checking out the online LEGO store it was going to stop production very soon. As of last weekend, it was still in stock on the LEGO store, this is no longer the case (it does keep coming in and out of stock) so I am incredibly happy I decided to purchase it when I did. At £110, it wasn't a small cost, but considering the size and look of the final build, it feels worth every penny.

It provided an interesting contrast to the Gundam model I built a couple of weeks ago, and I found it wholly more meditative than the Gundam. I loved making the Gundam, but it takes loads of concentration and minute movements to try and get it perfect. Every little sticker can be millimetres in size, which with my awful fallible human hands made for a stressful experience. And the stress was part of the enjoyment, and part of what makes the end result so satisfying to me.

The Saturn V arrived at the end of last week, and from start to finish it took me an hour or two each evening for the whole work week. It wasn't intended to be an after work project, I kind of wanted originally to blast through it in a couple of days like the Gundam. But once I started, I realised this was just an incredibly meditative experience. I think this is for a couple of reasons:

1. It's nostalgic in a really nice way. If you played with LEGO at any point in your life, the concepts are already right there in your head. There was a bit in the instructions where you can measure a X connector piece with a 1 to 1 image of it in the manual, and I remember doing that all the time as a kid with the LEGO Technic instruction manuals.
2. It's easy. With the Gundam and other models, you're having to use your brain to put thought into what you're doing, ensuring its correct because if you mess up, you could render a piece/sticker unusable. With LEGO, it just comes apart. It's big enough that you're not fumbling with tiny little pieces (most of the time), and the instructions are super clear with almost single piece by piece instructions. You can almost think of nothing whilst you're doing it, and so little else seems to do that for me.
3. The end result looks really good, but whilst you're building it, watching whole pieces come solidly together is a really nice feeling. You're wondering for lots of steps what the heck you're even doing. But when it comes together, it really comes together.

Going forward, I think this will probably be my method of relaxing for a week; build a LEGO kit and have fun. I have already gone ahead and purchased the LEGO ISS, and Anakins Pod racer kits. They're currently sat in their respective boxes behind me waiting to be built, and I'm probably going to keep them like that until I need them at some point during a week to relax.

Plus I think a lot of the larger "adult" LEGO models do look really good and well thought out. It's expensive, but taking it slow and building over time makes it feel like something really worthwhile.