Legos needed for MOCs and Factions

[MasterTyvokka]

So, I bought around 80lbs. a while back an I have begun sorting it. It is a very tedious task and I am not sure once all is said and done storage solution wise, that I will have the room to store it all completely sorted. I am considering reselling some of it in bulk. That will save me some sorting time and space. My only concern is that after I've sold some I may wish I hadn't.  My questions is what do y'all find yourselves using the most when building mocs as far as pieces, sizes, and colors go when building Star Wars MOCs or participating in factions (for those that do)? For me MOCs would mostly be on the smaller side, (unless I am building someone else's design but I might purchase as lots from Bricklink at that point.) or I would be using them for mock ups for my own designs.

[Ravelino]

Depends on what you want to build most!?

About colors:

If it's little scenes you want, you could do with the grays, blacks, browns, tans and a few trans elements for lights/water/etc and some (green) foliage pieces like the 1x1 round brick with 3 leaves to spice it up.

Spoiler

(both the big and small leafed version although the big leave is more expensive)

 

If you want to build spaceships and speeders (unless your aim is a grey imperial fleet) you'll need a few more colors for accents.

 

The type of element is totally dependent on what you like but these always come in handy:

 

Plates in various sizes will help you set a footprint, and you can do a banthacrap-load  of landscaping with just 1x2 plates

1x1 and 1x2 bricks with stud on side(and the headlight/washing machine brick) will help you do some nice angling with SNOT and fortifying structures.

Jumper plates 1x2 or 1x3 or 2x2 there might be others but those are the most common

Cheese slopes!

Tiles! Everybody loves a smooth surface and tiles are so handy

My advice

Spoiler

(and I know the predicament you're in as I recently and finally started to sort out my entire collection which is slightly bigger than 80lbs)

 

Keep sorting and once you have an idea of what your collection consists of, part out everything but 20 of each element in each available color.(of course the more the better and if you don't reach the 20 limit than you just keep it all)

This is my personal rule of thumb, and I have no mathematical logic behind this, but my personal experience tells me this: Even the smallest little thing will need two of something and maybe even 4 and by keeping 20 pieces of the same element in the same color you can make at least 2 versions of a particular small MOC and compare the two and maybe even keep both as a sort of non-identical twin.

My second advice: Don't sell your Lego unless you need to because of space/money/your significant other tells you to(not even then, just get a divorce).

If you do have to sell it, know what you will be selling so you won't get pains later realizing you sold a rare piece/color in a bulk-deal (you wouldn't be the first)

Edited April 19, 2020 by Ravelino

[Kit Bricksto]

That's a very difficult question and the answer will probably be very different for each of us. 

I sorted my entire collection of bricks a few years ago and it might not be the best way of doing it but it works for me. Same as you I didn't really have too much space so I sorted my bricks by how useful they were for me first, sorting all those I used very regularly into little drawers. For instance there are individual drawers for all sorts of tiles, one for plates with clips, one for plates with bars on them and so on, not sorted by colour though. Those all fit on my rather small desk. For all the larger parts I have a system set up where I sort them by colour and into a few categories depending on how much of a colour I have. One box for bricks, one for plates, one for slopes and one for all the rest. For all of these I use IKEA boxes, I think they are called Samla or something like that. They all fit into one set of full height shelves. 

Long story short, maybe you can avoid selling off your Lego again by sorting it in a way that fits your space and your needs. There are lots of parts that you will probably rarely ever need and that don't need to be sorted too precisely but you might be glad to have them at some stage. I find it very helpfull to building to have a good selection of parts at hand because while there certainly are parts and colours you will use more than others I would avoid limiting your palette too much. I really can't tell you which parts you will definitely need because the ones I use might not fit your building style. I know a bunch of people who build the same kinds of models as I do and our parts and techniques could not be more different. 

Enough rambling.. I think you will have to figure out what you need most for yourself. If you can, keep the parts you have right now and just start building stuff. That's the best way of finding out what you might be missing and what you really don't need. 

Hope this was at least a bit helpful.. :) 

[MasterTyvokka]

Thanks both of you. That was all very helpful. I like the idea of selecting a set number of each piece and color to keep "out." I have definitively reconsidered selling the rest and I will just box it up and store it, just in case.