I Built My First Lego Set at 36 Years Old - Paperwave #3

...and it was awesome.

(Welcome to Paperwave: a free newsletter focused on board and card games, Lego, art books, and other cozy objects likely to spark joy with nerds).

I never had any Lego kits as a kid.

I wasn’t deprived - I had video games, Ninja Turtles, plenty of other toys. Lego - somehow - just passed me by. You have to remember that as a kid we didn’t have the internet yet. If you happened to not be watching cartoons at the right time or not have a specific circle of friends, you could just…. Not really know something existed. 

As an adult I’ve long admired the bigger, flashier sets. Of course the classic Millennium Falcon, but plenty more too. Lego Architecture, modular buildings, and smaller but thematically-strong sets like the Old Fishing Store - in fact that’s the first set I can remember looking at back in 2017 and truly being impressed by (I’m not much of a Star Wars guy). It looked much more like a diorama filled with layers of depth than a kid’s play thing.

For me, the Old Fishing Store started it all…

I’ve always suspected Lego could be something I would enjoy. And after moving into a place with more space, I finally decided to find out. I bought Pirates of Barracuda Bay which is a Lego set so perfectly aligned with my sensibilities it is absolutely ridiculous. 

And, spoilers, I loved it. 

Let’s get into it. This write-up should be especially helpful if you’re Lego-curious, like me.

The Build Is The Fun

The island begins to takes shape. Image Credit: Bricksfanz

I didn’t time myself, but generally speaking I would work on the set for an hour or 90 minutes each evening before bed, and it took around a week and a half to complete. Purely anecdotally, this time felt like it was good for my mental health, as it was an opportunity to decompress, reflect, and stay off screens before going to sleep.

I found the build itself to be relaxing, and fairly zen-like. The Lego company seems to get that this is why many adults are here - I’m now regularly bombarded with targeted Lego ads online encouraging me to “practice mindfulness” with another adults-oriented Lego set. I doubt kids are getting Lego ads promoting this same angle.

I have horrible spatial skills - I have trouble visualizing and rotating 3D objects in my mind and have had to stop playing some video games entirely if they don’t have good internal maps. But the wordless, thorough step-by-step instruction booklet was perfect and easy-to-follow. It’s more than 400 pages long, meaning there’s never more than a couple of steps included on each page. 

I also really like and appreciate how many tiny little details are hidden away in the build itself, seemingly only put there for the builder to enjoy. Some of them are truly tiny - there are a few frogs making their home among some coral underneath the dock, fully hidden away from view. But some are more significant, adding to the rich theme of the set. There’s a hidden compartment house a treasure chest filled with pirate booty, a submerged pirate skeleton, and even the central tavern and pirate sleeping bunks eventually get enclosed and semi-hidden away. 

There’s that skelly boy!!! Image credit: Brickset

It Was All Well-Paced

I’m not sure if this is deliberate or not, but the Barracuda Bay build itself felt well-paced. It seemed to “reward “me for completing a more complicated, technical section like the ship masts by next having me move on and build a simpler, thematically-rich area like the captain’s cabin or the tavern.

This will be old news for long-time Lego fans, but I was excited and relieved to see that the build came in a series of 15 numbered bags, which you open and complete one-by-one, using up all the contents of one bag before moving on to the next. As a newbie I don’t have any sorting trays or anything like that, and I didn’t find it necessary at all. By going bag-by-bag I was able to just spread all the pieces onto my desk and spend minimal time hunting for what I needed, since I wasn’t hunting through 2000+ pieces at once.

The bag system also helped with my pacing, as I would complete 1-2 bags and then call it a night.

A pirate’s life. Image credit: thatbricksite

I also appreciated that the instructions never actually tell you where to place or what to do with the minifigure pirates you build along the way. When 99.9% of the build is placing specific bricks at specific moments, it was fun to make up little stories for myself with the free-form placement of the pirate crew. 

The Set Is HUGE

Depending on your specific living situation this can either be a pro or a con. As Barracuda Bay took shape I was super excited to see how substantial it was shaping up to be. Especially because it’s $200. I didn’t want to spend a ton of money and end up with a chintzy finished product. Even “big” 1000+ piece Lego sets don’t always have a large footprint or sense of presence when completed. Not so, with Barracuda Bay. This thing is over two feet tall and two feet wide.

In my case, I had what I thought was a quite large space set aside for it, but it turned out to be only about 20’’ high - not quite tall enough. I’ll either have to take off the top mast to make it fit, or find a different permanent home for the finished build.

It has even more depth than the pictures suggest.

Not all the adults-oriented sets are quite so sprawling - I have since learned that the modular buildings are somewhat more compact - but it’s something to keep in mind.

How You Can Get Started

I’ve learned that within the Lego community many adults refer to themselves as AFOLs - Adult Fans of Lego. I personally dislike this self-identification. Nothing else appropriate for all ages (video games, comics, board games, you name it) requires this delineation. I’m not an Adult Fan of Video Games, for example. I’m just… a video game fan.

Anyway, I enjoyed Barracuda Bay so much that I instantly considered myself a newly-minted adult fan of Lego myself (dang it now they have my saying it) and began looking into what other adults-oriented sets might be up my ally. 

I was super excited to learn that, unlike something like Magic cards, the Lego product line and release calendar is actually much easier to understand and to keep up with. There’s of course a huge number of new sets released each year, but depending on your taste and what you’re into - Star Wars, vehicles, Harry Potter, buildings, and so on - collecting Lego and “keeping up” doesn’t feel like the bottomless well that other collection chases can feel like. There are still definitely moments of FOMO when I have to decide, for example, that I’m not going to spend $200+ to get the free bonus Sailboat Adventure kit. But overall it feels much more manageable.

I intend do a dedicated newsletter later diving into modern Lego lines in more detail, including where and when to get deals and the best way to shop, but below is a brief introduction to a few popular adult-oriented lines to consider. 

Modular Buildings come out once per year and can be connected together in any order, letting you personalize your specific neighborhood.

Lego Ideas allow the public to vote on fan-made builds, several of which get turned into actual commercial products each year. Barracuda Bay started life as a Lego ideas submission, along with Friends’ Central Perk, Seinfeld’s apartment, The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine, the Ghostbusters’ firehouse, and many more.

Lego Architecture sets are another popular option for adults. Their smaller scale, piece count, and price tag make them an appealing option for many, along with their more understated, minimalist designs.

Although I’m personally not a ships/vehicles guy, I’m in the minority. The Ultimate Collector’s Series (UCS) line of mega-vehicle builds are immensely popular. The Millennium Falcon (and most other high-end Star Wars ships like the Imperial Star Destroyer), Batman Tumbler, and S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier all belong to the UCS line. 

In general, the Lego Creator Expert label could be considered anything appropriate for non-kids and is an excellent place to start, too.

As for me? I’ve already come back for more. I’m in the middle of a modular building build now, and plotting out (and budgeting) my next purchases.