How to Build a LEGO City (on a budget)

A bit of a different video this week. We take a look at some tips and tricks for starting a LEGO city on a budget. Let me know if you like these tips, and if there are other topics you want me to make videos on!

00:00 Intro
1:22 Tip #1: Start Small
2:49 Tip #2: Use What You Have
3:53 Tip #3: Fill in the gaps of LEGO City sets
4:56 Tip #4: Be creative when shopping for parts
5:53 Tip #5: Consider alternative brands

Some of my favorite alternative Lego Products:

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Music by Epidemic Sound
Stock Footage by Storyblocks
All other footage courtesy of New Brickerton Productions Inc.

#Lego #LegoCity #legotutorials

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[stasisbricks]

The issue which I think should be addressed is space. I feel like that is the biggest deterrent for starting a lego city.

[Whokn]

The production value of this video feels like one of a channel with millions of subs, keep it up my good

[ladyyy_rosa]

Honestly great tips for someone like me who is just starting out making my own City.

I think my number one tip is use the LEGO City sets first. It really helped me out as the modular road system introduced with the newer sets helps a ton with dismantling the parts to change them however you want. Same with buildings. Although, the only problem is especially where I’m from, the LEGO City sets are scarce due to Christmas.

Thanks for the video!

[BrickersInArms]

Not a necessarily budget conscious tip but a useful one nonetheless when starting a new city; is to use the MILS plate system. Converting my buildings and roads into MILS makes reshuffling your city so much easier and gives you options to play with more depth and also just looks way better. Great video too

[mishti]

Fantastic video!👍 You don't even need road plates...I have a pretty large city but it's all inside bookcases and I only have posterboard for roads. It works. Or you can think outside the box and have more bike/pedestrian pathways. There's no limit to imagination! That's why we love lego.

[christinepiearson]

Dollar tree has bases for $1.25, I've been grabbing those to cut for my daughter's (cough* my*) lego display table, awesome for boardwalks, rivers, roads/path!

[majorco.]

Thank you getting back into lego I use to have many builds but over the years lost the oarts so I will be using to your tips to rebuild my city

[BroughtCat]

Bro this looks amazing, I'm in love with the fact that you found a way to use the 2018-2020 Harry Potter Castle expansions in a city set up. It looks like a Ivy league university and I wanna do the exact same thing in my set up!!

[brck_]

here from the Philippines, 15yo TFOL. Ended up buying 3 authentic LEGO sets and buying alternatives made from HK and elsewhere 😂😂

[Carpack]

Another thing to consider for those on a budget. Is the 4+ series. I know a lot of fans hate them for the solid single piece bases, and for being to simple and kiddy. But it can be a cheap way to get some nice cute vehicles, figures, and accessories for your city.

[WiiMusicBooster]

This is a great video! Here are my thoughts on all 5 points:
1: Small definitely works well. Pretty much all of my city buildings are either from City, Creator, or custom built. I don’t have a single modular set, and I don’t really want any, because I would much rather use that 32x32 space for multiple smaller and simpler buildings.
2: Another plus side to building the alternate builds in Creator sets is getting more pieces. I remember getting a gigantic caravan set and opting to build the alternate lighthouse build instead. I had a decent supply of parts after that, including some doors I could use in custom buildings.
3: I’ve tried to make backings for some of my buildings, but I don’t tend to do it too often.
4: Another good place to look is yard sales. They are basically the best place to get cheap Lego if you don’t care what you get. Granted, you might end up with a lot of stuff from series’s you don’t care about, but you could also find good sets to use in your city, like when I found a Classic house and a Friends bakery in my most recent haul.
5: Even though I mostly use official Lego, I do think baseplates are the best thing to go bootlego on. My winter village uses bootlego baseplates for instance.

[legomasterthefirst]

Great Video and great tips! I’m fairly pure when it comes to lego bricks with the only alternatives being some of my baseplates. I do agree with how ridiculous the base plates are over priced with competitors being cheaper and sometimes better. For instance you can get third party base plates for cheaper that are a full baseplate thick with the advantage of working better with the new roads then the official ones do.

[EzBricks_]

This is amazing! I love that there are houses, castles, and so much detail! I subscribed

[patriciaayres]

I am getting overwhelmed trying to design my city. I have a bunch of Harry Potter sets, Jurassic World, Prince of Persia and then some old castle sets and the black pearl. All my ideas are in my head and hard to visualize in real life. I don't really have a big area, just two card tables and a really long work bench. This video is helpful, but are their any other words of encouragement. Thank you for the info and have a great evening.

[lolligerjoj]

Nice! I would add, even though it might've implicitly been brought up in this video, to go for smaller buildings from LEGO rather than the modular line. I especially like a lot of these 3in1 buildings from the late 2010s till now which are amazingly compatible with each other. There's a video by Jangbricks called "The Joy of Small LEGO buildings... Together!" which perfectly shows the potential of this and the amount of density with going for this scale of buildings. Also helps when you might not have a lot of space. I got the sets 31026, 31050, 31065, 31097, 31105, 31036 for a very small shelf-layout that even has space for the roadplates and I love it. I plan to get some copies of these sets in the future since all of them have pretty competent alternate builds as well. A lot of these buildings also have hinges so they can be closed up or used as larger fassades, so the flexiblity is really good.

[Bricks.Master.Builders]

Thank you for this amazing video, as a Lego technic fan you inspired me to start buying city sets and start my LEGO city ❤️

[tefnutstemple]

I've been working on my own city, slowly, over the past couple months. It started with the downtown noodle shop, and i bought a few road plate sets. I didn't used to be deeply into lego buildings, so I dont have much to work with, but I'm getting there!

[joseluissoaresserodio]

Tip nr 5 is debatable, I would not consider other brands, but that's me. The others are 100% accurate, I would suggest only to refer the Pick & Brick Wall if you have a LEGO store close to you. Cheap and excellent value for the quantity and parts you have accessible.

[KirstyM]

Levels are a great idea to give depth and character. You can build it with timber and frame in lego

[_Kev_n]

Yessir, other brands will make ya $ go way further.. think about it; do you want a city OR do you want every brick to be say “LEGO”? Don’t get lost in the leaves you won’t see the tree, n don’t get lost in the tree you won’t see the forest. 🔥 video