A few months back I wrote my own Confessions of an Anti-Digital LEGO Builder where I presented my personal perspective on the differences and the similarities between digital and physical building.

Here at BrickNerd, we have a great team of LEGO fans from all different corners of the community, so I decided to follow up my article with their reactions, and a look at how they use (or don’t use!) digital building in their AFOL lives.

Simon Liu: It's a bit ironic that I apparently have a huge anti-digital rep in the community because of my stance in SHIPtember—to try to encourage people to build physical instead of digital—even though digital has been welcome from the very first year, but I always say I'd rather see a kid try to make a really crummy giant SHIP they can lift and play with than a fantastic digital one....

But I agree that there definitely is a place for both, some to coexist and sometimes not, it depends on what the contest/challenge is ... like we had a digital only contest (with real prizes!) in Iron Builder for April Fools—because we thought it was funny... but it also served as a bridge to get more physical builders to try digital building and understand some of those nuances—if you don't appreciate the plight of digital builds you may not understand/appreciate them.

Ironically enough, I've been in Stud.io all weekend building and had to do something I never thought I would have needed to… I had to SORT my digital bricks.

I was using the recent section and took so long to find bricks, after a few days I decided to sort them by pinning so that I can reach bricks faster

Michael J: I've done a little digital building, no rendering though. For me I have enough sitting in front of a computer fighting with Computer Aided Engineering software (CAD & FEM mostly) that digital isn't super appealing. LEGO time, unless writing for BrickNerd, is general offline time for me. I'll admit I'm often not as impressed by a digital build, not because I see them as easy, or lesser. But fighting physics to pull off something I find more impressive. (My style is not super fiddly and honestly that's not always something I'm drawn to either.) I'm also a bit weird in that I have a very difficult time dissembling things. So that could color my perspective too. I think a lot of my feelings towards digital is training from work and school, the digital is meant to transform into the physical and that is a hard mindset to break.

Ted Andes: Digital building is the gateway into the hobby for many new AFOLs. As I mentioned during my earlier interview with Felix Dyson about digital building, I certainly relied on LDD in my early days, and LEGO’s Design By Me program to purchase the parts to build it. Below are pictures of one of my earliest MOC’s soon after coming out of my dark age. So many times what separates the good builders from the great builders is just having the parts that you need. With digital, that levels the playing fields in contests where it should be more about the creativity and building skills than a person’s budget and part inventory - granted, digital building comes with its own set of costs as a well.

Dave Schefcik: I had a slightly slanted view against digital building when I first got back into LEGO. I didn’t understand it, so I thought it was a shortcut at the time. It had all the benefits of building with none of the drawbacks: space, managing a collection, sorting, gravity… you know the drill. Then I started making small kits and wanted to create instructions. That led me to completing a crash course in Studio since I needed a digital model to make proper instructions.

Since then, I’ve come to appreciate digital building so much more. Getting the right connections, angles, orientation is all an art unto itself. Rendering and lighting are even more time-consuming and those who can do it well have my utmost respect. I dabble in small creations and marvel at people like Lego_nuts and more who can compose and get a perfect shot. I’ve since changed my tune. While seeing a creation built at a convention is fun, so many of us are stuck at home and on computers that digital building has really emerged as a force to be reckoned with. I look forward to seeing what comes next!

Doug Hughes: Personally I will only use digital for a postable MOC if it's a rush job or something I am certain I couldn't accomplish with real bricks (either I don't want to buy the bricks or back to a time crunch situation like for my DA4 oil rig). I simply prefer the tactile experience and feel my techniques are more creative with real brick. Plus I can't bring digital to conventions! One other use that isn't ultimately shared with the outside world is to help determine what to purchase for a moc. I did that for my DC-3 and my seanchan greatship MOCs. I have no problem with people building digitally for their MOCs in general, and I like that some contests allow it and some don't, good variety is always important.

Are M. Heiseldal: I actually build all my creations digitally first, before going through my storage to find out which bricks I already own and which I need to order. Initially, the reason for this was simply that I didn't have that many bricks after having emerged from my Dark Ages, but then I just got used to doing it that way, and now I even enjoy the process of looking for parts, sourcing them online, and building the physical model from the digital blueprints (I know, I'm weird). I always have this feeling that I "should" build more with physical bricks, and I'm convinced that there are some advantages to that too, like being inspired to build a certain MOC because of a particular brick, but for now I'm all digital in the creative phase. For me, that doesn't mean I compromise on rigidity - as I normally always build my models physically later they need to be sturdy, and I always try to make sure of that even when using MLCad/LDraw.

What’s your perspective on digital building? Join the conversation in the comment section below!

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