Bricks in Motion
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In my recent experience I think it's better to sort be shape than by color. I have alot of my bricks sorted by color right now, and I've found that the human eye recognizes colors much more easily than shapes of the same color in a box or drawer of LEGO bricks. 
Well, I sorted through all the Lego in my house late last year, at first it was just me trying to find that one piece I needed to finish something! (Was right at the bottom of the box) And I decided that since all the Lego was lying around on the floor now anyway I should try and sort it, so I sorted it.
It's mainly colour co-ordinated with various tubs and boxes holding the different coloured bricks, no fancy drawers for me unfortunately, just a load of mismatched tubs! They do the job well enough though! I've also separated out minifigures and their accessories, wheels, techic/Bionicle parts and other things I found of interest (Like finished vehicles and a motor, determined to use that in a video at some point. . .) One thing I learnt from sorting, trying to find individual black bricks in the black tub is extremely hard without a pretty bright light on! 
So I was at OfficeMax today and they had these really nice small organizing drawers, and I sprung for them ($16 ain't bad). I'm using them to sort my small special bricks, which are currently all in one box. There are six drawers and a weird thing on the top that I don't entirely trust to stay closed. 
I have drawers for: plants, barrels, trash cans and the like; printed bricks; small transparent studs; and minifig accessories. There are two drawers left, and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on what kind of bricks I should use them for, what seem to be the kind of small bricks that need to be accessed the most for brickfilming.
In my recent experience I think it's better to sort be shape than by color. I have alot of my bricks sorted by color right now, and I've found that the human eye recognizes colors much more easily than shapes of the same color in a box or drawer of LEGO bricks.
That's more or less what I was thinking, and why I'm sorting mostly by shape. On the other hand, though, it would be much more convenient to keep all your basic bricks (1x2, 2x4, 1x8, etc.) sorted by colour rather than shape. Tht way, if you're building, say, a grey wall, you have all the bricks you'd need right on hand, instead of having to dig around wildly to find all your basic grey bricks scattered around in loads of tubs. (This is incidentally what I'm doing. )
Well, after a few weeks, I'm all sorted 
I did it by shape. Should be much easier to find now.
I must say though, anyone who has a large collection, it will take a verylong time. But don't let this get you down. It will take even longer finding the pieces if you don't sort them
Anyway, as a guide, I used this sorting system:
-minifigs
-
minifig accessories
-basic bricks
-circular bricks
-special bricks
-small plates
-
large/base plates
-tiles/special plates
-curves
-
slopes
-
other
-
plants
Some bricks are a bit ambiguous, and could fit in more than one tub, but choose a tub you deem necessary, and make sure you put all similar bricks into the same tub.
Also, make sure every brick you put in the tubs are separated. It should make it a lot easier to find what you are looking for, than to break down a brick wall for example, only to not be able to find a piece.
I have also seen a very interesting way of sorting minifigs.
If you have a small 3 drawer tub or something similar, put all the heads in the top, the shirts in the middle, and the pants in the bottom.
My sorting scheme is as follows:
Minifigure box #1- (Star Wars) Clones/Senate Commandos, Imperial troopers/Officers, Jedi, Sith/General Grevious/Imperial Guards, Battle Droids, Snow Troopers, Ewoks/Wookies, Rebel troopers, Elite CIS troops (Super battle droids, Droidikas/Spider droids), SW Civilians, Assasin droids, Bounty hunters/Other.
Minifigure Box #2-(Castle themes) Prince of Persia, All horses, Crown Knights (Fantasy Era), Trolls (Fantasy Era) Dragon Knights (Kingdoms), Elves/Dwarves, Lion Knights (Kingdoms), Knights Kingdom, Skeletons, Royal Knights, Other.
Minifigure Box #3-(Miscellaneous) Indiana Jones, Spider-man, Space Police, Rock Monsters, my one Harry Potter minifigure, and any figures that I need to keep together for current or future projects.
Minifigure Parts box-(All figures not in other boxes or on display) Hair, Helmets, Modified/Special heads, (Aliens, any coloring but yellow) Medieval/Warrior faces, Modern faces (Anything with glasses, microphones or something which is a modern invention.) Other faces, Black legs, White legs, Blue legs, Red/orange legs, green legs, other legs, Special legs (Dresses), Special figures (Mostly Robots), Civilian torsos, uniforms (Firemen, Police, Cameramen) Soccer uniforms, Sci-Fi torsos, adventurer torsos, loose medieval torsos, other torsos.
All other minifigures are on display with their respective sets. (LOTR/DC Comics/Marvel/POTC)
Bricks are separated like so:
Technic bricks, Technic other, Minifigure accessories, Minifigure Tools/Weapons, Connecting bricks/plates and hinges, Windows/Doors, Tires, Bionicle, Foliage, Brick Separators, Wall panels/URPs, Miscellaneous, Black/Brown/Dark Grey Wings/Round plates/Round bricks, Black/Brown/Dark Grey bricks, Black/Brown/Dark Grey plates, Black/Brown/Dark Grey slopes, White/Tan/Light Grey bricks, White/Tan/Light Grey plates, White/Tan/Light Grey Wings/Round plates/Round bricks, White/Tan/Light Grey slopes, All other plates, All other Wings/Round plates/Round bricks, All other slopes, "Cool" bricks (Blue, Green, Purple) "Warm" bricks (Red, Orange, Yellow) Baseplates, and finally Jet engines/helicopter blades/special flying vehicle parts.
It's really a lot less complicated than it sounds, trust me.
The only problem is that while all my minifigures are sorted, only about a third of my Lego bricks are sorted.... 
I have also seen a very interesting way of sorting minifigs.
If you have a small 3 drawer tub or something similar, put all the heads in the top, the shirts in the middle, and the pants in the bottom.
This is exactly what I do. I finished the organizing I was doing; I used the last two drawers for small bricks useful in building and random special pieces useful for details in sets. I used the random thing in the top for chairs and steering wheels.
A couple of months ago I was looking around for some cheap alternatives for sorting my bricks and pieces, and I found that a lot of people recommended the Akro-Mils small parts storage cabinets. Unfortunately, these were too expensive, so I searched around for cheaper units like these. What I found has been quite useful - Stack-On. They are identical to the Akro-Mils products, except cheaper. I also just found out that this is what David Pagano uses.
Enough with the talk, here are some pictures of my setup:
Here is a large rolling drawer unit that I think we got from Target. I sort all my bricks by color, and it works really well for the colors that I don't have a whole lot of pieces from. At least not enough to justify sorting them by color and piece.
Here's the breakdown of how I sort my colors in this organizer (from top to botton):
White
Light Gray
Green/Yellow
Blue/Red
Brown/Tan
Technic
Next I have the smaller-drawer organizers, for my minifigure/special, black, and dark gray pieces:
Here is the first Stack-On unit I bought, the 39-drawer cabinet. In this I store about half of my gray bricks, some larger black and light gray pieces, and then some special elements, such as windows, seats, and "brick-bricks," as I like to call them (those new "brick profile" bricks ).
Here is the Stack-On product I just purchased, the 60-drawer unit. I use it for the other half of my dark gray, and my black pieces.
If you want to purchase the 60-drawer cabinet, I would suggest getting it at K-Mart, which sells it for $20, since I can't find anywhere that sells it for less than $30)
And last but not least I have another drawer storage unit that I've had for so long I can't remember. I sort all my minifigure pieces in here, along with weapons and utensils, animals, vehicles, food, fire/water/seagrass parts, jewels and money, droids, capes and backpacks, and other special pieces I don't want to mix in with my other bricks.
Well, that's pretty much all my storage. Thanks for reading, and I hope this helps! 
I was looking around again for sorting pieces, and came across a couple of pages that I thought would be good to share:
LEGO Club Inside Scoop Story - Sorting bricks
While not the most helpful article, it does include some good points.
http://club.lego.com/en-US/insidescoop/ … ?id=238555
Eurobricks thread - Storage and sorting LEGO
Yes, it is a forum thread, but the members of Eurobricks also have some helpful tips and suggestions.
http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.p … opic=26213
Solutions for your LEGO Chaos
Has some repeat information from websites in the first post of this thread, but might be helpful still.
http://southshoremamas.com/?p=9269
*BUMP*
Here is a picture of some new sorting drawers I bought. the full one I bought awhile back, but the empty one is more recent. What do you think I should use them for?
I think these were good purchases, and I recomend them.
Last edited by PlainBrickProductions (November 2, 2012 (09:19pm))
Okay okay, you guys seem pretty tidy, but NO ONE is as organized as I am.
[/sarcasm]
I seriously have no idea how you guys have the time to sort out all of your lego, though I should probably get to it. Because of all this I can't find a key piece for one of my main characters for my next film. :I
Last edited by jstudios (November 3, 2012 (05:01am))
@Mrlego: Is that Akro-Mils or Stack-On?
@jstudios: I sort my pieces one organizer at a time. It usually takes me about one day to finish one of those organizers I have pictures of. Hope you find the piece!
They're both Stack-On. I have the same 39 drawer cabinet you have, including another 18 drawer cabinet. I find it strange that they don't come with dividers for the drawers though, they would've been very helpful. 
Good pick.
About the dividers, you just call the number listed in the instructions and they'll send you a free pack of 48 small and 48 large dividers. After that you have to pay the $3 or so for each pack, but the first is free. Actually, they accidentally sent me two sets of packs, so I won't be needing any more for awhile.
Alright, thanks. They will definitely come in handy.
Alright, so does anyone here know the fastest way to organize your collection of LEGO? Any super fast technics? I don't want to spend the rest of the day organizing. I'll do that when my footage is rendering.
I don't think there is a fast way to sort out LEGO, It really depends on the size of your collection.
Do you mind if I bump this 2 year old topic?
I'm looking for storage organization drawers. I have the Stack-on 39 drawer hardware organizer ( http://www.amazon.com/Stack-On-DS-39-Dr … B000HJBA1W ), and it's great, but only for small parts. All of my basic bricks are still in plastic bags which usually live on the floor beside my dresser. I was thinking about getting something like this ( www.amazon.com/Sterilite-ClearView-Storage-Drawer-Organizer/dp/B001KN12PI ). Something with shallow-ish drawers that are wide so I don't have to dig so much (maybe not the exact product linked, but something like it). It will stack on other boxes of the same brand, so I can get many of them and stack them up in the corner to make a tower of drawers. Do you think that is a good idea, or is there something better out there that I am missing? My LEGO collection isn't too terribly large, but I am always expanding it, and I don't want to buy something too small that I'll have to get new storage drawers next year.
Also, on another note that will help me choose what to get, how is the best way to sort them? Color? Type? Type and Color? I know that that question is kind of generic, but I'd lik to get some opinions on it, because a lot has changed since 2012, I'm sure.
Thanks!
I have a large rolling version of what you posted there, with slightly shallower drawers to sort all my bigger bricks in. It is pretty much like this, but white (and possibly a tad shorter, I'm not quite sure): http://www.amazon.com/Drawer-Rolling-Or … +organizer I love it, since it can fit most of my colors, it fits perfectly under my desk, and, like you presumed, it is easier to find pieces despite the large collection. I sort my bricks by color, which works just fine for me.
I'm really glad that I've found this thread.
Currently... (ok, who am I kidding; for the past year or two... or three) my LEGO collection has been seemingly sorted by a lunatic - that being myself.
I recently started trying to organize 2x4's and other "wall bricks" by color, but, still have trouble with my minifig sorting, apart from those used in my current film projects. For those, I have cheap little 3 drawer units that I put up on the ends of my desk. In those, I separate the minifigs like this:
Heads and Hats
Torso's and Accessories
Pants and Capes
Within that order, I have my themed minifig parts all separated into labeled plastic baggies. i.e. "Adventurers" in the Heads section would contain these parts: 3626bpx126, 3626bpa3, and 3626bpa6.
I'll be sure to read through this thread a lot, checking back to see what other advice and experiences are posted here. I'm surprised that this thread kind of went silent, as, it seems like it would be a great learning tool for newer and upcoming brickfilmers to this site!
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