Our Design and Build Process

By the time we designed and completed our first few projects, we started to form a repeatable workflow. And after a few tweaks, that workflow became an official process we now follow for all of our projects.

Design Tool – Stud.io

Stud.io screenshotFor our initial project design, we start with the Stud.io app, for the Mac. The Stud.io app is super fun to use once you get the hang of it, and is integrated with BrickLink, which makes the ordering and building parts of our process very easy (almost too easy).

While the projects we design in Stud.io doesn’t easily support our minifigures in the design process, it covers just about everything else. That’s the reason all of the renders you’ll see of our designs do not include our minifigures.

Renders

Stargazing Lego design render by Door County BricksOnce we have a design “finished” in Stud.io, Papa will create one or more renders with the app to share with Mama and Christian. These images help visualize what the completed projects would look like, minus any last minute changes. And they also help see what more detail and other updates we could make before moving onto the next step in the process.

Inventory

Once we get approval from Mama to start the build process for a project, we use the Stud.io app to upload the project to our baseplate on BrickLink, and then from there, we can create a Wanted List for that project.

The wanted list for each project is great, because it gives us a list of all the individual parts (or lots) that we need, and the quantity of part. From there, Christian and Papa review all the parts that we already have at home and cross them off the wanted list.

Papa then uses the wanted list to order the remaining parts from any of our favorite BrickLink stores and then the waiting begins.

Building

Lego fireplace scene by Door County BricksOnce all the parts finally arrive from the BrickLink orders, we get to put everything together and add in our minifigures. While we haven’t found a useable solution to generate step-by-step instructions for our designs, we’re still able to use the Stud.io app as our guide for putting all the bricks together.

And there you have it, from design to completion.  Depending on the project, the parts we already have, and how many orders we need to place, it can take about 1-2 weeks to finish a project. For more efficient ordering, we’ll try to do inventory and ordering for 2 projects at a time, which helps with some of the waiting.