Top products from r/AFOL

The best quality brand that I've ever used is called Citadel. But they're a bit more on the expensive side. Which means that if you don't have the exact right shade, you might have wasted some cash. The other thing is that they're only sold in gaming shops in the Warhammer/D&D section. If you don't have one of those nearby, it's hard to bring your piece to a store and correctly match the colors.

So instead I've been going with much cheaper brands that you can find at Hobby Lobby, Michael's, or even Walmart. DecoArt is a fine brand and costs about $2 a bottle. Another brand that I use is called Folk Art. It's also very cheap - looks like Michael's is selling them for 57 cents!

You definitely want to use acrylic paint, not enamel. Other than that it's up to you if you prefer a glossy, satin, or matte finish. Every color usually comes in each of those options.

When it comes to actual painting, the great thing about acrylics is that you can mix water with them to get just the right thickness (which avoids globbing). I've never actually measured the amount of paint that I squirt out of the bottle. But I always add a couple droplets of water to it to slightly thin it out.

I use paper plates for a palette (the wax coated kind) and just chuck out when I'm done. You'll also need a bright desk lamp right over what you're painting so you can see into every nook and cranny of the piece. Nothing worse than thinking you've completely painted something, only to see a spot you missed show up on camera later.

Looks like moving the windshield and other parts around might allow a tandem seating arrangement in that chassis. But it might look pretty bad. Minifigure scale just isn't very good for this...

What I would do is buy him another set, so he has enough parts to really experiment, and tell him to make another car for two. 60060 may be good for this. It has lots of yellow and black, and parts like the six-stud-wide truck windshield will help.

This probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but I'll give it to you anyway: sort by need. I'm a WWII diorama and vehicle builder. I have separate large plastic containers for brown plates, green plates, white plates, tan plates, dark tan plates, etc; all earth tones that I'll need a lot of for dioramas. I also have large bins for grass pieces and leaf pieces. I use small drawers for the vehicle parts that get used frequently. The rest of my parts are generally just used as "filler" parts for unseen sections of my dioramas, so they're sorted very roughly. I've included a link to the drawers that I use.

http://www.amazon.com/Akro-Mils-10164-Plastic-Storage-Hardware/dp/B000LDH3JC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1373318950&sr=8-4&keywords=akro+mils+drawers

tl;dr: Depending on your building style, you'll need different organization. Experiment, and try to decide what's best for you. No two builders need the same organization.

I currently use two of these. I use them for all my smaller bricks. Some of each plate, specialty stuff like hinges and decorating pieces. I use shoebox size rubbermades for the rest of the actually blocks, bigger plates, windscreens, plants, etc... They aren't super huge and are stackable on top of each other. I looked at tackle boxes but liked the viewable drawers and the expandability. The drawers are also dividable into two separate areas so 64 drawers becomes 128. Lots of room for a decent size collection.

I've heard that a dip in this is helpful (dip and dry; don't polish).

I prefer the "Stanley 014725 25-Removable Compartment Professional Organizer" for small stuff like single blocks, technic parts, etc and the Ikea TROFAST for larger items and items in larger quantities.

Here you go.

Nope! If they're stored properly away from a heat source and shaken every few weeks to prevent settling and color separation then they'll last forever. If you don't tighten a lid down enough and they get a little gloopy you just put in some drops of this and shake and it fixes them right up!!