The ultimate guide to LEGO® colour swapping
Ready to take your LEGO® creations to the next level? Colour swapping is the ultimate way to personalise your LEGO sets. Whether you’re looking to match your set to your living room décor or dreaming of a bold new look for a favourite build, this guide will show you how to make it happen. Armed with your building instructions and a little creativity, you’re just a few steps away from a custom masterpiece!
New to colour swapping? Here’s what you need to know
With over 15,000 different pieces, Pick a Brick has a lot to offer, and we’re here to help you make the most of it. We’ll show you how to find the pieces you need and switch up the colour of your LEGO® sets, just by using your building instructions and Pick a Brick!
Why should I colour swap?
Colour swapping adds a whole new layer of fun to the creativity of LEGO® bricks, allowing you to change up the look of an existing set. Here are just some of the things you can do:
- Tired of the same colour petals on your LEGO Flower Bouquet? Or have you redecorated your room and want the flowers to match? You can switch up the flowers with brand new colours of your choice.
- Have you got a Millennium Falcon™ set on your desk, but want to make things a bit more exciting? Rebuild the starship in red!
- You can even switch up your Tuxedo Cat to match your real kitty at home!
So, where do I start?
First things first: grab the building instructions of the set you’d like to colour-swap. You can also find all the building instructions online. These instructions will give you a full list of every piece in your set, so you know which ones to replace.
For example, you may want to change the look of the petals in your floral bouquet. So, you can search for just the petal pieces alone and swap those out for a new exciting colour, leaving the stems as they were (or changing them – the choice is yours.).
Step 1: Work out what you need
You might want to grab a pen and paper for this part! The first step is to work out which bricks you’d like to switch out for new colours, and how many of each one you’ll need.
To do this, look closely at the back page of your instruction booklet, which details every single piece in your set. Each individual brick should have an ‘Element ID’ number below it. It will also say the number of those pieces that are included in the set. This will help you work out the pieces you’ll need, and how many you need to replace.
Step 2: Head over to Pick a Brick
When you have a list of the pieces you’d like to swap and their quantities, it’s time to hit Pick a Brick! Type in or paste the Element IDs into the search bar (with a space between each one) and you should see your list of bricks appear.
Step 3: Choose your colours
If you click on the name of each brick, you then have the option to ‘View piece in more colours’ and see what other options you have to change things up. Clicking back will then take you back to your original list so you can work through each one.
What if my bricks don’t show up?
If you’re not seeing the parts appear on Pick a Brick when you search the Element ID, this could be for a couple of reasons:
- We don’t offer that piece on Pick a Brick. This could be because it’s a very new element or because of IP restrictions that only allow us to offer it as part of a LEGO® set.
- That piece is retired and is no longer offered on Pick a Brick or in LEGO sets. However, sometimes older pieces are brought back into production after retirement, but they’ll have new Element IDs and this is why they didn’t appear in search results. If you get stuck, try searching for the brick using a text search instead and see if you can locate its newer version.