This month's building challenge prompts at my local Recognized LEGO Fan Community were "treehouse" and "City" (either the LEGO theme or the concept in general), so—as usual—I decided to combine the two. I also had had several people ask me how I set about building a MOC (My Own Creation), so I decided to mix that in as well.
So, without further ado, here's the process I go through when building a MOC, using my group's monthly challenge as the inspiration.
1. Idea or prompt
To quote the great movie Robots, “See a need, fill a need.” In other words, most of my MOCs begin with a purpose, something causing me to create them. This could be a build challenge given by a group you're part of, or a contest you're entering, or an idea you want to bring to life (for example, building a model of a place in a story). Having a deadline and constraints imposed by something outside myself also really helps me get things done, so that's definitely an added bonus.
You can also noodle around and let inspiration come to you more organically. This could be part-forward, like with table scraps (seeing how random parts fit together and building from there), or idea-forward: in effect, making your own prompt by combining two random words or ideas (eg “tree house” and “city”), letting your mind play with unusual combinations (“A but B”), or by using pre-made prompt cards or lists.
2. Preliminary sketches & “sketch builds”
Once you have a rough idea of what you'd like to do, it's time to make it into a rough sketch. This doesn’t have to be high art, or anything elaborate, just so long as it's clear enough for you to understand. You can also take this opportunity to do a rough sketch build to act as a proof of concept.
The idea for this particular build came to me as I was brushing my teeth before bed, so I didn't have time for anything elaborate. Instead, I doodled up the Post-It note sketch you see here, with callouts for specific details I wanted to include, like using trans-light blue pyramids on top of the Neuschwanstein window bricks, or stepping the resulting buildings back like the terraced blue-and-white houses of Mykonos, Greece.
Then I jumbled together a few parts I had handy to further realize the idea, to literally make it real. This miniature version of the treehouse-city I had planned remained on my desk as a touchstone once I started working on the full build. These sketches (drawn as well as built) serve as a first feeling-out of what plans you have and parts you'll need, which brings us to the next step...
3. Gather parts
Depending on the size and complexity of your build, this could take a great deal of time and space. The idea behind gathering up all the parts you think you'd need (indeed, gather more than you think you'll need) is to enable you to build continuously without having to break the flow to get up and search for a specific piece. Dollar store project trays—or any similar flat and subdivided tray—can help keep these parts roughly organized by type: printed, plants, bricks, plates, etc., as you can see in the below photo.
I recommend starting with printed and stickered pieces for two reasons. First, these are often limited; if you only have three of a certain specific part, but need five, you'll need to reassess how you go about your build, perhaps changing the colors or pieces to work with what you do have. Secondly, I often have found inspiration in the random decorated pieces I've collected over the years; for example, the newspaper tiles gave me a reason to have the parrot minifig interacting with the mini photocopier I built for my Urban Jungle build.
4. Begin assembly
Depending on your experience and the parts you have available, there may be some (or many) false starts, or even changes to your original plan. This is OK! Indeed, being flexible is part of the creative process. Allow your build to grow and change, and learn from yourself and your various attempts. It can help to do further proofs of concept, especially as you come across pieces you hadn't expected to use, or configurations you hadn't planned for.
A good example of this is the entrance to the treehouse city. As you can see in my sketch, I'd originally planned to use a ladder piece or a series of Technic rack pieces (1x4 tiles with gear teeth on their top surface) to provide access for the city's inhabitants. Then I found a dark red half-circle tile from the same batch of Neuschwanstein bricks with a single window arch. This looked so much like a doorway that I decided to use it as such, and the sloped 1x2 grille pieces look both like staircases and ladders, depending on how they're oriented. Add in some jumper plates and my signature sand green microfigure as a welcoming statue, and you have a suitable entrance.
As you build there are two words to bear in mind: play and constraints. It's important to frequently check against the original prompt's constraints (for example, checking to make sure it still fits in the intended display case) and goals to make sure you don't end up with a fantastic build that breaks the rules one way or another. It's also important to keep play in the process, remaining flexible and open to other options, just as I did with the entrance and the various parts of the tree trunk.
5. Details & Tweaks
Once you have the main structure built, it's time to start thinking about details. You may already have been adding these as you went, but I've found that (barring brilliant ideas you don't want to forget, like the little 1x1 cheese slope acting as a balcony for the window in the right of the picture above) it's best to save details until the main structure is pretty well settled. This saves time, wear and tear on parts that you might otherwise need to be placing and replacing, and overall frustration. In other words, work from big (overall structure) to little (details).
Here you can see the build mostly finished. I'm happy with the main structure and the way it's laid out, but it still feels pretty basic. By this point I've added extra sand green plates to the baseplate to keep the ground from feeling totally flat, and have added in some of the leaves. It's time to go a little crazy with details.
My go-to choice for details are 1x1s, especially tiles: these often add a sense of scale and texture that otherwise would be absent. You can also choose at this point whether you want to leave studs exposed or cover them with tiles—for this build I opted to leave them bare, in part because I didn't have that many sand green tiles, and in part because I liked the texture of them, especially compared with the tiles I did place.
Greenery is also a great way to add details, especially once you start playing with different combinations. I used a few different arrangements in this build, like stacking the weeping willow pieces on an antenna to give the tree some volume, or using green claws and brown 1x1 clips to represent a field of crops, or even peony pieces on three-prong stem pieces to serve as a fruitful orchard (in retrospect, flipping the peony pieces upside down might have looked more treelike and less flowerlike, but that gets to point 6 below).
6. Considerations…
There are several points that are worth keeping in mind at every step of the building process:
Color - A limited palette can really help keep a build from being too chatotic; this is where making decisions like “sand green for the ground, bright green for the foliage” will keep the resulting build clear, especially if there's otherwise a lot going on. Remember that the viewer's eye is drawn to the place where there is the highest contrast. Color is also important to consider when you're deciding on what pieces to use in the first place, depending on what you have available. I only had a 16x16 plate in sand green, for example, so I decided to use that for the ground color, rather than the bright green of my original sketch build
Purpose - What is the ultimate goal of this build? Is it intended to be viewed in the round like a sculpture (as this build is) or from a single viewpoint (such as in the photo contest entries I've built, like Vermeer's The Geographer). There's no point in decorating the back of a build that's only going to be viewed from a single angle, which also allows you to “cheat” a little, using SNOT pieces, bars, hinges, and other such tricks to get things positioned just right. It's also important to consider a build's strength: something that exists only to be photographed can be much more flimsy than something that's going to be displayed, let alone played with. If I were doing this build over, for example, I would have made the trunk stronger, possibly with a Technic axle running along its inside.
Constraints - It's crucial to keep these in mind as you build: some building challenges limit the parts or techniques you use (restricting color, for example, or part type), and if you intend to put it in a display case, like my 8x8 cubes, you will have to check frequently to ensure that it still fits. That is often half the challenge—and the fun—of such builds, trying to use creativity to solve the problem of how to fit all of your ideas into a small space.
Story - I always try to add elements of story to my build. This can be in the form of little details (like the irregular regularity of the crops, or making sure that each window has a view out of the tree), indications of history (the footpath leading up to the entrance, worn smooth by generations of feet, for example), and various arrows, lines, or other indicators to lead the viewer's eye (such as the blue roofs calling attention to the trans-light blue pyramids atop each). This is where sets like Ninjago and Monkie Kid shine, with references to their own storylines as well as other products and details of LEGO history.
Stop - When you have all the parts you need ready to hand (see step 3 above), it can be so easy to get into a state of flow, where each piece you add gives you more ideas for where to place the next one, logic and playful creativity working hand in hand as the build grows before your eyes. But no build—not even official LEGO ones—is truly perfect, and you could come back a dozen times and make little tweaks, which is both the blessing and the curse of the LEGO system: infinite recombinability. At some point, you need to say “it's good enough” and stop, or else you might end up with a build that you never really consider finished, a build that prevents you from working on anything else until you find yourself dreading the project you first took up with joy and enthusiasm.
This is why I did not go back and try to adjust the peony parts, or add more crops than the 12 clips I'd first gathered would allow, and why I didn't re-do the trunk to make it stronger: I reached the point of “good enough.” Throughout the build I kept its purpose in mind, namely that I was building it to show to the LEGO club at the next meeting, and then I would be disassembling it. I was happy with the way it turned out and the way it looked, but I don't need to keep every build I make (my Medieval Transmogrifier, for example, I also took apart after showing it to the club...and after filming my little video tour of it) in part because I simply don't have the space to display everything, and in part because then I would quickly run out of pieces to build with.
Plus I have this blog post, so it's not like it's entirely gone. In documenting my process as well as the final build, I've ensured that it lives on, and might even inspire other builders to construct their own treehouse cities! Inspiration can come from anywhere, after all, and I'd love to think that in my own way I'm helping to enrich the LEGO landscape.
Happy building!
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