Custom builds: Tips & Resources

[ovaltiney]

After building several land vehicles i have come up with some good advice. If you are going to build a vehicle with wheels choose the wheels first and make sure the wheels are in scale to a figure. If you select wheels that are too big which is a very common mistake your vehicle will likely end up too big and out of scale. If you dont have the right size wheel take it into consideration when building.

Anyone else have any good MOC building advice?

[jonnyfiyve]

That's a good tip. Hadn't really thought about that.

I've noticed some builders build a little square at times. I guess if i had a tip to give it would be to smooth your lines.
Make use of the more rounded pieces Mega has to offer.

[Deinonychus]

This one seems pretty obvious, but I have to remind myself of it constantly:

Remember that any parts that won't be visible on the finished model can be any color at all. Don't waste your good pieces on interior bracing or assemblies that will never be seen. You've got a lot of bricks and they're all useful at some point or another.

[AkulA1996]

I have some what some will say is obvious advice, say your going to build a building it would be best to start with a smaller wall and build it up then compare it with a minifigure, to make sure your not building too small or too big (all depends on what figure your using and what height compared to it you figure is too small or too big). I did this a lot with [competitor] when I was building bases for my clones (star wars) on a 48x48 (I think) stud plate and always ended up spending ages looking for the right parts to build it up to what I think of as the correct height compared to a [competitor] minifigure.

Also with my currently custom base main gate I built two small bunkers first to the correct height and just compared my two other buildings to one of those to make sure they were at the same height.

Basically always compare the walls to a figure to make sure it's at your desired height, I mean it sucks having to remove or add a layer because it's too high/too low. The height of the figure is only the perfect height if that is YOUR desired height, you can have it as high or as low as you desire.

[ovaltiney]

Similar to the previous comment. Check the scale of the vehicle with a figure regularly. Vehicles often end up too tall.

[Jason-101]

So here's a cool example of custom paint job. Using an Airbrush system. [gallery]DESERT JEEPs[/gallery]

[eliteslayer4915]

I have some what some will say is obvious advice, say your going to build a building it would be best to start with a smaller wall and build it up then compare it with a minifigure, to make sure your not building too small or too big (all depends on what figure your using and what height compared to it you figure is too small or too big). I did this a lot with [competitor] when I was building bases for my clones (star wars) on a 48x48 (I think) stud plate and always ended up spending ages looking for the right parts to build it up to what I think of as the correct height compared to a [competitor] minifigure.

Also with my currently custom base main gate I built two small bunkers first to the correct height and just compared my two other buildings to one of those to make sure they were at the same height.

Basically always compare the walls to a figure to make sure it's at your desired height, I mean it sucks having to remove or add a layer because it's too high/too low. The height of the figure is only the perfect height if that is YOUR desired height, you can have it as high or as low as you desire.

How big is your custom base out of curiosity?

[AkulA1996]

I have some what some will say is obvious advice, say your going to build a building it would be best to start with a smaller wall and build it up then compare it with a minifigure, to make sure your not building too small or too big (all depends on what figure your using and what height compared to it you figure is too small or too big). I did this a lot with [competitor] when I was building bases for my clones (star wars) on a 48x48 (I think) stud plate and always ended up spending ages looking for the right parts to build it up to what I think of as the correct height compared to a [competitor] minifigure.

Also with my currently custom base main gate I built two small bunkers first to the correct height and just compared my two other buildings to one of those to make sure they were at the same height.

Basically always compare the walls to a figure to make sure it's at your desired height, I mean it sucks having to remove or add a layer because it's too high/too low. The height of the figure is only the perfect height if that is YOUR desired height, you can have it as high or as low as you desire.

How big is your custom base out of curiosity?

In total? Roughly 4 battlescapes long (short side so probably equal to 2 battlescapes long if you use the long side), and just over a battlescape deep (going back to the wall). It as I've already said is mostly made from actual sets.

My custom base gate (well it has no gate but thats all thats missing its still an entrance) is about the length of the short side of battlescape and ends just before you would hit the bunker, so just over half way? The buildings are only 1 story high (had to make a bridge at the front of it higher than I liked making it 5 bricks and 1 plate high and placed it on top of the bunkers which are 7 bricks high including the roof layer, just so vehicles with antennas could fit through/tanks when I had room to put my scorpion in the base. The bridge is now collapsed blocking the entrance to the base in my current display).

To the right of the base (point of view if I took a pic and was looking at it) is the battlescape (now cut off and invaded by covies on my current display, yes some marines and Spartans were killed, fall back plan was escape through a door in the bunker and blow up a cliff piece caving in the entrance, lol)

To the left of the custom gate is high ground (stock set) and on the inside, without the protection of a thin large wall to next to high ground is a falcon pad (yes with a falcon on it), at the back of the base behind the falcon pad is a flood siege set (manned by a bigger team of Spartans and a falcon on its landing pad), next to that I have sabre countdown (stock set) which takes us back to the bunker.

There's a large gap between high ground and the siege set so this is where some of my warthogs go (warthogs are the reason why my scorpions had to go on a shelving unit, but it does make the base look better, I mean what's the use of one Scorpion going to do in a base, and there's no way I could fit my 2 scorpion stings in it with the original scorpion - yes I like to keep my scorpion tanks together)

[eliteslayer4915]

that's pretty impressive, and as for keeping your Scorpion tanks together, if you put them on your display, they could be portrayed as a tank squadron

[AkulA1996]

that's pretty impressive, and as for keeping your Scorpion tanks together, if you put them on your display, they could be portrayed as a tank squadron

Not enough room for 3 inside the base or on the battlescape, maybe 2 in the base and 1 on the scape with a couple of mongooses or warthogs here and there.