How I go about thinking up MoCs

Some people are inspired by what they see.  A movie, a landscape, a building.  Others draw the inspiration from their mind after reading a description in a book.  Some start building and let the flow take them to the end result...

There are many ways how someone decides on what MOC they want to create.  I guess about as many as there are people actually building a MOC.

For me, I mostly decide on what I want or going to build based squarely on the minifigs.  Those I think I can do something with, I place on my workspace desk, ad when I gaze over them, divine inspiration *might* come from around the corner.

Then I just start grabbing bricks and start building, not with a real idea in mind bar something vaguely `sketchy` in my mind`s eye, and then do and make do with the parts and pieces I have and techniques I feel comfortable with.

The most recent example of this is with the Middle Earth contest entry I recently bashed together, The Road Goes Ever On (which can be found on the MoCs tab of this blog).  Initially, I wanted to build something completely different, a scene from the Hobbit game set in Mirkwood.

I don`t know exactly how it happened, but having not enough brown and dark red foliage at the moment (something that will be remedied very soonish) was certainly a factor I started going in another direction altogether.

MOC`s sometimes (almost never?) turn out that way how you envisiaged them in the first place, but never the less that doesn`t mean they won`t satisfy your needs.  I know for one I will like never win any contests, I just ain`t that talented enough to produce something like this, a Drow Ritual that appeared in the Guilds of Historica forum yesterday.  It`s small, it`s elegant, and it has perfect lines. 

And it has techniques I never even thought about before.

Another thing that definitly defines the way you build is your own style that you develop along the way.  Since I started moc`cing after my Dark Ages (I came back to the light for about 2 years now, the first spending mostly straight builds from the box), about a year ago when joining the Guilds, and now, some things have become obvious to myself.

I build my buildings enclosed, and I love the old building style of stone foundation topped with wooden walls.  I don`t know why, it is just a thing that happens when I start building and I almost automatically go in that direction.

But what is it we seek to actually accomplish with our MoC`s?

Public exposure.  We all love to build something, no matter how modest, and show this off to people.  Wether it is to your spouse, children, a bunch of friends on a visit, online communities, or events, we all love the look of people and the comments if they are watching your builds.  It`s like an innocent kind of hedonism I guess.

For me, the `ultimate moc plan` is looking a bit like this.  Once I have collected all of the Lord of the Rings / The Hobbit sets (I`ve always been a fan of the works, even in my wargame days, I had a large Rohirrim army even before GW ever acquired the license and there was no talk of movies going to be made) I want to make a Middle Earth lay-out.

This I want to do by incorporating sets that go together on the large 48 by 48 base plates and `build those up` around the sets, creating a fusion between MoC and Set that way.  The first idea I have for that, is to do something with the three Lake-Town based sets that have come out until now (the Chase, the Attack and the Guard polybag), and build the ice lake around the town.

It`s still a far off idea, and I guess that is what might become the multi year project before it ever gets realised.  I know this might never happen, as it would be
1. very part intensive to make backgrounds and sceneries for all the plates and
2. even though my closets can hold 8 of those fully build up plates, an initial calculation made me come to 11 single and one double 48 by 48 plate to build together all the sets, maybe even far more if it doesn`t want to be looking to cramped.

But it is a definite goal to be building towards, and who knows, perhaps one day we will live way bigger and I`ll have a large `mancave` where it can be stored better.  But that doesn`t mean I won`t be planning and building towards that goal in the meantime!

If I could get it all knit together by 2023 (I would be 45 then), I would be a very happy camper, but for now, I`m focussing on building smaller things and aim for the Guilds of Historica badge one can earn when one builds all and passes all inquiries for Age of Mitgardia!

Let the bricks fall in place!