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Classic Castle dot Com How-To's

//C|/Users/Todd/LEGO/landscape%20how%20to.html[1/27/2012 10:57:18 AM]

Cons t ruc t ion

Custo m izat ion

Presen ta t ion

Lexicon

W r i t e a n a r t i c le

Building a landscapeDNL and SlyOwl

DNL's article

Ground - variations in height and color

Water - various ways of making water, waterfalls

Vegetation - trees using plant pieces, trees using normal bricks, small plants

Rocks- made using BURPs, slopes, SNOT and tilted rocks

SlyOwl's appendix

Grass-scaping

Water-scaping

Rock-scaping

Ground- Differences in heightA landscape without differences in height looks kind of dull. Its easy to grab abaseplate and place some flowers on top of it, but that does not really make it a realisticand interesting looking landscape. This landscape for example:

Looks much more interesting than this one:
http://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles.html#constructhttp://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles.html#customhttp://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles.html#presenthttp://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles.html#lexiconhttp://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles.html#submithttp://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=352924http://www.classic-castle.com/contact.htmlhttp://www.classic-castle.com/links/links.htmlhttp://www.classic-castle.com/story/story.htmlhttp://www.classic-castle.com/moc/moc.htmlhttp://www.classic-castle.com/sets/sets.htmlhttp://www.classic-castle.com/events/events.htmlhttp://www.classic-castle.com/ccc/standard.htmlhttp://www.classic-castle.com/archives/archives.htmlhttp://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles.html#submithttp://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles.html#lexiconhttp://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles.html#presenthttp://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles.html#customhttp://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles.html#constructhttp://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles.htmlhttp://www.classic-castle.com/index.html


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- How to create differences in heightThe most common way of creating differences in height is simply by stacking plates sothe landscape gets one plate higher for each stud. I always make sure the difference inheight is not more than one plate at a time, otherwise the landscape would look toblocky. If the difference has to be more than one plate at a time to create a steep hill orrock I personally prefer to use green slopes or gray rocks.

Another way to make a gentle slope in your landscape is by attaching plates to hinges,like in this MOC by Marakoeschtra:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=352924http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=352924


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This looks smooth, but when you're using that technique it is harder to make differentangles and the landscape may look unnatural. A third way to make diffences in height inyou landscape is by building a wall of 1x2 bricks. The wall will bend slightly, and that

way you can make a gentle and smooth hill, like in this MOC by SlyOwl:

- ColorsA real landscape usually consists of more than one colour, and using several colours in aLEGO landscape makes it look more natural. Example;
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3206148http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=153627


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WaterThere are several ways to make a river or pond, here are some examples:- Water with studsThis is the easiest way to make water. It doesnt look smooth, but that doesnt reallymatter if you make a wild river or windy lake.

- SNOT waterThis technique is being used a lot lately. Its simple and cheap to make if you haveenough blue bricks. This looks more realistic if you build a lake or calm river.


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- SNOT water with transparent bricksInstead of normal blue bricks you can also use transparent ones. This looks more likewater, but transparent bricks are not cheap, and you can see the edges and inside of the

bricks, which makes the water look blocky. This technique is perfect if you want toshow something underneath the water, like a body or fish.

(by Thomas Wunz (remyth))- Transparent tilesThis is my favourite way of building water. It looks nicer than using transparent bricks,because its harder to see the edges, especially if you use dark plates underneath thetiles. The great thing about this way of making water is that you can use differentlycolored plates underneath the tiles to make it look as if the water is getting deeper.


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- WaterfallsThere are many ways to make waterfalls, here are some examples:

(by Mark Kelso)
http://mocpages.com/moc.php/57317http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=346729


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(by me)

(by Norro)


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(by Jens schlimps)

(by John Langrish)

VegetationVegetation is an important part of any landscape. There are many different ways tomake plants and trees.Here is a how-to article by Anthony Sava about foliage.Here is a Flickr group devoted to LEGO vegetation.There already is an How-To article about foliage, but Savas article is very outdated, soI have gathered pictures of some new techniques to make trees and plants.

- Trees using plant pieces
http://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles/Foliage.htmlhttp://www.flickr.com/groups/lego_arboretum/http://www.flickr.com/groups/lego_arboretum/http://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles/Foliage.htmlhttp://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=211567http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=224159


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(by me)

(by Anthony Sava)I love Johannes Koehlers (Jojo's) trees:


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And here are more trees by other builders:

(by Sir Nadroj)


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(by fifi)

(by me)


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(by me)

(by me)- Trees using regular bricks, plates and slopes


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(by Anthony sava)

(by John Langrish)


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(by Xifux)

(by roj2323)


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(by Bruce N H)- Smaller plantsHere are some nice mushrooms, plants and flowers:

(by Jojo)
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=333712http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=321123&n=128


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(by McBricker)

(by me)


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(by Jalkow)Check out Anthony's articlefor more small plants and flowers.

Rocks- Rocks built with BURPs

The fastest and easiest way to make rocks is by using BURPs (Big-Ugly-Rock-Piece).There is the rectangular rock piece and the triangular rock piece (sometimes called aLURP). If you make rocks with BURPs it is important to combine them with bricks andslopes, so the rock wont look the same everywhere:
http://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles/Foliage.htmlhttp://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles/Foliage.htmlhttp://peeron.com/inv/parts/6082http://peeron.com/inv/parts/6083http://peeron.com/inv/parts/6083http://peeron.com/inv/parts/6082http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=352924http://www.classic-castle.com/howto/articles/Foliage.htmlhttp://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=359922


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That is, try to avoid this:

(by Bruce N H, offered by him as a bad example)- Rocks built with slopes


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Another way to make rocks is by using slopes. This technique is quite popular right now,and can look very nice if its done well, but its expensive to buy so many slopes, and

its very time consuming to build the rocks.

(by Steve DeCraemer)You have to be careful when using this technique that the rocks wont look unnatural.To avoid that I usually use different colored slopes and plants.More examples:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=141197&n=38http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=352924


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(by me)

(by RebelRock)


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(by Noddy)

(by The eggplant wizard)- SNOT and tilted rocks
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=352924http://mocpages.com/moc.php/71014http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=400468


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My favourite way to make rocks is by tilting part of the rock and putting other parts of iton their sides. This makes the rocks look more natural and random.- SNOT rocks:

(by me)

- Tilted rocks:


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(by me)Here is another great example by Mark Kelso:

If you have any questions or comments regarding this article or about buildinglandscapes, feel free to PM me at the forum, my username there is DNL.Daniel Z "DNL"

All pictures of other peoples' MOCs were taken without direct permission; however, allpictures are available publically on Brickshelf or MOCpages and I've linked to theoriginals (click the pics) - if the author of any picture would like it taken off, please PMme or e-mail one of Classic-Castles admins and I'll take them off.

AppendixIn the original thread discussing this article, SlyOwl had several things to add, which areattached here as an appendix to DNL's original article.

Grass-scapingIn regards to grass-scaping, I'm not a big fan of using slopes in conjunction with purestuds-up construction, as the smoothness in contrast to the studs makes it looks funny -

not the same type of grass - to me.1 In this instance a few tiles/slopes elsewhere in the
http://mocpages.com/moc.php/57317http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=370292


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grass-scaping gives a more uniform "rough" effect.2 However, I think it looks better tobuild grass only studs-up, which implicates the use of angled plates where steepergradients occur. This can be as simple as using a 1x2 plate, but not pushing it downfully, although it still holds in place. As I don't use a plate differential of more than one

plate high for grass,3 this is useful if the drop needs to be greater than this. As thegradient increases, tilted plates won't hold in place as well, so hinges are necessary,especially 1x2 hinge bricks. This, in conjunction with jumper plates and small plates, toensure that there are no gaps around the plate, allows for the steeper gradients to be

successfully achieved. For example:

Note the use of jumper plates between the two pillars to fill the gap between the plates.Also in the example can be seen a grassy overhang using a tilted wedge plate in themiddle foreground - this ensures that there is no sharp edge between cliff and grass. Onthe left you can see the use of 1x1 plates slightly below the edge of the cliff to give aless barren cliff face, and to smooth out the otherwise sharp contrast. This is better

shown in Aaron's Dwarfs' Gate:

This can be taken even further, in particular using wedge plates, to achieve an evencurvier landscape:
http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3937c01http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkspawn/2368930128/in/set-72157603919043621/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3455624514/in/photostream/http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=3937c01


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Pick-a-Brick. In banks of plants, and in other colours, they provide a contrast and fill up

unused space.4 They can also be used to fill in gaps between different plate heights,especially the first type:

Other mudane objects to break up the landscape include trees (notably in large displays,built over numerous baseplates), small rocks and plants, as aforementioned:

small animals like sheep:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3296561333/in/set-72157605481585302/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3455624672/in/photostream/


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or rabbits (original design by Micah Berger):

fences:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3147488194/in/photostream/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2558954114/in/set-72157605481585302/


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and water features:

Water-scapingWater can be used to save parts by using another colour to surround it, especially brown,dark tan, bley and dark grey, in plates:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3146655711/in/set-72157605481585302/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3146655849/in/photostream/


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slopes:

(by Jordan)or tiles:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirnadroj/2420957927/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2558128333/in/set-72157605481585302/


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They also allow for extensive use of plants, which can hide any plain or incompletelanscaping underneath, as in Jordan's Fabuland goat example above. As DNL said, blueSNOT water is cheapest and easiest, and can be greatly enhanced with light blue, darkblue, teal and white highlights, 1x1 round trans blue and clear plates as bubbles, orvarious horns as waves:

Mixing in trans colours with solid SNOT isn't perhaps the best idea - it didn't come outtoo well in the troll bridge shown above. As DNL mentioned, a wall of 1x2 bricks canbe bent into a curve. This can be employed to create waves:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2790041744/in/set-72157605481585302/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2790041744/in/set-72157605481585302/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2821213555/in/set-72157605487273553/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2790041744/in/set-72157605481585302/


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Another method to create ripples is to use Chris Wunz's rough-hewn technique, using1x2 blue bricks (it doesn't show too well in the photo, and looks better in real life):

It is also possible to use Jordan's rough hewn technique for the same purpose, or toventure into more outlandish waters (badum-tish! ROFL) ofold-style train tracks:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2482704http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2482704http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirnadroj/2736649031/http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3229http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3229http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirnadroj/2736649031/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2934277867/in/set-72157605487273553/http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2482704http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2787218350/in/set-72157605487273553/


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or fiber-optic cables:

(by Jordan)That said, studs-up water is always an alternative, and beneficial when doing morecomplicated shapes:
http://peeron.com/inv/parts/x165http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirnadroj/2812196506/http://peeron.com/inv/parts/x165http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3128125834/in/set-72157605481585302/


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As with grass, a few tiles here and there can help break up the monotony. Also worthnoting is the use of many cheesers for ripples/waves - effective, without any extensivesculpting required:

(by Captain Greenhair )Water is normally the starting point for any Castle or Pirate MOC for me, and that's whythey normally contain some! LOL

Rock-scapingIn regards to rockscaping, it is also worth mentioning that tiles and angled bricks (using

panels and 1x2 hinge bricks to hide the joints) are ways of bulking out the amount ofsloping that can be done:
http://i185.photobucket.com/albums/x13/pirate-forum/index-land-based-mocs/image001.jpghttp://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3375764132/in/set-72157605487273553/


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Arches and parts such as elephant legs are useful for weathered landscape - in this MOCI had originally intended to use elephant legs for the arch in the top right corner, butfound they curved the wrong way. Had I built the MOC the other way round (flipped

horizontally, it would have worked). In that example, the rock is not on a squareblueprint - the different angles of rock are built at completely different angles, ratherthan the use of a technic brick to rotate a section, as in some of DNL's examples - it'sweaker, but more effective in certain instances.One main, and very simple and cheap, type of rockscaping not fully explored is similarto BURPage - just building with bricks. This doesn't necessarily mean purely vertical or

rough-built cliffs - you can use 1x1 green slopes, various plants (notably mushrooms 5)and slopes to remove any exposed grey studs, if that is a problem:

It's more flexible than BURPage, and doesn't have hollow studs; however, on its own, itcan look blocky, so a mixture of various techniques is probably best.Half-stud offsets using jumper plates are also a useful technique to create a slightly
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3128125834/in/set-72157605481585302/http://www.classic-castle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17569&start=15http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3128125834/in/set-72157605481585302/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2821207457/in/photostream/


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smoother rockface:

For rocks, colour-wise, light grey/bley and dark grey/bley are best (the bley variantsbeing more useful, due to cheese slopes), but brown, black and white are all possibilities,particularly for creating atmospheres:

NotesExcept where otherwise noted, the MOCs pictured in the Appendix are by SlyOwl.1However, in certain instances, such as to achieve a cartoony or atmospheric effect, Irecognise its potential:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3075526http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2558126709/in/set-72157605482535250/


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(by 3730)2SNOT or tiled grass can be well used for trodden or manicured/mowed grass, such asin Benlego's vignette:

However, the large majority of times, especially in a Castle setting, it isn't the mostrealistic form.3Higher differentials can be effectively used for more uneven surfaces, however. It'sjust personal preference.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/benlego/3273619231/http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=3908117


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(by Rocko)4DNL touched upon when and how to landscape, which is an important factor to me,especially as it plays a key part in many of my MOCs. Landscaping is time and brickconsuming. It can be weak, especially when done at angles, or with hinges. It can bedifficult to position minifigs on, especially when on a steep gradient, as it limits howtheir feet can be positioned (only at right-angles). However, I see it as an integral part ofa diorama. In ye olde times, and still today to an extent, the landscape affects buildingsin design and position. It can be used to hide unwanted parts of a MOC - in thisexample, the minimal lanscaping around the milk trough hides the bases of the headlightbricks used to hold the treasure chest lids in place:

Landscaping can be used to fill up unused space, or to add height and background to aMOC:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2558127749/in/set-72157605481585302/http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2978885


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This height, along with water, is a style I often use to add action to a MOC:

However, the background may become too cluttered, that it obscures the content. I takeas an example DNL's MOC - as I recall, Bruce mentioned at the time in his CCCVcomments that the multi-coloured landscaping cluttered an otherwise brilliant MOC.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2836233http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/2558127437/in/set-72157605487273553/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27444109@N04/3244237442/in/set-72157605482535250/


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Note added by Bruce in editing this article: My point in some of my contest commentarywas that when there was a lot of action in a scene, it's better if the background is moremonochromatic. On the other hand, if you have a structure that is all one color (a graykeep, for instance), it is often good if the surrounding landscaping is more varied. It's likewearing a striped shirt with plaid pants - better to have one of the two pieces of clothingbe a solid color. Okay, not like I wear plaid pants. Perhaps a better example would bewearing a solid color tie with a striped shirt, and a patterned tie with a solid shirt.5Besides those in the article, Tiberium Blue has got some neat ones:

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