Terrain - how do you build it?

[Roses]

Building mountains, hills or any type of terrain that isn't just a flat array of plates and tiles can be very parts-expensive. Personally, it seems nearly impossible to make something larger than a small mound using pieces from one's own parts collection, without buying more pieces online specifically with this purpose in mind. Here are some examples of LEGO mountain MOCs from the web:

Jangbricks' mountain with train tunnel - heavy in slopes and bricks (looks like there are some BURPs used, though, which do help to ease the piece load?)

YSDWDY's Hoth Echo Base entrance, from this topic:

Asimon481's cliff with waterfall.

And another cliff and waterfall MOC, this time by Grant Davis, who used large curved slopes to create a very unique and beautiful texture:

 

Of the examples above, Grant Davis' cliff seems to use the least amount of parts, at the expense of needing to find a way to angle them all together to minimize the amount of unsightly gaps. The techniques used and the texture created are so intricate that the rockwork itself becomes the focus of the MOC. However, for MOCs where the terrain is used as a prop upon which to set more important elements, this technique could be more of a headache than it's worth, despite how impressive the end result looks. I'm currently trying to build the entrance to the Hoth Echo Base, but am having trouble getting it off the ground, since I'd like to use the parts in my collection. I'm considering using a lot of plates angled with hinges and with some texture added to them, like Povoq's Castle in the Forest, which uses this technique on its right side:

 

How do you go about building terrain? Do you have any particular tips, tricks or techniques to build good-looking terrain without resorting to emptying your bricks and slopes bins?

 

Edited December 18, 2021 by Roses

[Flak Maniak]

I believe that Jang's mountain has almost entirely BURPs (and some MURPs) under there, but yeah a lot of them are well-covered by slopes. I think he has some DUPLO or other structural stuff in there, too. No idea how much that mountain cost him to build but it DEFINITELY wasn't cheap! Anything at that scale is both monstrously expensive AND hard to make look good...

[Mylenium]

3 hours ago, Roses said:

How do you go about building terrain? Do you have any particular tips, tricks or techniques to build good-looking terrain without resorting to emptying your bricks and slopes bins?

Not really. That's just how it is. I have a half-finished mountain that has gobbled up hundreds of slopes, plates and bricks already and I might need to throw hundreds more at it.

4 hours ago, Roses said:

Of the examples above, Grant Davis' cliff seems to use the least amount of parts, at the expense of needing to find a way to angle them all together to minimize the amount of unsightly gaps. The techniques used and the texture created are so intricate that the rockwork itself becomes the focus of the MOC. However, for MOCs where the terrain is used as a prop upon which to set more important elements, this technique could be more of a headache than it's worth, despite how impressive the end result looks.

I guess it comes down to what you prefer, but coming from a painting and graphics design background the old rule applies: texture over color. Generally that's one of my peeves with the kind of mountains you seem to prefer strictly built from evenly distributed perpendicular slopes and such. The look unrealistic because they lack texture even if they may capture the overall shape. Of course there are practical limits, but I'm definitely more inclined towards more varied builds using diverse elements or at least playing around with thicknesses/ depths, smooth vs. studded and occasional color variations...

Mylenium

[Roses]

11 hours ago, Mylenium said:

I guess it comes down to what you prefer, but coming from a painting and graphics design background the old rule applies: texture over color. Generally that's one of my peeves with the kind of mountains you seem to prefer strictly built from evenly distributed perpendicular slopes and such. The look unrealistic because they lack texture even if they may capture the overall shape. Of course there are practical limits, but I'm definitely more inclined towards more varied builds using diverse elements or at least playing around with thicknesses/ depths, smooth vs. studded and occasional color variations...

Oh, don't get me wrong, I absolutely agree with focusing on texture and would love to build something in Davis' style. I did try going for something diverse with the rockwork on my motorized lighthouse, mixing studs-on-top and basic SNOT techniques, which I believe may have lightened the slope load while maintaining some structural stability.

I think the problem arises with large MOCs, though, that would need particularly strong frames not to collapse under their own weight, and that may use terrain as a secondary element for something more important, like a shack, a castle or a hidden base. In that case, it would be more practical to resort to slopes and bricks to create something stable that won't turn into a technical nightmare and wouldn't divert too much attention from the main focus of the build (in terms of time spent figuring it out and building it).

I do wonder if there's a cheaper way of building something large that would get the job done and look moderately interesting. I know it sounds like asking for everything - big, pretty and cheap - when it often seems like you can only ever have two of those qualities and never the third , but it's a puzzle whose solution might lie with the right techniques.

[Peppermint_M]

I suppose we could go the way I spotted in the LEGO House, which is adhering baseplates to a sculpted foam shape  

Carpet fitting doubled-sided tape is very adhesive and can stick a baseplate to the shape.That plate is then given a terrain overlay that is less part heavy.

For a smaller mountainside I like to use SNOT techniques over a Duplo bricks core. 

A wooden framework would also be a support that is less parts heavy, but includes more DIY.

[MAB]

Start small. Build a 4x4x4 boulder. Then build a 8x8x8 structure. Then a 12x12x12. If you haven't got the right colours, use your most common colours to practice.  It is fine to build red and yellow rocks if you are learning about form and shape.

[Mylenium]

20 hours ago, Roses said:

I think the problem arises with large MOCs, though, that would need particularly strong frames not to collapse under their own weight,

Not necessarily. You can build terrains wafer-thin if you know how they are supposed to look. They'll still consume tons of elements, but you can pretty much express a lot with a stack of three to five plates thickness. The problem here only is that unlike bending chicken wire for model train landscapes, building robust Technic frames to plug on your plate sheets is anything but intuitive and the slightest change of heart has major consequences and may require rebuilding large sections. The scaffolding for instance for your Hoth example would likely be quite a headscratcher, but i think ultimately it would be perfectly doable as a lightweight hollow structure rather than the heavy slope mountain it appears to be built as.

Mylenium

[Roses]

On 12/18/2021 at 4:26 PM, Peppermint_M said:

I suppose we could go the way I spotted in the LEGO House, which is adhering baseplates to a sculpted foam shape  

Carpet fitting doubled-sided tape is very adhesive and can stick a baseplate to the shape.That plate is then given a terrain overlay that is less part heavy.

Oh boy, that's a pretty wacky solution. Do you have any pictures of this? It's interesting to see what extremely unconventional techniques people come up with. Unrelated to terrain building, but a unique technique nonetheless, which was mentioned by Stuartn and Generaltons bricks in the topic on bow strings, are the vines in Sean and Steph Mayo's Forestmen Guild MOC, which may have been made by melting and stretching throwaway parts:

I think they might have just bent the frame of this piece:

Purist? Not purist? Probably doesn't matter , but it does produce a unique effect.

12 hours ago, Mylenium said:

Not necessarily. You can build terrains wafer-thin if you know how they are supposed to look. They'll still consume tons of elements, but you can pretty much express a lot with a stack of three to five plates thickness. The problem here only is that unlike bending chicken wire for model train landscapes, building robust Technic frames to plug on your plate sheets is anything but intuitive and the slightest change of heart has major consequences and may require rebuilding large sections. The scaffolding for instance for your Hoth example would likely be quite a headscratcher, but i think ultimately it would be perfectly doable as a lightweight hollow structure rather than the heavy slope mountain it appears to be built as.

Mylenium

Yes, I'm leaning towards creating slopes with plates instead of bricks to save pieces, but then it does become a bigger challenge of engineering a strong inner structure. I'm sure there are large MOCs out there that use this technique, but I don't have any in mind to use as a reference...

Come to think of it, it might be easier than one thinks to build a frame for such a type of terrain. An inner rectangular, cubic or any combination of straight-angle shapes made with Technic beams would be easy to make, and then one could use ball joints to sculpt an outer frame that would be both flexible and able to sustain a fair amount of weight.

Edited December 20, 2021 by Roses