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Do you plan your MOCs?


The 1st Shadow

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I think this is the right forum to post this in--move it if I'm wrong. :P

 

Just something I've been wondering. For all you MOCists out there, do you actually plan out what you want your MOCs to look like? I ask because I saw an entry for the BFTGM earlier, and the member who posted it mentioned having drawn up plans for his MOC ahead of time.

 

And then there's me: I usually take a single piece (maybe a mask or a weapon or an armor shell) and build out from it to see what I end up with. Other times I just decide upon a color, like I did with my entry for the BFTGM (link in my sig if you want to see what I mean), and then I just build with it until I find something I like.

 

So, how do you go about this? If you plan them out, how do you do it? Do you just improvise as you go along? I'm curious as to the different methods being put to use out there.

 

 

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Personally, in my younger days, I used to just build the coolest thing I could imagine by fiddling around with my collection of constraction pieces. Now, I do some slight planning, such as building around a color scheme or a new design that I've been working on. Usually I try to work with color shemes that aren't seen too often, such as Kaita or Nui combinations, but I flush out the model a bit more and tend to make things a tad more symmetrical. For designs, an idea usually forms in my brain, and I mess around with my parts in an attempt to figure out the best way to build it. For example, I plan on building MOCs for all of my BZPRPG characters, which sounds rather simple in theory until you learn that two of my characters are a pair of conjoined Skakdi twins (I'm thinking that two Skakdi torso pieces attached via pins to an Inika chest armor piece would be the best way to go without modding the pieces, which I am personally against). I've also made some fairly decent female MOCs by building actual shoulders off of the backs of Metru torsos, and leaving the original torso axel holes to attach their... well, you know. And there was one time that I did build a figure just by looking at a "mask," but I actually used the golden arm/torso armor that was designed to be attached to the STARS version of Tahu as the mask in question, as it works really well as one when attached to a Metru head (seriously, I've only seen this done on one other MOC; I'm surprised that it hasn't been done more often).

There are two things that I don't like to plan out before building, however, and those are characterisation and backstory. I generally come up with those as a more solid appearance of the figure I'm working on pops into my mind.

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Sometimes, I draw out a basic plan for the skeleton, but I usually just follow the rule of cool when actually building details. I have a general idea of what I want to make and how the body will be before I start, and then I just build. I recently revamped an older MOC with the conditions of "Hip joint, Non-Inika clone, Black and silver and a cool build." By using these requirements as a framework, I built him and he was awesome. I'm trying to teach my sister to do some planning when building, and also to not build bodies by attaching a Vahki upper leg to an Inika torso with a pin.

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Generally, I'll do a rough sketch to figure out proportions and the general design. I know my pieces well enough that I can usually pick out parts in the color scheme and draw them in. There's also been a few MOCs that come together almost completely inside my head before I even touch a piece, but those are rare and usually small. I still manage to get plenty of MOCs out that just start with a basic idea like a mask and color combination or a torso armor configuration. So I plan with a little bit of everything.

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i usually either start with a general image in my head, or just start throwing stuff together from a simple idea and come up with the design as i go. i find that worrying about exactly what i want it to look like always makes me less satisfied with the final product.

 

(also i'm pretty sure this belongs in Bionicle Discussion)

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My last three MOCs [Tamaru, Heartbreaker and Siren] were all extensively planned and engineered creations. Maybe my tactics have changed over the years, but this is not usually how I've done things.

 

I mean, I may start with a plan or some idea of what I'm doing. I'll put concepts together, get frustrated when I can't form what I'm seeing in my head into something physical and throw it away in complete disgust.

 

Then I'll screw around with a couple of pieces until I have something completely spontaneous like Kahu.

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I never really plan anything I build. I just build a design, like an arm or leg, and then make a MOC to use it on. Then I may play around with colors to get something interesting. But I have never drawn up a plan. 

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I always do a little planning, but nothing too involved like concept art. I just have an idea ahead of time, like some cool weapon or color scheme that I'd like to build off of, and a vague mental image of the final product.

 

I would put more planning into it if I spent more time building, but most of my MoCs are finished within a day or two. I've just never been one to prepare a project ahead of time - I like not knowing what it will look like until it's finished.

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I try to have a general idea. For example, for my Spinosaurus, the idea was "build a bonkles Spinosaurus reusing some techniques from my scrapped anthro-Baryonyx MOC". For my crab, it was "build a crab with asymmetrical claws using the new HF beast head pieces for the larger claw".

 

Beyond something vague like that, however, it's quite spontaneous.

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I've almost always more or less had a good idea of what I've wanted to make beforehand, and even more so in the past few years with college only giving me a few opportunities to do so between quarters. What parts I use isn't really planned, as I pick what's best for the idea of the MOC as I go.

 

~B~

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I find a weird piece, or a weird connection, or a weird color scheme and just kinda fly out of the park with that, only major plans are character-based concepts. or, recently i actually had to sketch up a concept for an attempted BFTGM entry i never got around to. Tylix & Scolon. (this is an exception because i couldn't figure out how to get the bodies fused properly...)

 

other than that, i'm messy and unpredictable. :0

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YES- I usually know that I'm going to build an animal, a warrior woman, an anime-styled MOC, a gundam, whatever. I have a visual cue in my head that I'm following and planning on replicating as best as I can. Then after a period of ruminating in my head on this idea I sit down to build and then...

 

NO- I put parts together and the vision changes and amends as new possibilities become realities, as parts fit together in ways I hadn't expected, as a different character than I'd envisioned starts to appear, etc.

 

It's really a combination of both. I haven't really been the kind of person who draws since art classes in high school killed my desire to nurture that talent ten years ago, but I create visuals in my head and look up motifs online for things I want. But when I sit down to actually build... who knows if the creation I end up with is the one I planned on? It could be, it could not be, and that's part of the process.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I tend to try and focus on making a custom torso first, especially if I can get a good waist rotation or something else unique.  Normally I just design it on the fly, unless I'm hit with a particular idea I want to try.

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I usually play a few videogames or watch a certain Si-Fi movies to get some inspiration from. Then I take a piece that looks really cool then start building around that single piece.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I try to build things that are canon to the BIONICLE (revamps or un-depicted characters), but sometimes I get a little more creative.

 

I generally just sit down in front of my bins, and look at the pieces. minutes, maybe an hour has passed and i look at what pieces might look good with another. There, more i look at the pieces the more my imagination and analytical skills kick in and I start to have a sort of mental silhouette of what I want, and the more I mess around with various parts the clearer my picture gets. Eventually, voila, I have my masterpiece (Call them as such because I try to make custom torsos, other then that there is little special). Now all I need to do is stop being lazy and take pictures of the darn things. :dozingoff:

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Usually I imagine a style of the MOC that I'm going to build (if it'll be a Cyborg, a ninja-like humanoid, a rahi ecc...) and its colors. Then I just start with his torso and try different pieces choosing the best looking ones. As time goes on I get more ideas and I further improve the creation. And then if I'm not too lazy I post it.

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Sometimes I'll do a rough sketch, but I tend to make the arms first and then work on the limbs, struggling to finish the torso. Its fun, and I have inspiration from Artwork more than looking at MOCs


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Most of the time it's just a bit of "Ok, I want to build this. Now let's see what I can do with the pieces I have." Other times, I just feel like making something random which (Occasionally) turns out to not be too terrible. But other than that, no, not really. :P 

Usually I start with a custom torso, because I've always been terrible at being bothered to innovate and create new designs for torsos, so making a custom one first usually gives me the drive to make the rest of the MOC more custom as well. Once I have a torso, I do the legs, again making them as custom as possible whilst keeping the proportions realistic, and then I finish with the arms. Which more often than not are just regular, non-custom limbs because I'm either too lazy to build something custom, don't have enough pieces left over to do what I want to do, or bulkier arms just look to bulky and out-of-place. :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

Generally no, I'll either just be messing with pieces or experimenting for a certain functional outcome, not really a planned-ahead finalized MOC. Only times I plan something ahead is if I'm building a model car, I'll have an idea of what type of car I'm going to build.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Of course, seeing as I don't have most of the pieces I need for them yet; I currently have about 9 planned, some of which I've had for a few years (there used to be more, but some of them got scrapped).

 

However, I don't plan out every detail of their construction; I just don't envision them that way. I usually envision some features and details and ideas, and leave most of the technical build to the brainstorming/physical part.

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I never truly plan a MOC, per se... The most I ever do is think of what I want build ahead of time, and get some pieces ready, but most of the time if I do build it is spur of the moment, or because I got some new pieces and want to see how they might look on a figure

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I grab a bunch of interesting bricks and put them together in different combinations until I get something that I like, then I add onto it, until I get either a spaceship or a BIONICLE, because apparently those are all I can make,

 

Sometimes, I'll base MOCs off of already put together bricks I've got lying around,

 

Sometimes, I'll think of what I'm trying to make, look through what I've got, and go from there,

 

Sometimes, I'll draw a very Okotomation-esque G2 guy down and then use that as my blueprint,

 

Sometimes, I'll just build something with the intentions of making it look like it'll fit with my ever-expanding moonbase MOC,

 

Sometimes, it'll unintentionally fit in with my moonbase MOC anyways, like the mech I made recently,

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