Fox Womb

My buildings don't look so good anymore, help needed

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(WARNING: Terrible pictures My camera doesn't have a very high resolution, and I'm not that good at using cameras.)

 

So I got set 31065 yesterday, built it, and put it next to some of my own creations...

Cn8gloc.jpg

Well, it sure does look like I need to up my game a bit! Here's a better look at my own buildings. They're just fronts, I don't have the parts to make full buildings, nor the skill. I like to think of them as movie sets!

4MdLr94.jpg

VtJARHt.jpg

 

These buildings are small, so there isn't much to comment on, but I still need feedback! I want to add more detail to make them look more "complete", especially the yellow building. I also want to add more buildings, and hopefully complete an entire street at some point.

I'm sort of new to getting back into Lego, so I don't really have an eye for how to use parts effectively, which is why I'm asking for help. Specifically, I need help with the following:

  • What should I add?
  • What should I remove?
  • What did I do well on?
  • What did I do poorly on, and how can I fix it?

But all feedback is appreciated. Thanks!

 

If you need better pictures, or more pictures, just ask.

Edited by Fox Womb

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Best way to approach this is to figure out what 31065 has that you like a lot. Nothing wrong with duplicating details and then when you are happy with your buildings you can change those details.

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You could add small details to your buildings to make them look more realistic. There are lots of possibilities here like signs, mailboxes, outdoor lighting, flower-boxes etc.

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If you lookvat the official lego sets there are more then 2 colours. and windows. this is a big difference. 

Use 1 plate of a different coulour in your walls and you will immediately see a difference. it just makes a building more vibrent. 

The use of correct windows is also a way of detailing a building.

And then tou can look for the really small details.

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To be honest, your buildings don't look finished. They need to be taller and have something like a roof.

 

Edited by gotoAndLego

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Your buildings aren't too bad... I really like the use of the olive green cheese slopes!! (Not sure what it's supposed to represent - a broken window? But it adds texture and interest - something your other 2 buildings seem to lack.)

I think you'd definately benefit from adding Windows and other details though... If you're stuck for ideas, I'd suggest going for a walk around wherever you live and looking at/photographing a few interesting looking buildings. Then use those ideas as a basis for your work. Don't worry about the lack of rear walls... Classic town buildings never had back walls and personally I still love them!!! 

Anyway carry on building and most importantly have fun!!

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As others have said adding windows is good approach to improving your builds if you want to go for the Creator type of house style.

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I would suggest a better use of colours in your buildings. I am not a fan of the yellow LEGO bricks, replace those with an other colour like green, grey or white. Just by removing the yellow would improve your street alot imo.

The original LEGO colours (red, green, yellow, blue) dont make good walls for buildings because they are not "realistic" and clash with the more pastel like colours. Look at the creator set house, there are no bright flashy colours used.

Using special bricks like masonry and SNOT also give that extra detail and depth.

 

Edited by kreimkoek

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Your buildings have some nice touches. Really there are a few subtle things you can do to improve them. And they aren't so much LEGO techniques as art and design tricks that you can apply to LEGO. 

The first involves color. Or more importantly color theory. You ideally want two contrasting colors and a complimentary accent color. That third color is important as it adds depth and three dimensionality. Without it your eye perceives the structure as very flat and cartoony. Looking at your two buildings, the black and yellow one has no accent color. Whereas the green has some nice accent in the gray, the olive wedges do not contrast with the sand green, they rather flow together instead of providing the needed visual pop. Read up a little on the color wheel and art color theory. Just a web page or two will make a world of difference. 

The other thing you can work on a bit is what is known as texture. Real buildings are not generally flat. The flat spaces tend to be broken up a bit. Learning how to spot this and recreate it in LEGO form is one of the more fun advanced LEGO techniques. You can talk about how to do this, and learn a lot just from looking at other builds. But the best single source I have seen is Bryan and Jason Lyles LEGO Neighborhood Book. They have a ton of great how to guides for looking at actual structural details around you, and rendering them simply with common pieces.

https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Neighborhood-Book-Build-Your/dp/1593275714/ref=sr_1_37?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484508177&sr=1-37&keywords=LEGO

You do have a good eye for details. That cheese wedge mosaic is great and I love the stained glass window. The big secret is learning to add a bit more front to back topography. Look at the Creator building. Notice how the windows protrude? How the door frames are set back. There is a lot of front to back variation in where things sit. Subtle ridges such as window trim. That inwards flow to the door, both vertically and front to back as the stairs lead up to it. These all trick the eye. 

The final trick is a bit more subtle, and I am not sure I can adequately describe it in a forum post. But it is composition. It's an artists and photographers trick. You want to compose your photograph or picture such that you are drawing the viewers eye into a subtle triangle. In the case of a LEGO building you do this with details. Not simply the shape of the building. Look at the Parisian restaurant. Notice how that central top floor window is slightly above its framing side details? Notice how the next floor down has those two side windows framing the more subdued door? This forms a triangle in the building and draws your eyes from the base upwards to the pinnacle. And that is what tricks your eye and your brain into thinking it is more real. This same visual trick is largely going on on all of the Modulars. Just view each dead on facing the main door. So some corners such as the Grand Emporium and Palace Cinema are viewed at an angle on the corner, whereas the Brick Bank is viewed from the main bank facing. Market Street is the weakest of these as it was a fan design and not something from Jamie or Astrid. Who have Art and Architecture backgrounds. Astrids town hall is a rather stunning example of this as you can see the triangles within triangles drawing your eyes upward in what is otherwise a very square building. 

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On 2017-01-15 at 8:33 AM, greg3 said:

Your buildings aren't too bad... I really like the use of the olive green cheese slopes!! (Not sure what it's supposed to represent - a broken window? But it adds texture and interest - something your other 2 buildings seem to lack.)

I think you'd definately benefit from adding Windows and other details though... If you're stuck for ideas, I'd suggest going for a walk around wherever you live and looking at/photographing a few interesting looking buildings. Then use those ideas as a basis for your work. Don't worry about the lack of rear walls... Classic town buildings never had back walls and personally I still love them!!! 

Anyway carry on building and most importantly have fun!!

Thanks! I also really like the way the cheese-slope mosaic-thing turned out! It wasn't supposed to really be anything in particular, I just wanted to use the olive green cheese slopes for something as I have way more of them than I'll ever need.

Windows are certainly needed! Though, adding windows would mean I'd have to do at least side walls and a bit of an interior, which may be difficult due to parts limitations. I think what I'll try to do is build things like this (see image at bottom), which don't require too many windows (or an interior), but have a lot of detail.

As for inspiration, I walk around east Vancouver from time to time, and although the buildings are quite run down, I like the way they look, and I'll try to incorporate them into my LEGO buildings.

On 2017-01-15 at 11:09 AM, kreimkoek said:

I would suggest a better use of colours in your buildings. I am not a fan of the yellow LEGO bricks, replace those with an other colour like green, grey or white. Just by removing the yellow would improve your street alot imo.

The original LEGO colours (red, green, yellow, blue) dont make good walls for buildings because they are not "realistic" and clash with the more pastel like colours. Look at the creator set house, there are no bright flashy colours used.

Using special bricks like masonry and SNOT also give that extra detail and depth.

 

The yellow is quite ugly indeed, and I didn't actually want to use it, but it was either yellow, blue, or yellowed white bricks (which aren't even yellowed consistently!). I have bricks in other colours, but in a very limited supply. For example, I have ten 1x1 dark green bricks, and I have no other dark green bricks.

I definitely want to get more masonry bricks, the only ones I have are from the town house set. I've been playing around with SNOT and I can't seem to make it work quite right, but I think that's something that comes with experience more than anything. You can see my attempts at it with the awning on the white building, and I'm not sure if you can make out what I did around the top window on the yellow building.

On 2017-01-15 at 11:52 AM, Faefrost said:

Your buildings have some nice touches. Really there are a few subtle things you can do to improve them. And they aren't so much LEGO techniques as art and design tricks that you can apply to LEGO. 

The first involves color. Or more importantly color theory. You ideally want two contrasting colors and a complimentary accent color. That third color is important as it adds depth and three dimensionality. Without it your eye perceives the structure as very flat and cartoony. Looking at your two buildings, the black and yellow one has no accent color. Whereas the green has some nice accent in the gray, the olive wedges do not contrast with the sand green, they rather flow together instead of providing the needed visual pop. Read up a little on the color wheel and art color theory. Just a web page or two will make a world of difference. 

The other thing you can work on a bit is what is known as texture. Real buildings are not generally flat. The flat spaces tend to be broken up a bit. Learning how to spot this and recreate it in LEGO form is one of the more fun advanced LEGO techniques. You can talk about how to do this, and learn a lot just from looking at other builds. But the best single source I have seen is Bryan and Jason Lyles LEGO Neighborhood Book. They have a ton of great how to guides for looking at actual structural details around you, and rendering them simply with common pieces.

https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Neighborhood-Book-Build-Your/dp/1593275714/ref=sr_1_37?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484508177&sr=1-37&keywords=LEGO

You do have a good eye for details. That cheese wedge mosaic is great and I love the stained glass window. The big secret is learning to add a bit more front to back topography. Look at the Creator building. Notice how the windows protrude? How the door frames are set back. There is a lot of front to back variation in where things sit. Subtle ridges such as window trim. That inwards flow to the door, both vertically and front to back as the stairs lead up to it. These all trick the eye. 

The final trick is a bit more subtle, and I am not sure I can adequately describe it in a forum post. But it is composition. It's an artists and photographers trick. You want to compose your photograph or picture such that you are drawing the viewers eye into a subtle triangle. In the case of a LEGO building you do this with details. Not simply the shape of the building. Look at the Parisian restaurant. Notice how that central top floor window is slightly above its framing side details? Notice how the next floor down has those two side windows framing the more subdued door? This forms a triangle in the building and draws your eyes from the base upwards to the pinnacle. And that is what tricks your eye and your brain into thinking it is more real. This same visual trick is largely going on on all of the Modulars. Just view each dead on facing the main door. So some corners such as the Grand Emporium and Palace Cinema are viewed at an angle on the corner, whereas the Brick Bank is viewed from the main bank facing. Market Street is the weakest of these as it was a fan design and not something from Jamie or Astrid. Who have Art and Architecture backgrounds. Astrids town hall is a rather stunning example of this as you can see the triangles within triangles drawing your eyes upward in what is otherwise a very square building. 

I am fairly bad with colours, which is why all of my clothing is either black, white, or blue. And although I really don't have much of an eye for colour, I can see what you mean by not having an accent colour on the yellow building. I was actually thinking of adding in a third colour while building it, but I wasn't sure what colour to use or where I'd put it.

Almost as bad as my sense of colour is my depth perception. Front to back topography is something I'll be working on as I build my next building; I plan on building a restaurant with a deck and some lattice windows that pop out more.

That artsy trick thing is something I'll need to look into more. It sounds quite important.

And I'll definitely look into getting that book! The "rendering simply with common pieces" seems right up my ally!

-----

Thank you all so much for replying! I can't express how happy it makes me to see such a helpful community. I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner, I didn't receive any notifications about replies even though I've "followed" the topic. In my next MOC, I'll try to take into account the things I've been told. The main things I have to work on are windows, depth, getting rid of flat walls, and adding some colour.

-----

Inspiration:
http://nordicaphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/east-vancouver-engagement-photography-00.jpg

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