The right minifigs...

[Darth Legolas]

So, right now I'm almost done with part 2 of my PF Lego integration experiment (testing for me, that is.) Now I have my big automated ship thingies nearly built, maybe a hundred or so more pieces left to be splashed on and a couple of more motors to be shoved into the empty slots, but I'm stumped.

I have four great Sci-Fi minifigs to go with the ship, but the don't exactly fit in... and even take away from the MOC! I need a crew to go well with the ship but not to take a center stage. Just a population that doesn't look terrible to inhabit my hovercraft.

What do you do when finding the right minifigs for your MOC? I always save minifigs for last because they're the hardest pieces to decide on. I think right now I may buy some Toy Story Battlepacks to get army men. Should I use they're green faces as aliens, or their helmets for human soldiers?

Discuss!

[MrTools]

I usualy build my Minifigures first, right now i have a small army built up for a space ship of some sort. To make them fit, it depends on the color of your ship, mine are usualy light grey and have white suited minifigs.

[Corvus]

That is hard. Minifigs tend to be the central object of attention in a MOC, so they always have to be perfect.

I'm planning to expand my minifig collection with a trip to BL soon. My store of yellow heads is getting depleted, as all I have left are fleshie (which I refuse to use) and the overly-generic faces that I have too many of. Hopefully with TLC making all the neat new heads, my collection will get some fresh air.

Crews tend to be the hardest. Anything outside of SW is hard to get a lot of 'figs in. Space Police figs work, but they're not exactly original...

[Peppermint_M]

When building figures for a ship:

Step 1. Colour scheme. Your ship has to have a colour scheme, therefore match the figure bodies to the ships main colour and their headgear to the secondary colour.

Step 2. Purpose. What sort of ship is it? If it is civilian then colour scheme isn't as important. If it is military then choose something inside your colourscheme that looks like uniform and equip them appropriately.

Step 3. Heads. Again the purpose of the ship is important, if it is a lab ship then it needs "smart guy" faces, if its an exploration it needs a mix of tough guys and smart guys. Merchant? It needs a boss and some laid back staff types. Military? Tough Guys and an old tough guy.

See I usualy make my figures first and then build my ships but when I don't that is what I do.

If your collection can't help then browse bricklink torsos by whatever fields you need.

[Sandy]

I almost always build minifigs prior to the MOC, because to me they're the funnest part of the building process. I just love to mix-and-match my heads, torsos, headpieces and legs to really dig up the best combination for that specific character.

I don't agree with the crew of a ship having to actually wear the same colors as the spaceship is, because that only causes them to get lost into the MOC instead of popping out. Think of Star Trek, for instance, where the Enterprise was mostly white, but the crew had blue, yellow and red uniforms. Don't be afraid to use a variety of colors, because that only makes your MOC more interesting (although don't overdo it, either).

If the problem is that the minifigs won't fit physically into the ship, you can either modify the MOC or put the figs on a baseplate in front of the ship for a complimentary scene.

[ziljin]

I always made the structures first and just use minfig for size comparison to make sure the door isn't smaller than the minifig, etc. Well now I am going to focus on minifigs, and when the new castle theme comes out, I am going to pick up lots of the smaller sets for the horses, minifigs and weapons. It seems quite a lot of the sets including the smaller ones have the new great helm, which is great.

Most of my moc's are castle related, so my castle minfiigs fit in fairly well though.

[dr_spock]

I bought a collection of different heads, torsos and legs for MOCs and vignettes. Sometimes it is trying different combinations to see what works. Life was easier when all they had was Lego head No. 1. And solid colour torsos and legs.