What do you look for in MOCs?

[soccerkid6]

After entering the Valholl Micro Scale competition, (Link) I started wondering what everyone looks for when voting on MOCs (specifically GoH MOCs). And seeing as the winner of Challenge 3 will be decided by a public vote, I thought this topic might be helpful to people building for that challenge.

So what do you look for?

* Attention to Details?

* Originality in Design?

* Size?

* Innovative Building Techniques?

* Overall look/feel (whether or not it uses fancy techniques)

Personally, I mostly use the overall look. However if two builds are pretty close, the one with harder building techniques would get my vote.

I would love to hear some discussion on this

(I would have made a poll too, but I couldn't find that option)

[Captain BeerBeard]

I look for the flavor of the build not someone's bank account or insane collection of rare part's. I'm not a fan of mocs that contain a lot of loose elements, not including food, weapons and table decoration. I'm guilty of loose vines but that doesn't count. I love some good minifigure posing. I think a moc with simple building techniques can be just as good as one with complex techniques. That leads me back to flavor. I look to see if the title and descreption fit the scene well. I look at the color of what is built. If a road or path is red, I'm going to think it's stupid. Is the road stained from the blood of a thousand corpses? The red road would then fit the flavor of the scene. So flavor, figs, title and desription(back story) in that order. One more thing I look for is if a person build's in their style. That means they have to stay true to their previous work's while improving on some aspect. I try not to judge any moc by photo quality because that's another money issue.

Edited March 26, 2012 by Captain BeerBeard

[NiceMarmot]

I think the overall design and look are by far the most important. Everything else is secondary, and probably only comes into play when comparing two MOCs whose overall design is equally impressive. For instance, several of the Valholl microscale MOCs impressed me equally with their overall design, so then I had to really look into the details.

Other factors (in no particular order):

• Photography & Photoshopping - I'm not consciously looking for this, although I will severely ding an MOC if the photography is so bad I can't see what's going on (usually because of bad focus or poor lighting). And maybe my bar is a bit higher on this -- I see plenty of MOCs with lousy photography. But I admit that good photography and Photoshopping probably does unconsciously make me like an MOC more.
  
• Nice Parts Usage (NPU) - Not necessary, but but gives a bump to my overall impression, especially if there are some really innovative techniques I can learn from.
  
• Size - Not a factor for me, unless it's just jaw-dropping (and I mean huge, at least as big as my embassy). But if it's really huge, the design and techniques still have to be there. No points for a huge but boring, lousy design.
  
• Story - Yes, definitely a factor, if it's a good story and well-written. I think Sirens-of-Titan's Return of the Mage sets the bar here. But even smaller stories like the Kaliphlin myths, or Robuko's vignettes really add something for me.
  
• Details - Worth a small bump. I appreciate things like a well-constructed interior or landscaping with the right amount of detail and clutter.
  
• Innovative Techniques - Definitely worth a bump. A well designed MOC with no innovative techniques is still a very good MOC, but the same MOC with a few unusual or innovative techniques is a bit more compelling.
  
• Action - Definitely helps to have something going on. A cool building with minifigs doing something (or at least standing around going about their business) is more interesting that just a cool building.
  
• Originality - Worth a small bump, but I see very few that are truly original.
  

I don't think any of these is going to compensate for a poor overall design and look. A lousy design with lots of details and innovative techniques is still a lousy design.

[soccerkid6]

Thanks for the replies guys! I think you both have some very good points.

[kabel]

Well, I'm a sucker for those almost fotorealistic kinda builds, that's what gets me really excited. I also realized that I like a lot of funny minifig action going on. As for LDD, no offense man, but I simply don't like it as it looks way too artificial, too clean, just not very eciting. I think there were only one or two LDD creations in the History forum that I really felt like commenting on. And if it says LDD in the title I simply don't look at it. Maybe this sounds a little harsh, but at least that's what I honestly think about LDD. And, as has been said before, cool mocs don't have to be as large as MaydayArtist's current venture. There is a lot of cool stuff you can do with a little amount of bricks, and I usually come up with the best ideas, once I run out of bricks and have to start thinking.

[Angeli]

So what do you look for?

* Attention to Details?

* Originality in Design?

* Size?

* Innovative Building Techniques?

* Overall look/feel (whether or not it uses fancy techniques)

For some reason, I do not find LDD mocs so appealing. Actually, not appealing at all. I have not thought why, but it is a fact.

Let me put those points of yours in my chronological order, starting from the most important one:

1 - * Overall look/feel (whether or not it uses fancy techniques)

most important. You can impress me with using only bricks 2x2 (I've seen one castle made only and exclusively from 2x4 white bricks and "flipped" how great it was :); ambient, "feel", knowing what I see without explanation, and the first impression (check Hachi)

2 - Attention to Details?

I love when I enjoy moc as the whole, and then I notice some ingenious detail, like that water spirit from Siercon & Coral's water festival, or something like that. Details give the moc a life

(check Siercon & Coral )

3 - Size

this is something that leaves impact at me, as I know how hard is to construct and present enormous moc. I love to see a god solvent of the size-details presentation problem.

(check Bob Carney)

4 - Originality in Design?

Something new? Always interesting to see. Something that takes your breath away (for me, it was "round tower" technique, with round 1x1 bricks and normal ones :) later, cheese slopes mosaics

(check eilonwy77)

5 - Innovative Building Techniques?

I remember when Derfel acquired his "master builder" title in CCCC, I was sure that I was going to get it, and then he started posting his moc, using new techniques. I did not have a chance :)

Like "4", something new and innovative is always great to see :)

(check Derfel Cadarn)

[mephistopheles]

I look for two things:

1. Building techniques I like.

2. Overall aesthetics.

Not necessarily in that order.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Its interesting to see what people look for.

I often find I look for things that interest me at the time. For example, when I was building in a more 'realistic' style I was drawn to other mocs built that way. I'm currently in a dark/creepy fantasy stage at the moment, so naturally I really like other mocs that have that look.

Look and feel play a big part in what I look for, some mocs can really evoke a great 'feel' if someone does it right and new techniques and those great little touches that just make you smile at their brilliance.

Obviously I also enjoy when someone posts a moc that is based on a random thing that you are very interested in. For example, there might be a particular piece of history of Legend that you like that isn't that well known, and someone actually builds a great moc of it.

When I build a moc, I try to build the moc in a special way. I never build anything even, like a square castle that looks the same from each angle. I will always build something that will look like it 'flows somewhere' in the photo. So if i build a castle, I will build it up gradually from the front leading up to the back which will be the highest point. This works well for photographing and you can get a really epic picture when you take a 'mini-fig' perspective pic, as the castle will look like its progressing up into the distance.

So a bit of thought when designing and taking photos can go a long way.

[Ecclesiastes]

I'm never looking for specific things in a moc. Because a lot of things like size and photography have a lot to do with how much resources does someone have. I for example have a good camera and someone else doesn't. I also have a lot of lego, someone else maybe not. So I try to look at mocs like: "This person tried to do a great job on this moc, lets name the good things about it!" (And maybe suggest some minor changes)

So the most important thing is what can someone do with the resources he has! So a small moc without spectacular technics can also be good! And about photograpy, if it's bad. I try to look past that.

And about ldd, although real lego looks much better the moc is more important. For example I really liked your version of Valholl!

[soccerkid6]

Thanks I actually agree that real bricks look better than LDD builds, but in some situations people don't have too much of a choice.

DC: Thanks for replying some good tips I will have to try to work into my builds

Great discussion so far!