Landscape Help

[mccoyed]

Hey guys. I have kinda hit a wall with my last Warlords of Nocturnus build. I find I'm not very happy with my landscaping and I think it's mostly do to having to pile on layer after layer of plates of various sizes to make it look good. The shape and size of the build's base is going to be similar to SK's recent battle scene (this build is heavily inspired by that one!) but I'm not sure how or what pieces to use to pull off a nice, natural landscape that doesn't wind up being too high due to layering.

For context, I'm looking to do a scene with a creek in the middle, so I set up a baseplate in blue to build over with trans-blue 1x1 dots for water, with some light tan plates irregularly placed to form crooked lines of sand bordering the river. On each side of the river, the landscape is grassy with one side rising up a bit into a rocky formation and the other with thick trees and foliage. I have a lot of dark tan, light tan, light green, dark green, etc plates at my disposal but I'm not happy with the attempts I've made to use them for this!

Can you guys recommend a tutorial or methods you use to do this? So many people on GoH are really good landscapers and I've looked at a lot of builds. If there are some that you think are particularly good, can you link them for me to look at? Very much appreciated!

Also, I hope it's okay to use forum space on a thread like this.

[kabel]

Check out the Landscapes of Mitgardia community build (still going on). Maybe you find some interesting inspiration there.

[mccoyed]

Thanks Kabel. Only problem is, those are pretty small builds and there aren't very many in there. That, though, was one of the threads that originally inspired me to not only join GoH but also Mitgardia! Especially that one MOC of the guy walking in snow.

EDIT: Never mind, OP just hasn't been updated in a while. Maaan, some of these MOCs!

I guess one of my issues is that, because people use frames and bases that obscure what's going on "beneath the surface", I'm not sure how they construct these great landscapes. Gunman, etzel and Soccerkid's especially. Those guys are some of the best in Mitgardia. Hopefully someone can shoot me some tips about that!

Edited June 25, 2014 by mccoyed

[Kai NRG]

Here are a few of my own MOCs that have rather sparse landscaping (so you can see what's going on) but not such a bad look.

In that MOC, I just picked one level for the sand, and then added at most two plates (in rare places), usually just one plate on top to add a bit of variety.

Below, note the variety in types of landscaping but not so much in height (until we get to the cliffs of course!):

Here's another build that's obviously not the type of landscape you're trying to build, but still uses the same techniques in different colors:

Below's an example of a snowy landscape:

I'm definitely not one of the best Landscapers, but seeing those might be helpful.

Kaliphlin did a Collab, Inside Kaliphlin, that treated several different landscapes.

And finally, here's a link to an article I wrote on Landscaping that might be helpful.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Kai NRG

[Scaevola]

Have you seen Derfel Cadarn's guide yet? It has some nice tips for landscaping

Edited June 25, 2014 by Scaevola

[soccerkid6]

My basic landscape design consists mainly of basic bricks. I use those to rough out the landscape, here's a picture to show what I mean:

Then using that as the 'skeleton', I cover it with plates (the 'skin'). For the battle scene above I had some of the plates tilted, to do that I just set them in place (one end was a brick or two higher). The trick is getting the tilted plates to blend into the rest of the build, basically you just mess around with placement, overhangs, and thickness.

Another thing to keep in mind is that rockwork is a great way to raise the height of a landscape quickly without using too many parts or pieces.

Hope the above helps a bit and if anything was unclear just let me know and I'll try to clarify

[mccoyed]

That's awesome guys. Kai, that really healps. And SK, I was hoping you had a progress pic of that battle's landscape kicking around. Awesome to get a peek behind the veil.

Also, Kai and Scaevola... thanks for those links! I'm going to be studying all that stuff carefully before I attempt this again.

Unfortunately there isn't much rock in this builld. The landscape is a bit flatter than what you made for your battle, SK. I think it's mostly going to be grassy and there's only so many ways to do that without simply piling on tree leaf pieces which I want to avoid since I've relied on that technique in my previous builds.

[Gabe]

I made a Fabuland Hobbiton layout at the beginning of the year that i've got a few progress pics of too - very similar to SK, i use rainbow bricks as filler, then final colour brick to roughly plan gradient, then plate to smooth the transition. Tilted plates can help cut down on the amount of small plate needed, also wedge plates are really useful to break up any blockiness. Hope some of that is helpful to you.

[Scaevola]

Also Classic Castle has some good landscaping how-to's (forgot to link them in the last post)

[mccoyed]

You know, I think I went through those LCC tutorials before I joined GoH and forgot about where'd I'd seen some of this stuff before. I'll review them! Thanks again Scaevola.

Edited June 27, 2014 by mccoyed

[mccoyed]

Some WIP pics to show how I've progressed since reviewing all the advice given here. Everything was very helpful, especially Derfel Cadarn's guide.

First I start with the base built into the black display border so many folks use. The blue marks where the stream will be.

I built up the landscape to show the two sides of the river. One side will have a boulder and the other has dense trees (a little too dark, sorry) which I made using Derfel Cadarn's "lever" technique for holding the leaf pieces at naturalistic angles. The grass darkens beneath the trees to imitate shade.

Here's the entire build w/o figs. If I weren't doing a WIP post, I'd probably have completed the MOC with this. As it is, I will probably give it a few days to gather advice and feedback as well as to get my photographing stuff in order.

Close-up of the left side of the river. I think I will add a large slope of some kind to the facing side of where the large slope forms a spike. I don't know if that makes sense but I'm not happy with the way it looks right now.

Close-up of the stream. I am fairly happy with the way this is turning out. I like this method of doing water especially because I have like zero trans tiles.

And last, a close-up (with flash cuz my work area is too poorly lit right now) to get a better glimpse of the trees. I've added another brown leaf piece to the far side, where the darker green is most plentiful. This balanced out the terrain more and I am currently pretty happy with it.

[Gabe]

Looking good Mccoyed! Your WIP looks very promising. I especially like your rock formation on the left hand side of the bank. Couple of suggestions - if you are going so far as to put dark green underneath your trees to indicate shadow, you might want to consider tiering your tree foliage so that the lighter green is on the top, regular green in the middle and dark green is underneath. (I've tried it before and it looks quite good) Also, with your little stream, consider water flow around that rock in the middle of the stream - water will be flowing faster there as it is compressed into smaller channels, which will eat into the bank if it is just dirt. If you want the stream to be that narrow at that point, you might want to consider having a rocky bank there instead. Another thing about the banks - the mix of colours looks ok, but the tan does look a little jarring next to the brown - you might want to space it with some intermediary tones like dark tan or dark orange.

I love seeing WIP's of ppl's progress - looking forward to seeing how this one develops!

[Kai NRG]

I agree with Gabe's comment about the bank, I'd suggest spacing the brown and tan a bit more as it does look pretty jarring (dirt usually isn't such different colors in patches like that!). Maybe going from brown to dk. tan to tan would help. Also, try using some 1x1 round plates, either in brown or tan, to give it a bit more texture (if you have them). You might also want to give the stream a decided curve to one side or the other. Lastly, I would suggest not having plates sticking out two studs into the stream (eg. the tan plate seven studs from the border); put a 1x1 or 1x2 on the side so the sudden jutting out isn't so unusual.

You've still got a few pretty long straight edges on the green (more than five studs straight is pretty long, it would be better if you could keep it down to three)... if you have a few 1x2s or 1x1s or similar, you could fix that pretty easily.

I personally would take away the olive green leaves, at least the ones on the bank of the river; they seem to come out of nowhere. Also, I'd consider either adding more flowers, or taking away the ones that are there (right now it's a little too sparse to look realistic), depending on what this is destined for - since it's designed for a warlords build, it might be better w/o flowers!

And I don't particularly like lime green (though I have had to use it occasionally), so I'd get rid of the 1x1s, but that might be just me!

[MassEditor]

Awesome mccoyed, you're definitely on the right track! Both Gabe and Kai made some good points, especially about the colors of the bank. I would actually get rid of all the tan/dark tan on the banks - very few forest streams have sandy banks. When it comes to building up a landscape, sometimes less color is better I think. Like Kai said, use some 1x2 plates or wedge plates to break up the straight lines of the tiered landscaping.

Also, with the river, I would definitely suggest covering the whole thing with 1x1 trans blue/dark blue plates. Place a couple of rows of the light blue 1x1s near the bank and place the dark blue 1x1s in the center of the stream. That gives a neat effect where the river looks deeper in the middle (since the deeper channels are usually in the middle of a waterway). You can kinda see that in this WIP I've got going:

I would also suggest building the bank one plate higher than the river since naturally water carves into the rock below it. Having the river the same height as the bank next to it just doesn't look right to me.

[-Carson Haupt-]

Looking good! I would blend out the dark green shadows a bit though, and I agree about not having a sandy bank. I like your water though!

[mccoyed]

Oh wow, so many comments and suggestions! I'll try to get to all of them here!

Couple of suggestions - if you are going so far as to put dark green underneath your trees to indicate shadow, you might want to consider tiering your tree foliage so that the lighter green is on the top, regular green in the middle and dark green is underneath. (I've tried it before and it looks quite good) Also, with your little stream, consider water flow around that rock in the middle of the stream - water will be flowing faster there as it is compressed into smaller channels, which will eat into the bank if it is just dirt. If you want the stream to be that narrow at that point, you might want to consider having a rocky bank there instead. Another thing about the banks - the mix of colours looks ok, but the tan does look a little jarring next to the brown - you might want to space it with some intermediary tones like dark tan or dark orange.

Thanks Gabe!

For the tree foliage, I'll try that and see. Right now I kind of like the patchier more organic look but I understand the inconsistency of using lighting in one part of the scene but having random "lighting" effect on the leaves. Makes no sense.

For the stream and rock... the effect is supposed to be water flowing around it already! I guess it doesn't really look that way now. Any suggestions on making it look better for that? I tried using the dark and light trans blue dots in patterns to suggest water flow.

For the banks... I don't really have darker tan! I could use a little more maybe, but I mostly have large 2xY plates which makes it difficult to blend. I don't have any dark orange I don't think. I may experiment but most of those plates are set underneath the upper layer of grass. Because of this, it may be too time intensive to rip up the whole surface of the build. It would mean redoing almost everything.

I agree with Gabe's comment about the bank, I'd suggest spacing the brown and tan a bit more as it does look pretty jarring (dirt usually isn't such different colors in patches like that!). Maybe going from brown to dk. tan to tan would help. Also, try using some 1x1 round plates, either in brown or tan, to give it a bit more texture (if you have them). You might also want to give the stream a decided curve to one side or the other. Lastly, I would suggest not having plates sticking out two studs into the stream (eg. the tan plate seven studs from the border); put a 1x1 or 1x2 on the side so the sudden jutting out isn't so unusual.

You've still got a few pretty long straight edges on the green (more than five studs straight is pretty long, it would be better if you could keep it down to three)... if you have a few 1x2s or 1x1s or similar, you could fix that pretty easily.

I personally would take away the olive green leaves, at least the ones on the bank of the river; they seem to come out of nowhere. Also, I'd consider either adding more flowers, or taking away the ones that are there (right now it's a little too sparse to look realistic), depending on what this is destined for - since it's designed for a warlords build, it might be better w/o flowers!

And I don't particularly like lime green (though I have had to use it occasionally), so I'd get rid of the 1x1s, but that might be just me!

Thanks Kai!

The look of the patches was meant to evoke sand (light tan), wetter sand (dark tan) and mud (brown) layered around the bank of an extremely shallow stream. I guess I failed so I will try to make it work better.

About the additional texturing of the banks as well as lime and the olive green leaves, flowers, etc... my current plan was to add more landscaping details of those kinds once minifigs have been placed. The issue I wanted to avoid was having awkward placing/posing due to excess foliage and such. It'd be easier to place around the figs. I definitely take your point about the grass. Plenty of smaller pieces can be added to reduce some of those lines.

I would actually get rid of all the tan/dark tan on the banks - very few forest streams have sandy banks. When it comes to building up a landscape, sometimes less color is better I think. Like Kai said, use some 1x2 plates or wedge plates to break up the straight lines of the tiered landscaping.

Also, with the river, I would definitely suggest covering the whole thing with 1x1 trans blue/dark blue plates. Place a couple of rows of the light blue 1x1s near the bank and place the dark blue 1x1s in the center of the stream. That gives a neat effect where the river looks deeper in the middle (since the deeper channels are usually in the middle of a waterway). You can kinda see that in this WIP I've got going:

I would also suggest building the bank one plate higher than the river since naturally water carves into the rock below it. Having the river the same height as the bank next to it just doesn't look right to me.

Thanks MassEditor!

The stream is supposed to be shallow and fordable with water level around knee-height. This is why it has a muddy/sandy bank instead of a raised one. It's true that rivers seldom have banks at level with water, but streams often do. In fact, they are often really pebbly but I chose to do more of a muddy/sandy one to suggest that it's a natural ford.

Your water looks really good. I don't really have square plates in trans blue/light blue in enough quantity is the problem. I have enough clear to possible do rapids, but there wouldn't be rapids per se in this stream (it's too shallow). I thought using dots to cover the whole thing would look very awkward so opted not to try that. Should I reconsider?

To incorporate some of the suggestions about the bank, I think I may try to bulk up the edges so that'll take care of that. The thing is, does that make sense for a ford?

Looking good! I would blend out the dark green shadows a bit though, and I agree about not having a sandy bank. I like your water though!

Thanks Carson!

I have to try to blend them better for sure, once figs are placed. I have an abundance of large dark green plates but very little smaller stuff in that color. I may have to try and add more lighter green, but I also have limited pieces on that and most of them are already employed in the build. I definitely think it could use improvement. The bit under the rock on the left side of the river is much closer to what I wanted to achieve there.

I hope the sandy bank makes more sense if you think of this stream as less of a river and more of a shallow ford/stream. If not... I'll take more suggestions!

[Kai NRG]

If layering dk tan isn't going to work because of piece limitations, I'd get rid of either the tan or the brown. I think both what Gabe and I were trying to say is that the brown shouldn't come into direct contact with the tan - mud wouldn't be in direct contact with dry sand; it would wet the sand it's touching.

Also, if it's a shallow ford, using a lighter blue (whether bricks or 1x1 round plates or 1x2 tiles/plates, depends on you and your collection) or even trans-clear, would make the fact that it's shallow much more obvious.

About the additional texturing of the banks as well as lime and the olive green leaves, flowers, etc... my current plan was to add more landscaping details of those kinds once minifigs have been placed. The issue I wanted to avoid was having awkward placing/posing due to excess foliage and such. It'd be easier to place around the figs. I definitely take your point about the grass. Plenty of smaller pieces can be added to reduce some of those lines.

Okay, that would probably help out the overall feel. Sometimes though, it is okay to finish the landscaping and then add figs, as it's easy enough to re-arrange afterwards, but harder to see the overall effect after the figs are placed (especially if you intend to take a figless shot).

Just in general, I agree with ME; less color is often better (another time when less is more )!

[Davidbarrena]

This thread is wonderful. just looking to finished MOCs helps to learn, but having you guys share your process and all these WIP photos is awesome and a great opportunity for us newbies.

Thanks for sharing!

[Gabe]

For the stream and rock... the effect is supposed to be water flowing around it already! I guess it doesn't really look that way now. Any suggestions on making it look better for that? I tried using the dark and light trans blue dots in patterns to suggest water flow.

It's less the water effect that is the issue, than the way you have orginised the bank to direct the water flow - as you have it now, it looks a bit unnatural, as a rock of that size in the middle of a stream would cause the dammed up water behind it to widen the stream at that point, wheras in your WIP it still looks very narrow. You can still have a narrow stream at that point, but you will have to shore up the banks there with rockwork to make the channelling of the water believable, is what i was originally saying. But if you want that point to be a narrow ford, showing that water there is very shallow, then i would suggest ditching the rock entirely, and instead putting some 1x1 dark bley (wet rock is often darker than dry rock) tiles in the stream with some trans-clear round plates around them as bubbles, much like ME has done in his WIP.

Landscaping is often less about technique, and more about observation of the natural world - how does water behave in streams and rivers? What happens when sand or rock gets wet? What shapes of leaves and foliage do different trees have? etc and so on.

For the banks... I don't really have darker tan! I could use a little more maybe, but I mostly have large 2xY plates which makes it difficult to blend. I don't have any dark orange I don't think. I may experiment but most of those plates are set underneath the upper layer of grass. Because of this, it may be too time intensive to rip up the whole surface of the build. It would mean redoing almost everything.

May i humbly suggest then that you invest in a few hundred 1x2 plates in dark tan? Seriously, i did this a couple of years ago and it remains one of my most used pieces for landscaping. They aren't that expensive, $20-30 worth should see you right. Dark orange is more expensive and harder to come by in large lots i know, but it makes an excellent accent or transition colour if you can afford it. While yr at it, maybe it's time to grab some trans-clear round plates and trans-blue tiles as well.

Of course, that might not help you with this build, sorry! It does suck having to rip up part of your build to fix something at a lower level, i can feel your pain there. But it's often worth taking the trouble to fix an early mistake.

If layering dk tan isn't going to work because of piece limitations, I'd get rid of either the tan or the brown. I think both what Gabe and I were trying to say is that the brown shouldn't come into direct contact with the tan - mud wouldn't be in direct contact with dry sand; it would wet the sand it's touching.

Also, if it's a shallow ford, using a lighter blue (whether bricks or 1x1 round plates or 1x2 tiles/plates, depends on you and your collection) or even trans-clear, would make the fact that it's shallow much more obvious.

Okay, that would probably help out the overall feel. Sometimes though, it is okay to finish the landscaping and then add figs, as it's easy enough to re-arrange afterwards, but harder to see the overall effect after the figs are placed (especially if you intend to take a figless shot).

Just in general, I agree with ME; less color is often better (another time when less is more )!

Snap! My thoughts exactly.

[mccoyed]

If layering dk tan isn't going to work because of piece limitations, I'd get rid of either the tan or the brown. I think both what Gabe and I were trying to say is that the brown shouldn't come into direct contact with the tan - mud wouldn't be in direct contact with dry sand; it would wet the sand it's touching.

Also, if it's a shallow ford, using a lighter blue (whether bricks or 1x1 round plates or 1x2 tiles/plates, depends on you and your collection) or even trans-clear, would make the fact that it's shallow much more obvious.

Okay, that would probably help out the overall feel. Sometimes though, it is okay to finish the landscaping and then add figs, as it's easy enough to re-arrange afterwards, but harder to see the overall effect after the figs are placed (especially if you intend to take a figless shot).

Just in general, I agree with ME; less color is often better (another time when less is more )!

I'll see what I can do about the mud. I think I've got some ideas to fix it and still preserve the stream's function in the build. I may not be able to do lighter blue due to piece limitations but I'll see. I think medium blue should be fine, personally, as there are both darker and lighter blue in Lego to simulate depth. I think if I have enough light blue, I can maybe build around the banks in that color and leave the central parts of the stream alone.

As the scene is a battle that will revolve around the stream, adding too much landscaping features means I have less room for figs and I need to cram a lot of them into the space as presented. I think I can pull it off while still keeping some of the color and features but we'll see. A lot of battle scenes are too bland, but SK's recent one is a masterclass in using a "less is more" approach. I'm not there yet, either way. :P

It's less the water effect that is the issue, than the way you have orginised the bank to direct the water flow - as you have it now, it looks a bit unnatural, as a rock of that size in the middle of a stream would cause the dammed up water behind it to widen the stream at that point, wheras in your WIP it still looks very narrow. You can still have a narrow stream at that point, but you will have to shore up the banks there with rockwork to make the channelling of the water believable, is what i was originally saying. But if you want that point to be a narrow ford, showing that water there is very shallow, then i would suggest ditching the rock entirely, and instead putting some 1x1 dark bley (wet rock is often darker than dry rock) tiles in the stream with some trans-clear round plates around them as bubbles, much like ME has done in his WIP.

Landscaping is often less about technique, and more about observation of the natural world - how does water behave in streams and rivers? What happens when sand or rock gets wet? What shapes of leaves and foliage do different trees have? etc and so on.

May i humbly suggest then that you invest in a few hundred 1x2 plates in dark tan? Seriously, i did this a couple of years ago and it remains one of my most used pieces for landscaping. They aren't that expensive, $20-30 worth should see you right. Dark orange is more expensive and harder to come by in large lots i know, but it makes an excellent accent or transition colour if you can afford it. While yr at it, maybe it's time to grab some trans-clear round plates and trans-blue tiles as well.

Of course, that might not help you with this build, sorry! It does suck having to rip up part of your build to fix something at a lower level, i can feel your pain there. But it's often worth taking the trouble to fix an early mistake.

Snap! My thoughts exactly.

I could take the rock out but I'd like to use it for the scene so I may try to find another way, either by widening the stream or making that end of it more rocky in general as you suggest. I do like the idea of adding small rocky pieces to evoke the shallowness and have some ideas about how to do it. More pics to come.

I do think landscaping with Lego is also a matter of style. I mean, consider Gunman's builds.

As for ordering some parts... I usually use BL for figs, accessories, and rarities. I don't see any problem with buying raw pieces for landscaping and so on, just never settled on what I actually needed very clearly. I think I will take your advice and order some of those this month. I started this thread just as much to help with future builds as with this one so I think it's all good. I've definitely looked for trans blue tiles in quantity but usually they're overpriced or I find a BL store that has this in abundance, but not much else that I need or want. It's just never worked out but I'm always on the look out!

[Kayne]

Wow, definitely some very good advice flowing around in here. As to your bricklinking, you mentioned trans blue tiles being expensive. I would say the trans dark blue are very expensive on BL now as opposed to about 3 years ago. But, the trans light blue is actually quite reasonable at most stores. If you're shipping in just the US, you can get about 500-1000 for less than $4.00 shipping, plus about $20 for the product

Edited June 27, 2014 by Kayne

[mccoyed]

Man. I wish I knew where you guys were buying your bricks. I am in Canada so I usually look at Canadian and US BL stores w/ lots of lot items/high quantities.

Anyway, here is a redo of the stream and landscaping based mostly on the advice given thus far. I am much happier with the stream's shape and the wet sand around it. I also think adding small rocks to the water to make it seem more shallow was a good idea but not sure if I've taken the time needed to execute it correctly as yet. I am much happier with the grassy areas as they are better blended and removing the flowers actually did work for the better.

I've removed the tree leaves so I can try Gabe's shading suggestion later on. As you can see in these pics, I managed to scrounge up some light trans blue 1x2 plates as well as many trans clear dots. I have tons and tons of light blue/dark blue trans dots but not sure I love the look of them. I may go back to medium blue lower layer water with trans light blue and clear dots for effects. I could add more dark blue for shading on the stream, like ME's build but I think that might look too busy.

Edited June 28, 2014 by mccoyed

[-Carson Haupt-]

I like you're new water a lot, and the dark tan is a definite improvement.

[Kayne]

I agree with Carson, I think the new water and embankment look much better.

[Kai NRG]

Definite improvement on the bank and water there! Your grass/foliage is looking good as well! Edited June 28, 2014 by Kai NRG