MOCing Advice & Ideas thread

[Mechbuilds]

Why aren't there any any moc ideas posted? 

You have to search google very thoroughly in order to find stuff like this:



I'd love to see peoples takes on how to build custom torsos or how to build custom limbs.. 
Or just outright clever ideas.. 

I'm currently stuck trying to figure out how to widen up a torso from the waist up in order to make a WH40K styled dreadnought torso.. 


If any of you have clever ideas you'd like to share, please post them below.

Tips, ideas or frames like in the image is very helpful for newbie moccers. 

[Shakar]

Lack of interest, I fear. Bionicle G2 getting cancelled was a huge blow for many. I agree there should be more MOC discussion, though. I believe there was a topic like this 1-2 years ago. BZP too had a topic on MOCing advice years and years ago, and interestingly it was pinned. It would be cool if we had the same.

[Leewan]

9 hours ago, Mechbuilds said:

I'd love to see peoples takes on how to build custom torsos or how to build custom limbs.. 
Or just outright clever ideas..

Well, the thing is, custom torsos and limbs are somewhat specific, so I don't know if posting some techniques in particular would be really helpful regarding people's needs. Years ago, I've made a small index of techniques for Hero Factory MOCs on BIONIFIGS (here, if you're interested and you can read french), but I'm not sure it has been very useful. 

For example your request about a wide torso means you're looking for something with rather precise proportions, and if everyone could try to give ideas, we wouldn't be sure they suit your needs. Would this help you ?

1 hour ago, Shakar said:

BZP too had a topic on MOCing advice years and years ago, and interestingly it was pinned. It would be cool if we had the same.

Something like this would be nice (if it doesn't already exist), people would post WIP pictures of their MOCs, and say "I need help for the legs", or "How can I improve the arms", etc. What does @VBBN think of it ? 

[Shakar]

On 13/6/2017 at 11:44 PM, Leewan said:

Well, the thing is, custom torsos and limbs are somewhat specific, so I don't know if posting some techniques in particular would be really helpful regarding people's needs. Years ago, I've made a small index of techniques for Hero Factory MOCs on BIONIFIGS (here, if you're interested and you can read french), but I'm not sure it has been very useful. 

For example your request about a wide torso means you're looking for something with rather precise proportions, and if everyone could try to give ideas, we wouldn't be sure they suit your needs. Would this help you ?

Something like this would be nice (if it doesn't already exist), people would post WIP pictures of their MOCs, and say "I need help for the legs", or "How can I improve the arms", etc. What does @VBBN think of it ? 

Yup. MOCing advice, sharing cool MOCing techniques, etc. I remember that BZP topic had some advice on colour schemes and colour distribution as well. A go-to resource for anything MOCing related. I've been thinking about something like that for quite a while but I wasn't sure if there was enough interest for it.

[Azani]

As a supplementary note, the TTV boards host a similar, relevant thread here. As far as comprehensiveness is concerned, it may beat out BZP's.

The real takeaway here is that Eurobricks is probably one of the worst places to find resources for the constraction community.

[Mechbuilds]

Thanks for all the replies. The gorzan torso was indeed helpful. I'm going to use that in the future.. But for now, i'm looking for something that i can connect to the 3 stud wide turntable piece. (HF IFB Evo XL lower body)
Something warhammer 40k dreadnought style. '

 

We should have a tutorials pinned thread here. It would be helpful when you get stuck on your moc and don't know how to continue with it. 

[Mechbuilds]

Hey guys!

Any ideas how to start building an arm from this shoulder?



The arm needs to be bulky but short. It's coming on to a mech so guns..
I'm planing on adding a ball joint to that arm piece as short as i can possibly make it but still making it look cool.
The arm needs to be connected to those two socket pieces. 

So basically:
How do i attach a ball joint to that arm piece as short as possible and still get armor to it somehow. 

Any tips help a lot. Cause i'm stuck.  


EDIT:
Okay i guess this is the shortest way to do it:

Edited June 18, 2017 by Mechbuilds

[Mechbuilds]

Leg design idea:




Credit to Square and he's Qlenasy MOC.

 

[Leewan]

I... don't think it's a good idea to work from LDD only. Your shoulder and your foot design (BTW, it seems to me that @Square's design is slightly shorter) suffer from a certain lack of stability, because some elements used can rather freely rotate. Or rather, they would freely rotate if they were built with physical parts. Try to build them, and you'll see. 

For your shoulder, you should secure the Hordika neck, to make sure it can't rotate. Look at how sets like Takanuva or Von Nebula are built, that could help you, and give you ideas to attach armours to the arm. Even if these sets are built around a standard big torso part, the structure of the shoulder is similar to what you're building.

For your foot, you have to prevent the part 92907 () from rotating. An easy solution is to fix it to the #2 connector. You can build something like this :

Spoiler

Or, even better, like this :

Spoiler

 

[Square]

I don't tend to expose my moc structure but here to clarify the moc design that I showed off: 

Yes the "toe" section is somewhat loss irl, I like your stability redesign @Leewan ; but the hero core may somewhat be fiddly.

Edited June 20, 2017 by Square

[Mechbuilds]

@Leewan I actually have the shoulder design irl. The "hordika neck" is held on by a blue pin/axle connector and the top part is also. The arms don't flop down like you'd think. The way the arms are configured, there is a pinching friction that keeps the arms in place, as long as you don't put two bionicles worth of weight on them. But a von nebula arm amount of mass won't flop down. 

Here's a pic of the shoulder mechanism holding up:


This was the rectractable claw i was first going to give the exo suit.

Edited June 20, 2017 by Mechbuilds

[Kalhiki]

If we're giving ideas and tips for MoCing, can anyone suggest some tips for building small? I'm wanting to make some... Approximately 5 inch tall humanoid builds. Preferably custom-built limbs since I already have a body design I'm fairly happy with. Though if someone could give advice on how to get some good waist/hip/mid-torso articulation, it'd be much appreciated.

My goal is to have a base design that I can change up to have the characters look distinct, but still part of the same team.  

 

Edited June 20, 2017 by Kalhiki

[Mechbuilds]

Can you post a pic of what you have? I can throw up something on the LDD

[Takanuinuva]

I know of one build. Not mine.

 

[Aethersprite]

7 hours ago, Takanuinuva said:

I know of one build. Not mine.

That's awesome. Any examples of MOCs using this build?

Edited June 21, 2017 by Leewan
Please don't quote pictures or videos

[Takanuinuva]

Not that I know of. I only remember finding it looking up Optimus Prime mocs

Though I do feel it would work wonderfully with the hand pieces from the Lego Batman Mr Freeze Mech. If they ever come in more colors.

[Mechbuilds]

On 21/06/2017 at 5:58 AM, Takanuinuva said:

Not that I know of. I only remember finding it looking up Optimus Prime mocs

Though I do feel it would work wonderfully with the hand pieces from the Lego Batman Mr Freeze Mech. If they ever come in more colors.

Edited June 22, 2017 by Leewan
Don't post images that are over 1,024 x 768 (or 768 x 1,024 for pictures with a portrait orientation) or are LEGO confidential. Images rarely need to be over 800 x 600

[Kalhiki]

On 6/20/2017 at 0:10 PM, Mechbuilds said:

Can you post a pic of what you have? I can throw up something on the LDD

Sorry, I was meaning to take pictures, but I completely forgot. I try to post some if I remember, though I've also been thinking about redesigning the body I've made...

The Mixels joint frame looks pretty neat. I've been wanting to mech build with those pieces. However, for the MoCs I'm wanting to make, I'd prefer using Technic. Of course, I have no problem using System, so maybe some blend of the two? Shouldn't be too hard... I'll need to play around.

 

[ZORK64]

On 21.6.2017 at 5:58 AM, Takanuinuva said:

Though I do feel it would work wonderfully with the hand pieces from the Lego Batman Mr Freeze Mech. If they ever come in more colors.

This. So much this.

I'm monitoring both this and the Action Forums in the hope that LEGO might be so kind to reveal some more sets which utilize these hands. I mean, if we could get them at least in a more neutral color like grey or black...

On another note, this frame looks pretty great. I'll keep in mind should I get tired of building LEGO Transformers.

[VBBN]

A MOCing advice thread seems like a cool idea to me, and it seems this thread has already kicked off some ideas- I've modified the title of the topic, let's make this the "official" one. Not going to pin for now for the sake of keeping things clean in the forum (and I'm about to start doing some additional updates in the forum), but hopefully we can all get some value out of this thread.

[Mechbuilds]

I have a cool idea of a competition. What if we had a LDD tutorial on a simple frame and we had to try and make the coolest moc we could out of the frame. And the only rule is that the frame inside the moc must be 100% identical to the LDD model. 
Call it.. "The armorer challenge competition" 

[Foxw]

On 6/23/2017 at 2:39 PM, Kalhiki said:

Sorry, I was meaning to take pictures, but I completely forgot. I try to post some if I remember, though I've also been thinking about redesigning the body I've made...

The Mixels joint frame looks pretty neat. I've been wanting to mech build with those pieces. However, for the MoCs I'm wanting to make, I'd prefer using Technic. Of course, I have no problem using System, so maybe some blend of the two? Shouldn't be too hard... I'll need to play around.

 

thats actually my goal, blending technic/system and ccbs to do mechs,

 

though i love caleb L's piloted mechs

Edited August 13, 2017 by Foxw
my bad typos

[chubbybots2]

Hmm so we can post our frames in this thread? 

I used technic and system for my titanfall Atlas that i build earlier this year. Helps to reduce the weight !!

atlas07 by Kelvin Low, on Flickr

atlas08 by Kelvin Low, on Flickr

 

[Mechbuilds]

I wonder why don't we see any mechas that are build from mostly technic and only using CCBS for joints. 
I'd love to see some technic based mechwarriors. 

If anyone knows any technic based mechs then please share what to google for. 

[Mechbuilds]

If you have a toa mata minus the head sized mech made from technic pieces, how would you make a missile battery? 
What i'm looking for something like this:


Without using system parts.. Is it even possible to make a missile launcher on technic pieces? 

Share your weapon ideas. 


(I'm making mech warrior styled combatants out of CCBS and technic and i'm trying to figure out different styles of weapons to add.)

Even if it sounds terrible, i've started to think about just gluing 1x3 technic beams together to make a 2x3 or 3x3 technic beam and gluing a black stud or something to attach it to a moc.. 
But before doing anything irreversible, i'd like to get some input how to tackle missile weapons on technic mocs. 

Edited October 14, 2017 by Mechbuilds