“The Conversation Piece” is a monthly BrickNerd series about creativity and building with LEGO authored by our friends over at the Builder Improvement Initiative (BII), a Discord-based community that helps LEGO builders of all levels get better at their craft through knowledge-sharing and constructive feedback.
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Catching the Eye
The online LEGO community is where most interactions happen for us builders, which makes navigating it an important skill. When we’ve put hard work into building something we’re proud of, we want to show it off—but how can we make sure our builds don’t get lost in the shuffle? Are there ways we can tailor our builds to make an impression on viewers?
There is a method to the madness! In this article, we will highlight the primary elements of composition to help our builds tell the stories we want them to. Using the concepts of visual weight and visual direction, we can draw in our audience with a more interesting viewing experience.
Visual Weight
Each item within a composition demands a certain amount of focus from the viewer. As builders, we can give components of our builds different “weights” to draw attention to or from other components. The primary elements we can adjust to create visual weight include color, size, and texture.
Color: Brightness, Vibrance & Contrast
One of the most efficient ways to hook a viewer is through color and contrast. Throughout this article, many of the builds we highlight use contrasting color schemes to grab the eye. Other techniques can be leveraged, as will be discussed, but are often used to guide the viewer once their attention has been grabbed with intentional coloring.
There are several ways color can be utilized to draw the viewer’s attention. Perhaps the easiest method is by using bright, vibrant colors. In general, bright colors are more likely to catch a viewer’s eye than those with lower saturation. While Sadie’s “Dreamers” are a memorable duo who are too cute to possibly scroll past, the cute factor is not the only thing that captivates the viewer. Between the yellow background and the aqua characters, the composition is extremely bright, with an average color brightness of 90% (excluding touches of black and grey).
Sadie is also employing another color technique to stand out; the composition uses complementary colors to create contrast. Contrast helps separate items within a composition and improves readability. Through contrast, a viewer is more likely to stop and focus on a build.
Jakub.arts’ “Urban Jungle” is another great example of how a build with strong contrast can immediately hook a viewer. Unlike Sadie’s build, the scene mostly consists of low-value colors and utilizes a monochromatic color scheme. However, Jakub creates contrast by placing the highest-value color directly behind the black telephone pole in the foreground, immediately claiming the viewer’s focus.
If you are interested in learning more about applying color in builds, including some of the concepts mentioned above, read our previous article on the topic!
Size
When it comes to efficiency, size is right up there with color as an effective method of capturing attention. However, unlike color, where a vibrant element can be enough on its own to stand out, size as a focal tool only works in relation to other elements. Djok’s “big rat” is a good case study into the effects relative sizes can have on the focal points of a MOC. Immediately, the viewer is drawn to the head and jacket of the character, making up nearly the entirety of the composition. It is not until the viewer really starts to focus on the build that the belt, jacket strings, and shoes are noticed.
Texture
Beyond color and size, the feel of a MOC can be differentiated by incorporating texture. Being selective about the styles, types, and amounts of texturing to create contrast can highlight certain areas and minimize others.
Ralf Langer is a master of textures, and his “Lavender Dream” incorporates many of his textural motifs amidst a semi-surreal and peaceful setting. Initially, the muted colors of the surroundings draw attention to the white structure. The towers utilize curved arches and horn elements to create a smooth, flowy look to achieve a dream-inspired effect. The light bluish gray highlights interrupt the smoothness of the curves, but are ultimately contained within curved archways. The “dripping” effect of the tooth elements and incomplete pillars falling from the archways naturally draws the viewer to the base.
Looking out to the surrounding landscapes, the smooth texture in the water and stone paths accentuates the studded areas of terrain, as well as the barbed and detailed trees. The textural contrast stems from the parts and techniques used to give the separate components—structure, terrain, trees, and water—individual identities.
Faces
Substantial research has shown that humans will, upon seeing an image, first focus on facial regions. By including faces in compositions, viewers are more likely to focus on the face first when seeing a build. “Music” by City Son is a great example of this. The build uses vibrant colors to great effect, creating a stunning MOC that feels like a display piece. However, despite the burst of vibrant colors, the eye is immediately drawn to the grayscale face on the right side of the build and holds the viewer’s attention for an extended length of time.
Face perception is so strong that even the semblance of a face is enough to draw in the eye. Scrolling through Flickr, “Heavy Hollow” by Djokson stood out. At this point, nearly every build we’ve discussed uses color and contrast to some effect as a cause for pause. But in Djok’s build, the first thing to catch your eye is its eyes. Other than the semi-humanoid form, there is very little to signify that we are indeed looking at a head. Yet, simply using the technic holes of the 4×4 round brick invites the viewer to stop and observe the strange, nondescript being.
Visual Direction
The tools we’ve discussed so far—color, faces, movement, and visual cues—are often distinct components that you can incorporate into a build. These individual elements can draw attention to specific parts of your build. In order to not overwhelm the viewer with too many eyecatchers, we can use visual direction to connect these elements together. Conceptually, we want to create a path to guide the audience from one focal point to the next.
Leading Lines
Within builds, there are often lines that can be imagined across the composition that act as a framework for how a viewer may be directed through a build. Builds with strong compositions and silhouettes will naturally create these leading lines. Sometimes these lines are literal and clear, such as the sides of a road; other times, they are more obscure and implied.
Syrdarian’s “The Limbo of Kamui” uses a few tools to hook the viewer. The color contrast is most apparent, though there is not much in the way of size, texture, or faces. To add visual interest, this build heavily uses leading lines to connect the color components together. The orange-leaved tree in the upper portion of the build gives the viewer a focal point to start. The dash of color on the column helps draw the viewer’s eye down the column’s leading lines.
In a quite literal interpretation, the walkways serve as a visual pathway leading to the exits of the room. Along the path, we find a lone traveler of these halls heading towards one of the exits, their path and ours being one and the same.
Movement
Builds with movement are also more likely to grab the attention of those doom-scrolling through Flickr or Instagram. “Tawa” by Eero Okkonen is a good example of this. While the build may be the same, some pictures attract more attention than others. The dynamic poses #3 and #4 are more likely to capture your attention before pose #1 and most certainly before the stoic pose #2.
Motion is not only a tool to catch the eye; it can also guide your viewer through a composition. “Heel Turn” by Maxx Davidson is a wonderfully dynamic build made for Iron Builder. Maxx’s build uses motion to direct the viewer’s attention. Starting with the cat, the raised arms guide the viewer to the chair. The illusion of motion causes the viewer to look towards the target of the attack; poor corgi!
This concept doesn’t only apply to character builds. Geneva Durand’s “Space Champion (Lambo)” uses angles and editing to create a dynamic composition sure to catch your attention!
Visual Cues
Numerous elements are often incorporated into builds to make them feel “alive”: minifigures and signs populate cities, characters make expressive gestures, and spaceships and mechas fire missiles and bullets. These elements can also be used as a way to create visual direction in a build, too!
“... Back Home” by Marcus Rollbühler makes phenomenal use of visual cues to tell a story. The positioning of the postman immediately draws the eyes to the character. However, the posing and direction of the character immediately cue us to follow his gaze and see his wife, child, and house at the end of the bridge.
If the wife were made the focal point, the direction of her gaze would point the viewer to the husband instead. This also highlights how visual weight and visual direction can change the story told. By focusing on the husband and directing towards the wife, we see a story about the end of the journey; were the focal points to be reversed, we would instead be told one of an end to waiting.
Tying Together Weight & Direction
Now that we can create focal points in a composition and have a few tools to direct a viewer, we can put the two concepts together to create interesting visuals. In our next Conversation Piece, we’ll zoom out and discuss how to balance multiple focal ranges and prevent the viewer from becoming disoriented while looking at a build.
Written by Eann McCurdy (Miscellanabuilds) in collaboration with the BII Contributor Team
What makes you stop scrolling and take a closer look at a LEGO build? Let us know in the comments below!
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