3 Keys for LEGO Walls

Not too long ago we looked a tips for building yourself a LEGO wall, with a focus on outside walls.  Today, we’ll consider 3 important keys for building the perfect interior wall for all your minifigures’ inside needs!

(If you’re interested in looking at any of the below MOCs more in depth, just follow the picture link to my Flickr where in most cases plenty of alternate views are available!)

Key #1: Texture

Texture is extremely important for LEGO walls, if we want to keep them visually interesting.  It doesn’t have to be incredibly fancy; a simple brick pattern using “profile” bricks works quite well.

If that’s not enough texture for you, try spicing it up with some 1×1 round plates, headlight bricks, and other texture pieces.  This is something that works well for stone or brick walls.  Notice too in the example below the use of inset light grey.  This is easier than you may think and adds a lot.  Just get a hold of a few jumper plates!

With profile bricks coming in as many colors as they do nowadays, there are more options than ever with this technique!

Returning to some simple textures, here’s a really easy and elegant way to do a wood wall: sideways 4×1 tiles, staggered.  It’s easy to leave studs exposed for paintings or other decorations, too!

Here’s another version of a wood wall, using log bricks in quantity.  This is also fairly simple, using headlight bricks to attach the two ends of the stacks of log bricks in the corner.

Moving on to something a little more complex and part consuming, here’s an elaborate wood paneling technique, and one that falls apart easily to boot.  Since tiles have grooves for easy removal, stacking them can give a great texture effect.  Of course, they don’t stick together!  But by making the wall twice as thick, and sticking plates into the gaps left for the paneling (and then attaching those plates behind the scenes so they don’t fall out!) the result can be quite sturdy… provided you don’t tilt it forward.

Check out another unique wall texture: understuds.  This is a rough sort of wall, since it’s a shooting gallery, and the understuds do a good job producing that effect.

In this next example, notice how a fairly simple use of arches really enlivens the wall!  This is particularly useful for ancient history or medieval time period builds.

Keep an eye out for these textures as they continue to recur in the examples under the other two keys!

 

Key #2: Colors

A boring wall can be improved amazingly by the simple use of a bit of color.  Not only that, but this can also stretch your parts collection that much further!  In the example below, using dark red behind the arches gives the wall a visual interest it might not have otherwise had.

Here the light tan color is used for the border, and then tied in again on top.  1×1 round pieces line the whole side before we get a bit of a roof.

Taking color a step further, this wall uses green and sand green to create a striped wallpaper like pattern.  These colors go together well, and fit in with the brown too, which is always something to keep in mind!

We could go into a lot more depth on colors, but the important thing is to choose harmonious colors that work well together.  Keep an eye out for combinations that you like in real life, and inspiration for a LEGO build will never be far behind!

 

Key #3: Layout

Most rooms usually have four walls… but if you want anyone to be able to see what’s going on inside your MOC, four walls is not a good idea!  Designing the layout with an eye to photography is extremely important.  One long wall and one short wall is idea for this.

For smaller MOCs, squares are good too.

One of the most difficult parts of an interior scene is finishing off the top.  Building straight up is easy; but what do you do once your walls are already high enough?  One option is to try to angle the wall in slightly to create a roof illusion, as in the example below.

But angling walls is far from simple, and fortunately, just finishing off with a simple row of tiles and maybe a few decorative elements can look amazing.

As we wrap up this look at 3 Keys for LEGO Walls, I’ll mention in passing how important windows are.  Getting the right window for your wall can really set the tone.  But we’ll look at that more in depth in a future post!

Do you have any LEGO wall tips to share?  Have you tried some of these out, or do you plan on doing so?  Feel free to leave your comments and questions below!

If you found this guide for LEGO walls helpful, you might also appreciate these related posts:

• Build Yourself a LEGO Wall
• Baking a LEGO Cake: It’s All in the Frosting
• Top This! Roofs with LEGO Bricks
• Making Waves: Water with LEGO Bricks
• Tree Trials: 7 Secrets for Deciduous Trees
• Floors Galore for Your LEGO Home
• Tree Trials: 8 Unique Ways to Build a LEGO Palm Tree
• Tree Trials: Majoring in Micro