MOC Interiors- important or a "play feature"?

[RichardAM]

I'm *this close* to finishing a MOC, and while the outer walls are done and ready, the inside of the building is hollowed and could be given an interior. It looks great, but the possibility of building an interior to make it seem more "complete" is nagging away at me. It got me wondering where everyone else felt about building interiors and their importance.

After all, with all the great castle mocs, would these builds be enhanced at all with a functional inside of the building? Or is this just more of a play feature, a kind of dollhouse mode for the builder themselves (yes, sometimes I do play with my figs around the mocs )? Maybe you never build interiors, or you always do, either way, i'm wondering what everyone else thinks.

[Quickblade22]

Personally, I can not build something without considering an interior. To a fault, the interior determines how I plan my MOC just as must at the exterior. I always build with "play value" considered. However......one of my favorite builders (Alien Cat) seems to omit interiors more often than not. So basically I put you back to square one.

[Formendacil]

I'd say it depends on the purpose of the MOC. If it's for a display--especially for a display behind glass--it would probably be redundant to fill in the interior. If it's more for online presentation or for personal display (at home, where you can take it out for other people), I'd say your audience would much prefer to see an interior.

Ultimately, though, I guess asking what "purpose" means is just asking "what do YOU want it to be."

[JoshWedin]

Hey Richard,

I generally don't build interiors but most of my MOCs are designed for public display and the interiors would never be seen. To me, it sounds like you want to build an interior so I would say to go for it.

Josh

[RichardAM]

To me, it sounds like you want to build an interior so I would say to go for it.

Oh go on then, just for you

Not to sound overly pretentious, but in my building I try to avoid building as such and rather create scenes or stories with and within my mocs. That results in a lot of minifig posing and direction, where there's something happening for everyone. I like building -medieval buildings in particular- hollowed rooms where there can be more content shown and displayed to the audience online. I know it's a silly request to ask for some of the builders, particularly those who build extremely large over years, but again, this thread is just interest into others' preferences and working practices.

Worth considering too I guess is TLG's modular series, where Cafe Corner was all external detail and then devoid of anything inside. Obviously this has been remedied with each release though. The new sets have become display detailed and display/play.

[SavaTheAggie]

To me its all about effort. I find the more effort I put into a MOC, the better it becomes. If I say "meh, good enough", eventually in my own mind the "good enough" will fall off and I'll think my MOC is just "meh". If I can go the extra mile to put in that extra level of detail, then it's always worth it.

The only time I would omit an interior to a MOC is when either the exterior would prevent it - in the case of a building technique too delicate or difficult to pull apart to grant access - or the exterior would make it ugly - in the case of internal support for heavy SNOT work.

--Tony

[architect]

I think that Tony brings up an excellent point. Many great mocs today have a large amount of snot construction that creates problems with interiors. I am usually impressed when a builder can incorporate snot wall construction to a 1x brick building wall and also have it look good on the interior.

Ben

[AK_Brickster]

I personally like to build interiors, partly because I'm an engineer and I enjoy the challenge of making the interior accessible and "playable", and partly because I like to think that if my little guys were to "come to life" in the middle of the night, they'd be able to get to every part of the castle via either stairs or ladders. I like making my builds functional
That said, deciding whether or not to do a full interior depends on quite a few factors:

1. Do you have enough of a collection to be able to dedicate possibly valuable/limited parts to the interior without scrimping on what the outside looks like?

2. Do you have the time to build a lot of detail into both the inside and outside? I basically figure it doubles or (more often) triples how long something will take to build if I'm going to worry about the inside as well.

3. As others have said, is it going to be for a static display such as a convention or behind glass where nobody will be able to see interior details anyway? I ran into this when building my first BrickCon display last fall.
If you are going to have it around your house to show to friends or are willing to take the time to photograph the inside to share online, it may be worth it to spend some time on the inside though.

4. Will your building techniques allow for a detailed interior? Either because of complicated techniques, or simply difficulties accessing certain parts of the finished product, this can be tricky. Hinges, lift-off sections, and modularity can help, but again, these add time to the build both in conception and implementation.

5. Personal preference! If you don't give a rat's tail about what the inside looks like, don't feel like you have to to please someone else. Most of us are quite impressed by the exteriors alone! Alternately, if cavernous interiors are going to haunt your dreams, well then you maybe should spend some time on it. Even adding simple interiors may give you some satisfaction. Not everyone needs a fully tiled mosaic floor to be happy with the finished product

I hope this helps both you and anyone else who may be facing this dilemma.

Keep up the good work!

[richardanthonyc]

Interiors - they are needed for most mocs if people are going to see close ups. It just adds so much to the build, knowing that everything is done in detail. I however am extremely lazy and often don't do them....

[Elderon]

To me my MOCs don't feel complete without a interior. So I always try to make something, a table, a little closet or a bed, just so indeed the minifigs have something to do, like AK_brickster said.

[Canoehead]

Your already thinking about it right?