Snot Rock Tutorial

[kabel]

Nature actually has rock often come in horizontal layers, especially sedimetary rocks:

sandstone:

l

imestone:

clay:

So in order to recreate this in Lego, it's sometimes adviseable to build snot rocks.

As you can see in these mocs:

by me:

or by ZCerberus:

To build these is actually easier than you think.

At first I start with a plate, put a headlight brick on it's back and soround it with tiles:

I then attach some dark bley pieces to it. The second layer gets a plate inbetween so it's off a little:

After two brick and a plate I place another headlight brick on it's back to make things more stable and then add more layers:

In the end I add bricks with a sidways stud to the side and to the top in order to green the rocks:

The final result could end up looking like this:

[OmastarLovesDonuts]

Excellent tutorial, and thanks! I've been wanting to see some good rock techniques for future MOCs.

[MassEditor]

Good topic!

You are right, SNOTting rocks can give you some very realistic formations, and achieve some angles you wouldn't otherwise get - which is important if you want a lot of variety in your rockwork, like in these MOCs:

SNOT rocks are easy this way. Often I don't even attach them to the rest of the MOC; I just kinda build them into place. Mix in some angled and studs up rocks, and you've got a realistic and detailed formation.

That being said, I'm not a huge fan of the random assortment of slopes in SNOT formation using stud bricks, looks to messy to me.

Edited September 19, 2014 by MassEditor

[Jorrith]

This is great! Thanks for sharing, and i definatly will try this!

[Eikichi]

Very nice, thank you a lot. I look forward to use this technique in my humble creations.

[Alfadas]

Nice tutorial! Very useful!

[Yzalirk]

Finally there's a tutorial on this but I can't do this considering I don't have the part necessary for this technique. I'll just have to stick to large slopes, bricks, and cheese-slopes.

[Jakorin Swiftsword]

Brilliant tutorial! :)

[IenjoyLego89]

Very cool tutorial, will have to apply this in a moc at some stage :)

[mccoyed]

Thanks for the tutorial, Kabel! I've done a little bit of this in my MOCs. Sometimes it looks kind of awkward but I really like the examples. ME is kind of SNOTrock master and I like his way of mixing studs-up and SNOT.

That being said, I'm not a huge fan of the random assortment of slopes in SNOT formation using stud bricks, looks to messy to me.

Can you give an example for this?

[Lord Vladivus]

Nice to see a tut for Snot rocks! Cheers kabel!

[Tomsche]

Straight to my bookmarks with that one, yep yep

[SarahJoy]

This is awesome, kabel. Thank you so much for putting this together.

I'm looking forward to playing with this. Your tutorial definitely motivated me to start really getting into SNOT rocks, studying the work of the Great Masters, and working with the bricks.

MassEditor, that's a gorgeous example.

Edited September 19, 2014 by SarahJoy

[-Carson Haupt-]

This is nice! I agree, they're fun to work with and look good!

[kabel]

well thanks for your positive feedback guys!

BTW, here is another way to start your snot rock:

in this case you basically build your dark bley pieces into the snot water/swamp like this:

What I assume ME was referring to is that at the end of the rock section you end up with studs showing. But you can easily solve the issue by adding more slopes to the build.

by placing inverted slopes you can actually creat the entrance to a cave. Note, white plates among the blue bricks could show the effect of breaking waves.

all in all you can see, that this techniques gives you a lot more freedom to come up with interesting rock constructions

[narbilu]

cool, very helpful for my next MOC... thanks

[Lord Vladivus]

Definitely going to give this a go for my Nocty Dwarf mine! The cave part is super helpful!

[ZCerberus]

Great work kabel!

I always imaged SNOT rocks being used when it appeared the rock had been worn away by water or some other horizontal type erosion, but it would seem sedimentary rock in general is prone to this type of look.

I am going to try mixing the SNOT and studs up technique on the next build as ME has done.

[kabel]

Mixing snot and studs on top rock formations are definetely the way to go. Playing around with the bricks for this tutorial has evetually lead to me buiding this moc which also shows a mixture of snot and studs on tup rocks:

[Blufiji]

It's also good to note that while normally soft rock grological formations are deposited horizontal, hard rock geological formations are commonly found at various degree angles, even 90 degree vertical. So buiding rocks at 45 degrees or straight up if your trying to represent granite, marble, slate or the like is very realistic as well. Soft formations can go at angle, however it is often through a process called folding. Not trying to downplay Kabel's info, just letting you guys know that horizontal, vertical, angled and even upside down are all realistic SNOT rock techniques.

[kabel]

If you read the first post, you'll see that I was mostly referring to sedimentary rocks. Granite, marble, basalt etc. are either metamphoric or igneous types of rock.

I'm currently teaching the basics of geology to an 11th grade Geography class, that's how I came up with this tutorial. So I better shut up now!

[Commissioner Gordon]

great tutorial! look forward to using these techniques!

[Blufiji]

If you read the first post, you'll see that I was mostly referring to sedimentary rocks. Granite, marble, basalt etc. are either metamphoric or igneous types of rock.

I'm currently teaching the basics of geology to an 11th grade Geography class, that's how I came up with this tutorial. So I better shut up now!

I meant no offense just throwing out the some extra info. I'm a geologist working for an oil field company, though I don't think I could ever navigate the waters to teach classes. Not my thing but nothing but respect for the people who do. Quick term for sedimentary rock=soft rock, and for igneous/metamorphic=hard rock.

[HawkLord]

This is a must read for any kind of nature/outdoors MOCing. Very well done and explained.

[kabel]

I meant no offense just throwing out the some extra info. I'm a geologist working for an oil field company, though I don't think I could ever navigate the waters to teach classes. Not my thing but nothing but respect for the people who do. Quick term for sedimentary rock=soft rock, and for igneous/metamorphic=hard rock.

Well thanks for telling me, I hand't known that before. Guess we wouldn't simplify things like that in German academic Geology, which is to say that I have no clue wether our field geologists wouldn't do so either. Anyway, it makes sense to me though