For every Halloween house, I create previsualizations to help me plan the layout of the set pieces and props. I do sketches, create Photoshop mockups, or build paper models. This year, as I pondered how I was going to plan the Lego themed house, I realized that the best way to plan out a Lego scene was to use…Legos.

So, I printed out a Lego-scale version of my yard and the front of my house and began to put Legos in the scene to figure out placement of the major pieces. I built Lego steps and Lego versions of our bushes and sidewalk barriers.

I pulled our my Legos from when I was a kid and built a Lego spaceship, adjusting it several times to fit in our front yard space. I used a stand in for the Kragle for scale (I didn’t have Krazy Glue, so Loctite would have to do).

My daughter had the Lego Movie set with the double decker couch, so I built that and added it to the scene. Our min-fig costumes will not be at the same scale, so I printed out paper versions of what we will be like with our costumes on for reference.

When I didn’t have a particular set, I would print out a paper representation of it (like the medieval tower and horse). I also printed out large-scale Lego instructions that will be part of the scene to figure out their size and positioning.

I even added paper versions of the heart, star and clouds from the Lego movies to add to the house.

All of these little models (made of Lego or paper) helped me quickly envision and adjust the final scene, and also allowed me to create the previsualization sketch for this year (below).

Lesson I learned: When trying to model a scene about modeling toys, consider using the modeling toys themselves to model the scene.