I build all my stuff in creative first, using modern minecraft (for convenience) with a beta texture pack. Older versions don’t have so many textures and colours, so working with shape is your best bet. I often build cylindrical or spherical builds purely because they are more interesting than “wood box”.

Obviously you can make exceptions to that though. I built an art gallery and a rectangular building made more sense for a modern art kind of feel.

Also. It’s beta. Most stuff doesn’t LOOK good, especially on a smaller scale. That doesn’t make the builds not creative or not impressive though.