Circle 2025

  

This is my Lego model of Finnish alternative rock band Circle. It is currently - and until 30th of August - in display at Pori Art Museum, Pori, as an intervention to Circle's Piste exhibition the museum. My model is placed in the museum lobby/gift shop and can be seen with free entry.

This is the new version of a 2018 creation. The original post can be found here. From 2019 to 2021, the original was on display at the Masterpieces Gallery in the LEGO House. You can find more about it here.

I I got the model back in 2021 and displayed it in Pori Pii Poo Lego event in February 2023, fresh from the official Lego plastic wraps. It felt appropriate as Circle is a Pori-based band. At that point I had added Richard Dawson, who had become a member of the band and performed in their most recent studio LP Henki and a couple of cassette releases. Then in mid-2024 I changed my home display, moving other models to storage to display Circle again. There were many annoying, outdates bits originating from 2018, and I knew I could improve them a bit, here and there, with more recent pieces (and skills). I decided to do a major overhaul. The model is of a great importance to me: firstly, because I like Circle; secondary, because Masterpieces Gallery was a meaningful experience for me personally. I had some doubt on the overhaul - should I leave the model as it was when displayed at the House? I decided that I should not - the old version remains in pictures, and I wanted to make the model easier to handle and be able to meet today's standards. Whatever they are.

I moved to a new home during this process (which I'll open later in this post). The latter half of the overhaul was done for this current museum display in mind. I mentioned the new upcoming version to Circle bassist and band leader Jussi Lehtisalo when buying some new Circle cassettes via Jussi's Ektro Records store. We ended up planning to use the model as an intervention in the Piste exhibit, and I installed it in early June. I took these images in the museum lobby before we closed the fibreglass case, with Jussi and the museum staff holding a black backdrop. Hefty thanks the Pori Art Museum staff for the opportunity, and Jussi for hosting me, presenting Pori curiosities, ice cream etc. 

Jussi Lehtisalo (sorry for the fuzzy image!): I entirely reworked Jussi's head, but otherwise the changes are quite small. I filled some studs of the white rims of the shirt with 1x1 tiles (I'm so rich now that I can afford 12 tiles), made the shoulder joints and shoes more stable, and lenghtened the lower legs by one stud. 

Pekka Jääskeläinen: Pekka got new legs and shoes, which are more stable and coherent than before. New dark blue boat studs are godsend. The waist has an interesting sliding hip joint to prevent gaps but allowing this foot-on-amp pose already in the original. The shirt structure is better, although the look didn't change much.  The head got some upgrades with the excellent 1x1 corner curved slopes (of Simba's paws) and some new dark brown pieces. Pekka's pedal board is authentic, as Pekka and Jussi supplied me reference photos.

Julius Jääskeläinen: The shoes and the lower arms and legs are original, while everything else is more or less new. The torso especially is a lot less blocky, while still preserving the simplified "crimimalize business" text, using old printed pieces from 1960s and probably even 1950s. The guitar now features Boss Me-5 device, as in photos supplied by Jussi and Julius.

Janne Westerlund: most of this has been redesigned, only the face remains mostly original. Newly recoloured orange pieces were helful, and pearl gold T-bars merge nicely withing the orange. Thanks for Fester especially for providing me the one missing 2x2 round tile with hole!

Richard Dawson: Richard was designed 4 year later and with mostly black pieces, so there was less to improve; the only changes are on the guitar head, as I was not happy with the original. Ironically, the instruments of the other characters were barely touched.

Tomi Leppänen (background): Original Tomi was fixed in a sitting position, but I wanted him to be able to stand up. As such, most parts have been reworked here. The torso now allows some rotation and is a slightly less blocky. The head features some recent parts for more rounded forms. I also replaces the old drum podium with a more realistic and down-to-earth rug. The drum microphones now have cables, and the heads are new to accommodate them; all the cables here are Lego. These are thicker cords from fire fighter hoses. They're mostly loose ends opened from the reels, stuck inside black axle-hole bushings and made tight with 3.18 mm bar connected in. I also replaced the dark orange dishes of the hi-hat with metallic gold for extra bling, but they're nor seen on this photo.

Mika Rättö (foreground): Mika was almost entirely rebuilt. The original model was on a fixed sitting pose, which I wanted to change as Mika's performance is very expressive. New magenta pieces introduced after 2018 were a great asset. The head was very tricky, Mika's features were not easy to recreate. I stuck with a bearded look of 2010s era to fit the colourful clothes. Minifig arm eyebrows helped to capture the strong expressions, but this took a lot of trial and error. The medium nougat colour was not obvious, neither - the old version had reddish brown hair and beard, but it was too dark. There's a better image of Mika (and Jussi) in the end of the article: it's a promotional image I took for the museum few weeks before the installation.

The other appliances: I entirely redesigned the stage monitors, built at least 5 new amplifiers and added more cables to create the somehow chaotic stage setting. Jussi was very helpful in deciding their exact positions in the dispay. In addition to the usual black ones, I also made two Orange amps to add some colour to the setting - Pekka already had one. Furthermore, I re-designed the Circle sign's stand to be sleeker and sturdier; the logo itself remains the same, as it was perfect from the beginning.

That's all for now; go to Pori and see it before it's too late (in the end of August).

-Eero. 

Goblin Raid Gang

This is my entry for Bio-Cup 2025, round 1, theme: Mythic Beasts: Troll/Orc/Goblin. I naturally went for goblins because goblins are the best of them. They're quirky, anarchist, and very much alive. They also never come in ones, so it was obvious from the beginning that I would make several. Two is a pair and have to be coded to compliment each other, whereas three is a gang and the singular goblins can be their own individuals, balanced by the other two. Making three characters was a rather heavy task for round 1, but then again, I knew to be against talented builders (as one round was dropper of to make the overall contest more competitive). Also, these are not very large characters.

I chose dark red as the skin colour early on - I generally dislike green goblins. I first tablescapped the goblin heads. The right one, with a wide nose, heavy jaw and small tusks was the first one. The middle one was easier, it is based on a goblin rogue character I'm playing in DnD, Gug. The left one took most trial and error. I wanted to make a brute with big teeth, and heavy brow with sort of skull armour plate. The problem was they eyes; when they were positioned forwards, the composition was too eagerly intelligent - something like Gollum. Angling the eyes 45 degrees solved the issue and made it look more unhinged.

After making the heads, I continued with the brute goblin - Brrag the Smasher - as I had a clear vision with him. I made heavy, scaled knees with plant pieces, expanded HF torso armour with ninjago spinner blades and built a heavy-set silhouette with wide shoulders. The Gen 2 skeleton warrior armour add-on piece is challenging to use, but its aesthetics worked very well here. I built the mace only after finishing all the goblins; I'm happy with how dangerous it looks.

 

I then continued to the triangular goblin head, based on my DnD character. I used a Vidiyo strap to make a collar, as certain streetwear quality fits goblins. This was going to be Van-Gug the Raidboss. The printed shield part from ninjago gave it some prestige, and the beautiful speckle-black copper pauldrons from KK2 helped with this confident feel without making it too polished. The limbs were difficult in this scale, as I wanted to use some constraction parts. Nevertheless, I'm quite happy with the minig armour as bare lower arms. The flag piece from Fantasy Era castle helped with the goblin feel.

 The final goblin was going to be more serious. The head was inspired by Japanese Tengu, so I gave him a Japanese-inspired armour: Kargas the Stalwart. I have a decent bunch of Uruk-Hai swords, and the made a nice pair of pauldrons. To be honest, I was running out of ideas for armour! The red-printed chest plate from Skull Grinder helped here, having the right aesthetic and colour. I was also able to use marbled Kalmah armour shells, which felt fitting for the theme, but were difficult to use due to their heavy connection points. Wide hat helped to create a distinct silhouette, as I didn't want to use a standard kabuto helmet. It also shades the face nicely.

 That's all for now. I have plenty of finished and photographed models, but being generally busy has kept me from posting them. Happy midsummer for all.

-Eero. 

Baku

It's summer again and that means Bio-Cup! The contest is made one round shorter and more competetive this year. It remains to be seen if I'll hang around until the final round this year. My goal is to make myself do some additional nice builds that I wouldn't otherwise do; and use some of these special pieces I've gained since the last year.

 

The theme for this year's prelims is dreams. This was my first idea for it - the Japanese folklore tapir that eats nightmares. When doing my background work I found out (in Wikipedia) that the creature is called Baku and the term also refers to Malayan tapir in Japanese. I also found out that this seems to be due a French misinterpretation of Chinese term Mo that means great panda (which westerners weren't aware of at the time) and mythical chimera Mo that is depicted on having rhino and elephant parts, thus looking like tapir. The French thus assumed that the panda would actually be an tapir; and it is possible that Japanese Baku is also a tapir because it's based on the chimera Mo that was thought to be the animal tapir and... this is something like a fever dream. Check Mo on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_(Chinese_zoology) 

 

 It was new to me that Baku is a mostly benevolent being - that's something I like. Especially as tapirs are friendly to start with. Nonetheless, Baku is a creature of night, so I made it somehow demonic (but not in a very serious way). It was also more amusing to build while looking slightly demonic! I began with the eyes (though the tire rims were later addition) and soon continued to the mouth (munching nightmares), snout and the cool mane. I'm very happy with the mane!

 

I wanted to have the colours of Malayan tapir, so this creature has a white "diaper". It's a lot harder to build white Bionicle mass, mostly due to limits in available parts, but also because the mechanical details look so severe on white - all the shadows are visible, and it's harder to build flowing shapes. Nevertheless, it turned out decent - only it isn't very visible in the main photos. 

Soothsayer of the Groves

I built this model for New Elementary review of 10347 Petite Sunny Bouquet. Lego gave us a hefty time frame before the review embargo, so I was easily able to make a MOC - something unusual for a prerelease article. The set had plenty of interesting pieces to work with, so this was a win-win situation. I began working with an old tablescrap of a ruffled dress; it was mostly white, but I extended it with a white-orange gradient, enabled by the bright light yellow recolours of the set. The character was then defined by the head scarf, made using yellow petals/shoulder pads from the set and furnished with some more bright light yellow recolours. They embrace each other beautifully. Otherwise, the character is quite simple - I wanted to capture the vibe of a warm atmosphere, free of stuffy clothes. The wrist bands are sunflowers from the set, and a pair of sandals felt like a fitting footwear choice. I paid extra attention to the sculpting of the neck - something that I might have overlooked in the past.

The staff was a relatively late addition, I felt posing the figure needed something like it. Those 3L long axle connectors are nice as they can be grabbed with fingers, enabling natural grips (but requiring very careful balancing). The staff was a good place for those bright pink recolours which I wanted to use but not on the figure's attire itself. I like their colour pop.

The base balances the composition, helping with the storytelling and again using some of the recolours. The middle part of the large flower is taken directly from the set, being its most succesful design. The white outer petals are my addition. Futhermore, I like how the tangling vines add a touch of randomness to the base. With its bright colours, especially the lime ground, the whole feels like an Easter ornament - but I suppose that was simply fitting for the time of its origin.

-Eero.

Kerosiinipelle

This is Kerosiinipelle, a character of Klaanon, and a gift built for the creator of the original character. Again, and like Keetongu last year, this is a System version of a Bionicle character; I've learned this concept irritates some Bionicle Revival kids so I have to make them.

Being a gift, this had to be sturdy enough to be handled someone who's not me. I also wanted to deliver this in pieces with instructions (and I did), so it could not be too tricky to built either. To be honest, my assistance was required once or twice, but I believe the issue was more in the unclear instruction design (made by me in Studio, of course) than the build itself. Anyhow, this smallish build packs a decent array of little techniques I've come up with; there are many hidden bars reinforcing the limbs, for example, so Kepe here can be posed without falling apart.

I've built Kerosiinipelle maybe two or three times before. The previous version from 2014 is here; I can't link the older versio(s) as Brickshelf is currently down. I must mention that I have huge respect for Wall of History for resurrecting it - I think Brickshelf holds the most imporant part of the history of this community, including plenty of my personal history as well. I've never been one to censor my older models, no matter how embarrasing they are. I made them as a kid.

I don't have many exciting remarks on this model, but I like to emphasis the head design. It emulates great Matatu, but in much smaller scale - earlier Bionicle sets had huge heads. Kerosiinipelle is a lightly built character, so having a smaller mask (or head) made sense. However, 3 studs wide felt huge and 2 studs wide way too small (miniland figure in an exo-suit). This has two bricks with a plate layer in-between, with some widening made with nexo shields - those pieces have the alluring slightly sloped sides, always so useful. The mad Lego maths mean that the 2x2 round tile with stud, turned 45 degrees, has its opposing antistuds in level with those bricks, one plate apart from each other. The same trick enables the classic floor technique I used almost ten years ago in my Winter Village Brewery. The math is not exact, but the tolerances allow it seamlessly.

-Eero.