2012-09-30

Who watches the Watchfigs?

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon's Watchmen is one of the best books ever made. Some of these figs have been posted on the Internet before, but they are mostly new designs.

Edward Blake, The Comedian, in his patriotic leather armour. The blue shoulder armour is a helmet from Power Miners line, and the American stripe cloth on the other side is constructed using few parts. The visor is connected with 1x2 TECHNIC liftarm on the back. It's completely purist but not very stable. I very happy with the Collectable minifigures series 5 gangster head. It captures The Comedian's attitude quite well.


This Rorschach is my only unpurist fig ever made and I'm not very proud of it. I don't like drawing to bricks (even when it's just another ugly fantasy era skeleton head and the marker is water-soluble..) and the mask didn't come up very good. The white pattern on the torso is just a piece of paper slipped between the torso and the bandanna (Which represents the trench coat's collar, I hope it would be brown). Well, at least the trousers are correct color and the cleaver from series 6 butcher works quite well.
Laurie Juspeczyk, or Silk Spectre II, is quite simple design with couple of rubber bands. The bright-light orange torso (From hazmat guy) makes a nice difference with the skin colour, yellow. Head from series 6 flamenco dancer has the correct beauty spot.
Daniel Dreiberg, Nite Owl II, is simple as well. The old miner helmet has nice ears on it, but I'm not that happy with the goggles. Goggles printed on head could work better, but I don't have any proper goggle-heads. Head from GB team swimmer could work quite well. I'll probably pick up one from BL some day. Nite Owl's cool owl cape is quite impossible to make correctly with LEGO pieces, so I went for basic cape instead. I've also built Dan's Owlship couple of years ago, and modified it a bit some time ago (yesterday, actually) and I'm planning to take better pictures of it soon.
Doctor Manhattan is done with basic pieces and some hue help with Gimp. Basically naked blue superman has yellow legs, Sea King's torso and crash test dummy head. Crash test logo isn't a hydrogen atom, but it's close enough. An it's quite unlike that LEGO will ever do a head with hydrogen atom logo, isn't it?

2012-09-22

MOC: Humppa-Pub

 Yes, it's finally done!

(Actually, it has been done for two weeks now, but I didn't manage to photograph until today.)

This is, as you probably have noticed, another MOC concerning my favourite band, Eläkeläiset, that plays humppa (old Finnish dance-music related to fast foxtrot) covers of other people's and bands' songs. Here's a couple of examples of band's humppas. Their logo is Humppaava Poro, the reindeer that does humppa, which I built using pneumatic hoses. Here's a reference pic. I'm very happy with it.

 This pub is located somewhere is Germany, as Eläkeläiset is pretty well-known there. It seems that there's something in the beautiful rhythm that attracts Germaniacs even when they don't understand a word of band's lyrics... So, I built a big KNEIPE sign to the facade. If we can trust the Internet, it means pub. And if it doesn't, the big pint on the roof should clear things up.  


Inside the building the band is playing and the dancefolk is dancing. In other words, humppa exists. Kristian Voutilainen batters the drums (the drumsticks are pieces that connects FABULAND figs' legs...), Martti Waris bounces the bass, Lassi Kinnunen abuses the accordion, Petteri Halonen strums the organ and Onni Waris plays the electric violin while he murders his organ. The merchandise master Pekka Jokinen is selling his treasures in the corner. Merry fellows!
 The building isn't than modern, probably an old house from GDR, completed with super modern cooling systems (there's a big fan inside the circle thing) and decanted plaster. Brick-bricks are used there to achieve the effect. Bikes and garbage containers add some colour. Plus there's a box of beer for emergency use. The punks have set on an illegal campfire and they are somewhat pissed of old humppa-folk... What means hard time to them. There are also some lights on the roof ridge, mostly because I ran out of tan tiles and bricks... The kleinbus bandwagon is parked on a SNOT parking lot on the other side of the building.

Make sure to check the Brickshelf gallery with lot of pictures when it's public.

-Pate-keetongu


2012-09-13

MOC: On the trail

 I built this little summerish scene for Finnish LUG Palikkatakomo's Great Summer Contest. The theme of the contest was something associated with summer, and to me, summer usually means some hiking and camping.

The family is on the trail and has stopped on a small river with vital brown trout stock. Father is just catching his second fish (Mother is gutting the first one) as he is a skilled fisherman. Little Tomer has only gotten some water plants, but that doesn't bother the little fellow.
The MOC is quite simple build. I usually prefer SNOT water, but I wanted to capture the looks of the fast stream, so I used regular studded plates and trans-clear and trans light blue bits to add some foam. I quite like the effect, though some trans-clear plates could have looked good there.

I wanted to built a fireplace similar to this. I'm quite happy with it. There's also some guideposts about the area and the nature.

-Pate-keetongu

2012-09-09

Steampunk figbarf 2

 Hello readers, It's time for steampunk figs again. Some of these figs are for old or incoming projects and some are just results of everyday tablescrapping.

Professor Marcellus Gartland Ostrich in his prototype Neptune power suit. Ostrich is an old whimsy gentleman who wanted to be a great hero, so he did some dramatic changes to his father's old scuba gear, including imposing brass muscles and metal gloves. He also forged a trident commensurate to ancient sea gods. Ostrich's adventure didn't went as well as expected, but at least he got some funny looks from ladies on the streets...









 General-governor Justanoff Crawford is the leader of the troops of Unstoppable Steam, elite regiment of the Royal Army. Crawford is a master tactician and very famour for his ambitious mustache. He is said to be an ancestor of Governor-commander Justunus, leader of the "Invasion", the biggest military mobilization in the history of the man. Some also believe he has some sort of connection with the legendary Mustache man...

Bomber Julian Flattery Twomey, the "Eagle Girl" of the Royal Air Force. Twomey uses high-tech propeller flightpack and delivers the bombs to their destinations by hand. In the beginning she wasn't allowed to joint the army because of her gender, but she later showed her courage on a private stunt shows. Twomey usually wears men's bomber jackets.
 Monster Hunter Aubrey Treesparrow Melledy is a man with a mission. He wants to travel around the world and beat all the rare, endangered or special races. By his own words, he does that for "self-defense"; luckily he usually carries a revolver, cutlass and clockwork bomb. Regardless his strange manners Melledy knows his style: Bowler, monocles and bis staches never go out of the fashion!
Professor Charles Darwin, war hero, airship pilot and part-time biologist. He flew his Bateleur-18 Steamfighter in the Galapagos Turtle wars and developed an interesting theory about Origin of species during his time on reserve. Darwin has his own-made flying armour with top-class life-support systems and utility belts.

-Pate-keetongu

2012-09-07

MOC: Bladis

 First of all, I'm sorry about the quiet time on this blog. School has taken a lot of time from me (I had geography's field course last weekend, for example) and the rainy weather (it rains right now, too) made photographing models impossible (Taking pictures outside gives a lot better photos than any of my lamps.)

Fortunately today I managed the take photos of my newest Bionicle MOC, Bladis. This KA-BLAMMO Skakdi moderator is Bio-Klaani's law enforcement's heavy shooting arm specialist also known with codename "Razorblade". He usually works with another moderator called Same, a long and slim Selakhikan warrior who prefers edged weapons.

The design is quite a basic, wide-shouldered skakdi build. Silver isn't my favorite colour, but at least big variety of Bionicle pieces comes in that colour, so I had many opinions about the armour plating. The MOC is around as tall as Guardian, the another important Skakdi on Klaanon. The spine however is bigger. I wanted to achieve a sharp and Mohawk-like look and HF stingers worked well. There are also some silver Bohrok eyes on the lower back.



The heavy arms were very important part of this MOC. The big cannon, whose barrel can be detached, is stun-grenade cannon that Bladis used recently to save (With not-so-good result) bedfellows Snowie and Kepe from angry mob of cannibal matorans. The big gun uses parts from air pumps from Racers sets few years back. Very good pieces!

The weapon on the another photo is Bladis' trustworthy Zamor Fist, an ideal cannon to shoot the protodermis out of Nazorak roaches. Bladis also has his green moderator stone, a handful knife and handcuffs (thanks thanks thanks, HF) to capture nasty persons.

-Pate-keetongu