MANEUVER-STRATAGEM IV

 

It's summer and I've been traveling a bit, but here I'm again, posting a creation for you. This is the fifth part of IV series of futuristic figures dressed in red and black. It's the last one for now, meaning I don't have any left waiting to be posted; but I have some ideas for what this theme would still have to offer, so time will tell. 

MANEUVER-STRATAGEM IV is a unit for strategic planning actions. I wanted to build something with a theme of officer's gear to command more action-based characters. Everything is a bit grander here. RADIANT-EXERT IV already featured some gold details, so adding some here felt natural. I also wanted to make sort of mantle-like attire with Clickits buttons. These were the starting points for this build concept-wise, but actually the build began as sort of compromise: I had designed the lower legs during Christmas time at my parents' home with pieces I had bought from Pii Poo at Helsinki on the way to North Carelia; they were designed for RESIST-BOISTEROUS IV at first, but as the knees didn't bend enough, they were unfitting for motorbike-riding posture. They fit this concept though, being a bit over-the-top with knee armour shaping. The only change they went from the original design built with very limited array of parts was changing 1x4 slopes into the weird TECHNIC sloped holding the knee pads.

Black and red have a fantastic contrast, so dividing them into strong colour blocks has felt ideal on this series. The shoes are dark red mostly for part selection reasons. They have one stud taller heels that the other builds on this series, as this character is less battle-focused. Heigh gives some authority, too. Maybe the different colour difference with the armour suggests that the shoes can be changed into something more reasonable if needed, though reason and sense are not very high priority on this series, to be honest. The upper legs are black and simple, as usually, and dark red skirt hides the joint areas; I'm particularly happy with the dark red line between it and the mantle. I wanted the mantle to have a strong profile, and it is composed with bit round pauldron (one of the best CCBS parts) and coattails using dinosaur tail pieces. The leeves are red with new armoured elbows. Golden wrist cuffs and red lines on upper torso are bringing some wealth to the attire. The hands were a nuisance, as I wanted the character to have darker skin shade, and skeleton arms don't come in brown. Exo-force robot arms would have been to bulky and clip/bar hole connectors too short. I settled with black battle droid arms as a compromise. They have some elegance, but the feel bit too thin and the clips on the ends bug me a bit. But you can't always win, no.

I wanted to design an afro-inspired outstanding, curly hair. 2x2 round plated can be used to build an interesting patterns. I've used them as smoke and steam before, and similar design in black looked great as curly hair. It has sort of joints all over, so it can be easily twisted in different shapes. I'm quite happy with it. 

To emphasize the strategic task of the character, I built a planning table type thing for her. I'm happy with the base that uses odd parts like hot air balloon ladders, dice and plane tails; Unfortunately the surface of the table is not visible on the photos, it's made of 1x1 tiles in trans-red over white plates. There are models of some futuristic yet dark building on it to plan attacks on bad guy's lair. The tallest tower is based on those that will be build on Tampere's city centre. I believe their effect on the cityscape won't be entirely good.

The next build will be a small animal.

-Eero