Veron Zapper, heartened by Mayfly

Everyone is very well aware of tragic events happening west of Atlantic. Inequality and racism in pretty much every area of life are nothing new, but are, once again, uglily risen their heads as police officers killed George Floyd. Racism and inequality exist in Finland, also within police departments. But the manner in which US police officers are armed to teeth and trained for average nine months seems both disgusting and absurd. This posting is a small tribute; to bring diversity to my character models, which in contrast to minifigs, are not locked in standard yellow. This wasn't the model that was next on the line but it felt right to post it now. It's couple of months old, as my models nowadays tend to be when they're being published.

The model itself is a part of my Speeder Bike Racing project. It was supposed to be finished until Hupicon in April. It was cancelled, of course, so I feel I can continue with this as long as I'm interested (There's still one speeder and five figures built, and some larger structures). The theme portrays colourful sci-fi or cyberpunk world. One of the main ideas is to create cyberpunk without violence. Violence is baked-in component of most visual viction, for some reason. Now, as black people are killed to streets and journalists shot with rubber bullets in US, it seems that violence is not that absent in real life. But we can dream of better world.

This character, Veron Zapper, is an urban speeder contest enthustiast and fan of Delfte Solflare and Azure Mayfly. The contest needed audience, and it felt like a nice idea to have a s

econd set of characters based on the speeders and their riders; Herald of the Carp Speeder (who still needs a name) was built for New Elementary's Parts Festival. In Veron Zapper's case, the speeder motifs are used in colours - medium azure, bright light orange, red and dark bley - and usage of "waterfall" panels as the skirt; they're used to form the radiator of the speeder, too. Other key ideas were roller blades, a strong character element I don't think I've ever built, and medium blue hair that uses recoloured Tahu's fire swords from Berix.

The roller blades a combination of old and new type ones, with knee-high armoured boot but two rows of wheels each. The wheels are from mini batmobiles that were riddle-solving prizes in LEGOLAND Castle hotel during my visit at the LEGO house displayer. There is a small joint above the wheels, representing shock absorbers and boosting posing options. The use of Glatorian ankle guard on knee refers back to Delfte Solflare, and forms nice shape. Dark bley is used on the stockings between brightly coloured areas. The waterfall panels are nicely thin, so their shape follows the curve of the leg quite naturally, at least on front views - side and back views with those panels are less flattering, but skirts tend to be tricky. The positioning of those panels uses three points of articulation - a 1x2 brick hinge is connected to one stud on 1x4 swivel hinge plate to make it match perfectly.

The clean colour blocks continue to the t-shirt that uses cars front piece, a trick recycled from Lalibela Upbeat. Hudson Hornet Piston Cup print with flame pattern felt very fitting, and the colours matched with Nexo Knights 2x2 tile used above it. The arms are mostly the standard stuff, but I managed to use some turtles shells as the elbow guards. They're not the same aesthetics as the rest of the model, but felt funky. I'm happy with the curves on the hair; there's surprisingly lot of oddly-shapes pieces in medium blue available. Snake necks and life-saving rings bring dynamics to the hair ribbons, and the fire swords do their job just well.

To bring on some extra attitude and urban coolness I equipped the figure with a ghetto blaster that uses Friends karaoke sticker and a printed LP sleeve tile from CMF line; other two of the same print are used on the skirt. The speakers are Dimensions bases, another piece I've been wanting to use for a while. The strap uses always handy small chain links, again referring to Azure Mayfly's belt.

Stay safe, support equality and fight racism! Black lives matter.

-Eero.