The Shadow General

The year rolls towards its end but the models just keep rolling. They have to. This was built for a Secret Santa collab and dedicated to DanielBrickSon, inspired by models Kumamoto Castle Samurai, Wake up Samurai and the general abundance of Japanese culture elements in his creations. Merry Christmas Daniel!

I had a tight schelude for this build, as I wanted to finish it before leaving for Christmas at my parents' home. Thus, I built this in one day, December 20th. I have built many samurais in the past, which was a great asset. Furthermore, I (finally) watched two Kurosawa samurai films this year, and this was partly inspired by Kagemusha. While not portraying anything from the movie per se, the title is a direct reference.

I began the process by tablescrapping the mask, which is inspired by Daniel's life-size one. Embedding robot hand into the headlight brick made it possible to have quite small teeth in addition to the larger fangs. The nose handlebar is not officially connected, but stays finely between the other parts. A small area of skin - two tan headlight bricks - reveal that this is indeed a human in suit. Usage of the large horn pieces as the helmet sides was the very first thing assembled here, and the pearl gold crest is borrowed directly from Daniel's Kumamoto Castle Samurai.

I wanted to keep the armour realistic while still playing with some new parts of this year. Thin mudguards pieces from rose bouquet set are used in the limbs, and the shoulder pads are from the same source. The golden ornament on the neck guard is from the not-yet-released bamboo set. The torso armour is a simple cylinder of 1x2 round plates, with 1x1 round plates and flowers in-between for colour. The skirt flaps are connected directly to the cylinder, which enables their variying angles. Unusually, all the joints save the wrists use ball joints. This enabled sturdy limbs, fitting for an armoured warrior, and references to the constraction community this Secret Santa circle is based on. I must confess I really like those large Star Wars upper legs shells; they save time and look natural, perfect for spots were the legs are mostly hidden and thus don't require extra effort to look interesting.

-Eero.

Diver

 This MOC goes back to this spring, when the first images of Dreamzzz summer wave sets where published. These included 71478 The Never Witch's Midnight Raven which has a bubbling cauldron on the back of bird, featuring a pair of new pieces. My first reaction was: That's definitely a vintage diving helmet part, I'm sure it'll appear in some other set in such use. Maybe on a diver mech. I'm sure they wouldn't have just accidentally designed a part that looks that much like a vintage diving helmet. I mean, it has a round hole for window and everything. Weird that the set than has it in fun secondary use got revealed first, though... I wonder in which theme the actual diver will appear in?

 My theories were doubted by the New Elementary team. And I took an oath that if I'll end up reviewing a set with that part I'll build the damn diver to go with the article, to prove my point. Guess what? No, no sets with big diving helmets were revealed, so far; and I ended up reviewing some of the sets of the wave, including both sets with the piece in it. I dodged my oath first time, as my MOC accompanying the review of 71483 The Never Witch's Nightmare Creatures featured Cordelia in it, inspired by the many magenta and dark purple pieces. But when writing my review on the Midnight Raven, I had no other choices. 

Not that I'd be complaining. Vintage diving suit are cool as hell. I built one a decade ago. It is a mix of different part types with too strong, clashing textures. And clashing background wrinkles as well. The new version is also much smaller, as the scale of the helmet couldn't be negotiated with. Dark tan felt like the best choice for the suit. It is also hue light enough to prevent the model from ending up too dark with the dark pearl grey helmet. In general, this scale is something I don't work on often - but accidentally, the recent Théoden is pretty close. 

I used CCBS shells to give the impression, of relatively loose, heavy fabric. These isn't much range of motion (and thus only two photos), but at least the posture is natural enough. Lack of motion is probably acceptable in a heavy suit like this. There weren't many essential details, but I included the weighted-down shoes for seabottom walks. Funnily enough, the neck armour thing was the last addition - I hadn't done much background work, but fortunately realised that they were essential before photographing. Last but not least, I'm particularly happy with the mittens.

-Eero.

Théoden and Snowmane

 This was my entry to my LUG Palikkatakomo's Movement Contest. I got the first prize in the pro category - second time in row this year (and the final tally wasn't as tight as last time). This was a last-minute builds, and I had to shot it with artificial light as the sun of the last day had long since set. These images are new, taken today - you can see my original ones in the end of this article. The video is original, though (it was shot by Pinja who also made the photographing set). As the name suggests, the aim of the contest was building a movement, in a literal sense - no political movements - fr example. The rules allowed both "real" movement via mechanisms and sense of movement frozen in time. The first type was more popular.

In my approach, I merged a long-time potential shortlist project into the contest requirements. The updated Finnish translation of Lord of the Rings was published late last year, an impressive edition with illustrations by the author and chapter names in red ink. I read it in the beginning of the year (I think I read the book for the first time in 2007 or 2008), followed by the watching of the Peter Jackson films (still holding their thunder and more), and, last but not least, reading History of the Lord of the Rings, published in The Return of the Shadow, Treason of Isengard, War of the Ring and the first part of Sauron Defeated. I've had the hardcover compilation edition for about ten years, but I had never read them from cover to cover, only dipping my toes in the most intriguing matters. I had missed a lot of content. On these reads and watches, I was particularly touched by the mysterious Hold of Dunharrow, where the Muster of Rohan takes place, and the riding of the army through the darkness sent from Mordor. This story element is mostly gone in the films, for a good reason: You need proper light to show things in the screen, something that written word doesn't have to worry about. But it also makes the arrival of the riders in the long-awaited dawn more powerful.

My desire to build King Théodon goes further back, though. I was impressed by the character in the first time I saw the trilogy in around 2005; the character is successfully deepened from the books, and the performance by the great late Bernard Hill reminded me of my grandfather. I remember making a watercolour painting of Théoden around 2011; but I had not really touched the subject since. Rohirrim are very strongly about movement, and the charge in the Pelennor fields was the moment of glory for Théoden. This was the moment I had been looking for.

 Nonetheless, the task was not easy. I've never built motion sculptures. I used to make some walking machines in around 2010, but this was quite different. The horse didn't need to gallop, it needed to look like it would be going relentlessly forward, hundreds or kilograms of horse and man about to smash into the troops of Mordor. I stared at the gif version of Muybridge horse sequence, proving that a galloping horse has each hoof in air at the same time. I had really no idea how to achieve that - but I knew someone who did. I had the pleasure to meet Jason and Kristal Allemann when we displayed models simultaneously in the LEGO House 2019-2021. Jason designed his famous Galloping Horse model in 2020, with free PDF instructions. I took Jason's design as a base to expand and revise on.

I soon realised some design aspects that I needed to change. Jason's horse has perfectly flush motion without pauses and crackles. This was enabled by simplified anatomy, featuring only two joints on each legs. I wanted to be closer to the real animal in Muybridge sequence, so I added the third joint to each leg. This caused some problems, but I overcame them with white rubber band sinews that steer the movement to the right direction, preventing the legs from locking. I managed to do this while still keeping the same Technic mechanism, connected to each leg with bars. I also think it was beneficial in the contest to have a heavy modified mechanism instead of a directly copied one.

Jason's horse design is streamlined and beatiful, like a classical sculpture. I wanted to take Snowmane to a bit different direction: This was the war-horse of proud warrior folk, a large beast with heavy hooves and blaring nostrils and visible horse-teeth. I looked for the movie design for inspiration, but the horse armour needed to be lighter to allow the movement. I also leaned heavier to greens, the colour of Rohirrim. Nonetheless, the clasp in the front is a direct reference to the movie design. I'm particularly happy with the chicken suit wing ears and the Technic cam (snow)mane.

I built the complete motorised horse before taking any stabs at Théoden himself. I let the horse design determine the scale, which ended up being quite a bit smaller than I had though. As a result, Théoden is somewhere between Miniland and my usual scale. I knew from the beginning that there would be a spear and a shield, and that the spear would be positioned to skewer some orcs, and that the shile d would feature a reprise of a sun design I made in 2012 for Ragnfast, who I believe was my first model to be featured in The Brothers Brick. I wasn't able to make a green background for the shield so I had to settle for dark orange.

Théoden had to be very sturdy to not fall apart in the galloping motion, so I couldn't have the usual level of sophistication on the limbs. I included the essential details, like the stirrups and some chain mail. Théoden is described drawing his sword after his spear shatters, and here it rests in the scabbard waiting for the moment. I liked Théoden's helmet design in the films, but I felt that this scale was too small for anything like that, so I made a new design. I'm very happy with the combination of the arch pieces, click hinge nose and the bushy beard (Théoden is fortunately descibed having a long white beard). It's pretty close to some Miyazaki geezers, a very personal and proud point of reference. The armour shell helmet is far from any historical designs, but it was compact enough, preventing the head from growing too large.

2025 will show how well the mechanism will endure in the exhibitions. It's driven by 1990s 9V motor connected direcly to the output of a train speed regulator. Getting power from the grid is helpful in the events, and regulating the speed made the mid-process testing easier. As the weight of the model gradually rose, I needed more and more speed to have it running properly. Ultimately, the maximum speed was not too much.

Furno 1000

I don't like Hero Factory much. I was bit too old back in the day to have actual childhood awe on them, though I obviously bought many sets for parts and liked some of the designs (especially on the Breakout wave). This didn't stop me from taking part on a Finnish Ordeal of Fire collab on Pii Poo Helsinki event last August. In the end, we chose not to do a simultaneous collab post, which makes this model isolated from its original context; but I'm posting this now anyway.

Ordeal of Fire was the premiere of CCBS system. The heroes had similar asthetics, sharing the helmet piece with different add-on from cowcatchers to eye scopes. 2065 Furno 2.0 was a relatively uninteresting design, with funny goggles being its most distinct feature. In addition, he has a Swiss army knife -style shield weapon. I learned during the build process that the heroes were equipped with ice weapons to fight the fire-themed villains, and we agreed to feature them in the models. Thus, the ice shield and the goggles were my starting points. 

This was a fast build, really a last-minute creation before the exhibit. I wanted to differiantiate heavily from the original set as I didn't like it or own it; I also dislike the basic concept of Hero Factory as it's quite dystopic. I did see no reason for Furno to look very human-like; I wanted it to be alien and twisted; and I found myself leaning bit to Gollum and asymmetry, emphasising some mechanical details. I've always liked the Breakout launcer piece, and a pair of them formed the lower legs. Another HF classic, the rounded pauldron, found its way to the kneecaps and the shoulder armour of the free hand - mirrored by a Technic figure helmet on the shield arm.

The head was the defining part, and I used some System here to form the face under the goggles. The goggles themeselves are based on those flat silver Batman accessories I acquired for my first Parts Festival in New Elementary in 2019. Originally, the neck connection was more twisted, featuring a very hunched pose. It somehow went to far, making no sense in the robot context, so I changed it into more modest design, closer the to original. The shield weapon is a simple combo of two parts, Gelu's blade and Breakout Furno's armour. I've always like these parts: The blade has a striking shape, with its colour contrasting nicely with the reds, and the yellow print on the armour calls back to the yellow face. In hindsight, some additional yellow details on the limbs would have worked.

-Eero.

Cordelia

I built this MOC to accompany my New Elementary review of two Dreamzzz sets. I had two options - either use those new scuba helmet/mech torso halves for something dieselpunk-like, or simply answer the call of my soul and build something with those interestingly shaped dark purple and magenta pieces. I chose the latter, as I had another set with those halves to review.

The first part I made were the boots, featuring this neat lacing made of cattle horns. The set included five of them, but I luckily had some more, enabling a decent design. The boot caps use D-SNOTs - another use for those fabulous parts. The more interesting (and challening) part use on the legs is the mega macaroni tube of the upper leg. I used those pieces already on my new Zero Suit Samus to capture curved human shapes. Here, they are used differently, on the actual limb. In real life, human thighs are not sausages with 45 degrees curve; but the dress allowed me to hide the problematic concave, thus leaving only the slight convex visible. It's not so different from slight curves of human leg muscles, even though the bone inside is obviously straight.

The rest evolved upwards. The colours suggested something like a gothic Mary Poppins, or an average con-visitor. Magenta rock pieces made a nice vibrant frill, and the theme continues to the striking layer of spike pieces above it. The lacing of the corsetry uses hands from Dogan minifig, as Dogans are so common in this wave of Dreamzzz sets.

Another challenge emerged when I returned to dark purple. I again wanted to use macaroni tubes, this time the middle-sized version, to make human shapes: the shirt emerging from the dress. The ones on the bust have no issues, and I like the Victorian flair of the printed piece below the neckline. However, the ones in the shoulders change the basics of my figure making: while achieving the nice rounded curve of the shoulder, they also turn the shoulder joint 45 degrees downwards. This caused some irks when posing, but I managed to play along.

The hairstyle that uses Dizzie's hairpieces and Never Witch's swirly base pieces was part of the initial idea. I'm quite happy how it turned out, giving the challenges of connecting pieces designed for minifigure looks instead of system requirements. The upwards curve of the swirly bases give this character a sort of brisk style I usually look for when building. As a side note, the medium nougat 1x2 double slope is one of the best recent recolours; this is the first time I use one.

The model was completed with the umbrella, as accessories like this make the posing funnier. I considered some musical instruments, but this seemed like a fresh idea. I'm particularly happy with the petal piece under the strap, and a shepherd's staff is used again inside the ribbed hose to give it the tightly curved shape.

-Eero.