Forenoon Shift at the Waterside Café

This is my entry for Lego Ideas' Paradisa: Summer Vibes contest. It's my farawell to the summer vibes of 2026. And finally, it's the epilogue of the contest season of 2026. I won some other and was the fifth in Bio-Cup. Now it's time to relax and bit. To build without pressure. I think this model is very fitting to this theme. I passed on the post of the chairman of the Finnish LUG Palikkatakomo a little less than a year ago (feels longer!) to have less stress on the hobby and to focus more on the best part, that is, buildings my own models. I had enjoyed the post of chairman, and managing the meetings, but I had hold the post for many years, plus been on the LUG council for all my adult life. I did not want to be responsible of the national scene all my life. On this spring, I took a short break from making New Elementary articles, again to focus on using the pieces I had got via those articles along the years. I got back to New Elementary business before the summer holiday, but the break worked and I had plenty of energy. I made dozens of Vembus - I have published only four here so there are still plenty to come. I made ten contest entries during the spring and the summer. And managed to push a couple of other MOCs out between them, too. 

 It was worth it. The last Bio-Cup entry was the worst, it really got me to the edge. I built this one on the following day, after a working day in Hervanta - with three reservations. First, I left work at three o'clock instead of the ordinary four. Second, I had made the figure's head already two years ago. He was supposed to be Gustaf Estlander, the architect who I studied on my master's thesis and in a book released in 2023. I planned making a figure of Estlander to promote my book on exhibitions, but that never actualised. Third, I added the pool of water and the flowers on the next morning. Flowers because the composition needed them; water because my initial entry was not accepted because the contest brief requires waterside activities - that was emphasised with bold, so fair enough! I got the notification 1 hour and 2 minutes before the deadline, but I had decided to work from home that day just in case of such emergency, and was able to add the water, re-photograph and edit in 25 minutes. 

 In the entry description I mentioned that "this model is a love letter to the smart-dressed waiters. piccolos and conciegres of the Paradisa theme."The only Paradisa set we had when I was a kid was 6417 Show Jumping Event. It didn't have waiter minifigure, but we had a couple of those moustached head prints from somewhere else. They were very imporant to me - I always wanted to have facial hair, and non-classic smiley heads were a rarity. Later on I got that smartly dressed waistcoat torso, too. So, that minifigure was the focal point. I added a hat as my Estlander doodle had one already, and it was fitting for the theme. It gave the figure more character.

The base plate here is another childhood gem, straight from the late 90s. It was from some Belville set, though I don't recall having any Belville figures in the house. Nonetheless, it was part of many large (in that time standards) models I used to do with my sister; good times. It was perfect here as Medium Green is such an essential part of Paradisa. However, in my memories the piece was lot bigger, and I imagined that it would fit a lot more things on it. Originally, this was going to have another figure on a sun chair. In the end, I didn't have time, and the model worked better without - but I substituted it with a cat to create some sort of situation, or a relation between two living beings.

 Otherwise, this model is very close to my initial idea. The VW van windscreen defined the scale of the ice cream stand. Otherwise, I wanted to keep it simple, with well visible ice cream selection that uses old colour (dark pink strawberry-cherry, medium green pear and old brown chocolate). The angled counter is not particularly useful, but it enabled me to use the slate prints from paradisa. A fake stone counter fits Paradisa's postmodernist utopia excellently. The counter is completed with little silly ice cream prints. They are from a bunch of uncomplete Education light sensor lab sets I have - naturally...

But the most imporant is the figure. I wanted to have a relaxed, almost bored but still mainly content atmosphere - to honour the quiet staff of Paradisa. The figure was easy, and I'm very happy with it; trousers, shoes, everything. The way how the shirt bulges slightly under the arms. There is not that much of technical prowess here, except maybe the use of microphones as the buttons, true to the original figure print. In Lego Ideas, I got a nice comment from an ex-ice cream vendor about this model, and it was very touching. It made this MOC worth of the trouble, even it doesn't win anything. The contest is still on.

- Eero.

Moirai

  
And so Bio-Cup 2026 draws to its end. The category of the final round was Fate and Fortune; I build the Moirai, or the three fates from the Greek mythologies. They appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. From left to right: Atropos, the cutter of the thread of life; Clotho, with the thread of life on her spindle; and Lachesis, the measurer of the thread of life. Now, this MOC was very stressful to make. I had a hike in Käsivarsi (Arm) wilderness area two weeks ago, five nights in tent and 80 km of walking on the fells. Came back in middle of this round. I like the category though - but the subject I chose was not the simplest one! The contest season of this summer drew longer than expected, and I had plenty of exhaustion levels at this point. But I'm happy with the result, especially its colours.

Atropos I built first and the upper part remained quite a similar thorough the process. I really like Scarox's mask, it's a jewel among the subpar Brain Attack sets; creepy and chunky. Here, it works as a crown that also covers Atropos' eyes. The stomach features the mask of... I don't know what, but the evil mask from Bionicle Generation II. It reminds me of real-world death masks of pharaohs and such, and felt fitting here. I positioned it as the uterus the emphasise the symbolisms of birth and death. Atropos was initially going to have a sprawling, tentacle-like lower part instead of legs; initially, they all were going to have something like that, being connected to each other via base... or something. I was too stressed to concept anything like that, so I went with legs. Mostly.

Of the three, I'm happiest with Clotho. The head with a distantly hoplite-like helmet, made of trans-clear opal leaf pieces, was part of the original concept along with the fancy Avokhii pauldrons. Red mantle worked well with these elements, also tying it to the Bionicle colour theme of destiny (the red star). And dark red always looks nice, right? The idea of continuing the robe to the lower part was actualised late in the process, and it enabled me to make some authentic Bionicle part sculpting. The patterns are messy, of course, but that's Bionicle to you. If you want smooth shapes, use boring curved slopes... No jokes, I'm happy with it! Though I had no idea what to do with the feet, so I just obscured them with the crib! The string is from some big Technic crane, it was a spontaneous addition to Bricklink cart two or three years ago. Fortunately so.

Lachesis was confusing one. I wanted to use silver to complete the colour scheme of the trio, and to match the golden pieces of Atropos. It also felt fitting to make her less dramatic and more benevolent. Nonetheless, the large hair - or is it a helmet? is not entirely reassuring. Spinax's head piece was here from the beginning, giving an impression of a draping metal gown frozen in time. I also like the jewelry on the upper arms, contrasting to similar golden motif on Atropos. The wing foil sheet ultimately saved this model, as I had no idea what to do with the legs. They're actually pieces exhibited on Pick-A-Brick booth at Skaerbaek 2024 with other new parts. The parts were given to the New Elementary team, and Jonas Kramm sent me the foil pieces, conveniently in a letter. I just removed them from their punching sheet for this. Thanks, Jonas.

 Next up, another contest entry. But I've built and shot and submitted it already, so now I can declare the contest season of 2026 over - and relax and pick mushrooms and build whatever I like. I won every catagory of Summer Joust I took part in, so this season has already been successful enough.

-Eero. 

Lure

 

This is my entry for Bio-Cup 2026, round 3, theme: Sleight of Hand. The theme description went as follows: Trickery, illusion, fool us if you can! This round's theme is all about deception, trickery, and mischief! Show us what tricks are up your sleeve! This theme isn't about wizards and dragons, but how it's all just smoke and mirrors. The performance, the drama, the illusions that make the unreal seem real.

I'm still not sure how this fits. I found the category very difficult. Are the tricks and illusions about the MOC or its presentation? My first idea was to make an infinite scene using two mirrors. The subject would have been Bohrok swarm, that is, an endless row of one, redesigned Bohrok, in some nest-cell like vignette. But I felt that Bohrok, or anything else in such endless scene, would have had nothing to do with trickery per se. Furthermore, I felt that in such model the main thing would have had nothing to do with Lego and Bionicle pieces: the trick could have been achieved with any medium, two mirrors, and a camera. I wanted to build the trick.

 But I didn't want to make super high-concept out-there MOC, especially as I had only few days to build - I am leaving for a week-long hike on Saturday, and that takes a plenty of preparations. Instead, I wanted to focus on the strenghts of Bionicle building - creatures and characters. What kind of creatures use trickery? Building a magician would have been dull, and too close to the theme 1 which was about magic and mysticism. I wanted to make something really anti-magic, which means, I suppose, not humans. I looked for deception in the animal world and was drawn to anglerfish that use bioluminescence to lure prey. Is it a sleight of hand? Probably not, but if Bio-Cup limits itself to creatures with hands, then damned it is. It's trickery, at least.

 I build the scariest anglerfish I could with the limited parts and time I had. The lure is the trans-neon-yellow Kaukau, which surely will lure some Bionicle fans. It was also nicely connected to the 2001 Bionicle theme with the Rahi beasts having removable masks around their bodies. To underline this, I added a swimming matoran who is after the mask - if it is a mask in the first place.

Photographing this was tricky. I held the matoran by its chain of air bubbles. I could not be behind the camera framing the shot, so I used 12 second shutter delay and watched the camera screen using a mirror. It worked pretty well, and, amusingly, added the mirror aspect to the MOC - although that is not apparent in the final shots.

-Eero.

Ps. I won each three category of Summer Joust I participated in, plus the main prize and the best scoring model prize. So far, the contest season is looking successful, no matter how Bio-Cuo goes.

 

Vembu Batch 1

 Vembu (from Old Steltial vembulum, to bear, carry, convey; ride) is a vehicle. In this case, they are usually relatively fast builds, with one well-defined idea, modest size, and a goal of letting go of the unnecessary pressure and stress to make super good and professional MOCs. There are dozens of them, made during the last six months or so, and I'm posting them on few batches. Most of them, anyway. The thing is, they're a part of collaborative project where some other folks have come up with the names and the lore. I'm mostly focusing on the building process, leaving most of the madness shrouded.

 Umbra's Endomothopter

 I was building Umbra's parasitoid wasp flyer, so Endomothopter is close enough. The tail wing uses Umbra's sword and the cool Technic mudguards had a yellow print that fit Umbra's colours perfectly. The whole model grew around those mudguard pieces and the bubble cockpit than integrates into it beautifully. The model is obviously inspired by the ornithopters in Dune, but I took a more playful route and went full insect mode. Gorast's wings are beautiful pieces. I like how a brown leather seat gives a real-life vibe to contrast with the weird scifi around it.

Gaggu Walger

This, too, is very close what I intended: a walker for Gaggulabio, who is a warlord and a baker. The working title was Gaggu-koma to refer to machikomas built during Marchikoma. This was probably built in March but I'm not sure. Nonetheless, I was in love with those petal/tongue windscreen pieces from the tulips bouquet set, and purple was perfect for Gaggulabio. Again, there's a normal-looking leather seat, a motif I seem to enjoy. The "head" with the worn cake print is consciously simplistic, but I probably should have added some greeble below the mech chest piece.

Selecius-Moped 2000-X

"[Character]'s Moped" is the Platonic idea of a vembu. This was obviously going to be Tawa's motorbike, again inspired by the tulip windscreens. Furthermore, it is inspired by the countless huge Ninjago motorbikes, and parodises them a bit. It has no steering, the wheels are big... I like the round shapes of this one. It's a simple model, but sometimes building things like this helps to keep the hobby fresh.

Barraki Carapar #8918 Assault Wagon / Megatronius

Here, I was building a neutral tank fitting for any side of the Mysterys Nui conflict. It is inspired by French Renault FT, the light tank from World War I that revolutionised tank design. I'm not much into war history, but I have a soft spot for WWI tanks. Most of them are somehow humorous, and none of them were that efficient human killing machines. Renault FT could be from some Miyazaki movie. This, of course, is not a faithful replica - the turret especially is very different, ans I discovered a neat combo with the pirate cannon piece and the definitely-not-scuba-helmet pieces from Dreamzzz ("cauldrons halves"). The tank rolls and the turret rotates. And shoots 1x1 round bricks, of course. 

Warlord Carcinisation

 

Most of the Six Sovereigns were sickened with the effect that the dark waters had on them, but the King of the Southern Titans was plainly pleased with his new supernatural strenght. Now, he was able to squeeze matorans into jelly with one hand only, and no-one required him to use fork and knife while eating. The water resistance made his siege ballista lamentably inefficient, but he's working on it.

This is my entry to round 2 of Bio-Cup. The theme is Metamorphosis. I had a couple of tries with other ideas that I didn't want to procceed with before settling on Carapar. I really like Carapar. That's partly because he's a yellow set (sort of), and partly because the cool marbled parts with unique colour. But it's mostly because his head piece that has tons of character and is quite cute: no surprise they released it in three colours.

This is not just another Bionicle set re-imagined, though, as I wanted to capture the in-between transformation from a handsome warlord to a human-crab monster. Now, this is a very... typical of Bionicle: the main set/product design team clearly just designed a set of six underwater monster villains, and Greg F likely independently decided that they are actually old übermensch sovereigns who were put into a prison, escaped from the prison, and accidently turned into crabs and such. There's nothing referring to that in the sets. Furthermore, in Greg's thinking, Toa Mahri have lungs and the tubes are just... cosmetic additions. The product design had a simple scenario of divers vs. sea monsters, but that would have been too simple for Greg... Now, honestly, the six hot & strong warlords is pretty interesting actually, and it initially created this model, so I am not complaining.

 Back to the model. I began with the head and was consent, especially with the two-colour eyes. T-bar is a gift that keeps giving. It worked very nicely with the 1998 Technic wheel, which is a concurring piece in my Bio-Cup MOCs. Furthermore, the Bohrok-Kal head shells defined the body shape. I originally wanted to have two Tahnok-Kal ones, as the red insignia fitted the ancient warlord vibe I was looking for - especially with the textile part. I spend some time looking for one. There were two locals vendors selling Tahnok-Kals for 7 or 10 €, but I didn't get myself to buy one. Mostly because I have another Tahnok-Kal waiting at my parent's home, and getting a third felt too much... Ultimately, I think Pahrak-Kal's brown emblem works very well positioned near the crab arm.

The limbs were the difficult parts. The pincer had to be made of two different pieces connected with hidden small pieces. It took many tried, but the longer pincer "finger" stayed the same from the beginning. I really like how the dark tan horn pieces work here. The lower legs and the knees were another source of countless reworkings and frustration. It feels like there are millions of silver Bionicle etc. pieces, but only a handful of them flows beautifully!

The crossbow was part of the idea from the beginning. Barraki's squid launcers look like crossbows despite not having any reason to. Furthermore, a heavy crossbow that takes a lot of strenght to load felt fitting for this character that has plenty of raw force and experiences on invasion campaigns.

-Eero.

 

 

Years of Peace

 

This is my entry for Summer Joust 2026, category: Moments of Happiness. What a great category! I made this during the last days of my summer holidays. After it, returning to work was almost relaxing... Anyway, I sketched this to my sketchbook in a tram on a way for buying some Lundia shelves. The final model follows the sketch quite closely, except that I added the cat and the fruit tray. Using bright light blue wedge slopes as the dress was part of the original plan, though I also played with the idea of using my beloved trans-clear opal 1x1 round tiles there. For once, the figure is intended to be seen from the back, so I put extra effort to the back and the bun. The hair was actually one of the last things I built for this.

This is inspired by several sources. First, my summer trip to Tallinn, which enchanted me with its very well preserved medieval town walls and its towers. The walkway on the wall is directly inspired by Tallinn's battlements which I visited. Secondly, there's more than bit of the view from my own home. My other window displays the Tampere cathedral, and although it is not medieval (it's built 1902-1907) it is inspired by medieval architecture and has a similar combination of grey stone and red tiled roof as the towers here. The other window displays a fantastic, layered and varying selection of low and tall buildings from the 20th century, as well as several trees among them. There's a bit of that here, too.

The cat is inspired by our cat Elsku-Maumau. I'm fond of Mauski and Mauski is fond of me. It this model, the cat looks dissapointed as they tray has only fresh fruits and no cat food at all.

The other buildings on the background are loosely inspired by Tallinn's guild houses, though there is also influences of vernacular Italian houses in there. I've been wanting to use dark green Pridak feet from Karzahni as cypresses for a long time, and this was the perfect opportunity. There's a bit of a closer roof visible in the bottom right, as I wanted to position the balcony above the town; I think the view has some influences from the Prague castle, which has a fantastic view over the endless tiled roofs. Most of the gaps, however, I filled with trees. Their mix of different greens is reflected in the larger leaves framing the upper part of the scene.

I obviously have only one photo of this, but here's a behind-the-scenes video of my set-up, featuring BURPs and LURPs I recently reclaimed from my parent's house. The video is unfortunately sideways as I have some issues with my video editing software (as Microsoft wants to do this in cloud). I might fix it later. Now I only have to find out how to display this at home and, possibly, in some exhibits. 

- Eero.