Starboard Admiral

This is just a "free build" character - not intended for any contest, article nor similar. It seems that I haven't had many such builds this year. That isn't really an issue, but occasionally it's nice just to do something for yourself. I was inspired by the bright pink petal pieces from the pink roses bouquet. Colour scheme of pink, dark blue and white felt pleasing, suggesting something with authority but carrying a modern twist. So the character turned out to be a startship admiral. 

I toyed with the interface of modern and classical, with the fast popsicle goggles, plastic body armour and pink colour suggesting the former and gold details, long coattails and long gloves suggesting the former. I got to finally use those Friends horse blanket pieces on the legs. Their closed rear end is always a bit difficult, but I think the knees turner out alright. I think the goggles are the defining detail here, as eyes always draw attention. I'm also very happy with the large hair. The upper legs are modified version of a older standard that I've used many times. Here, I updated it with a couple of new round curved slopes. The golden handcuff detail is another successful one. The bright pink opening on the shoulders, made with the thin mudguard pieces, took some extra effort, but is worth it; that and the knees aside, the biggest challenge was somehow the lenght of the torso (and the general proportions). I believe the first version was a stud too short in relation to the limbs.

In many ways, this is a "standard" build of mine, without any revolutionary ideas or techniques. It's nice to do something casual every now and then. 

-Eero. 

 

Cat Brawler

 

I built this character for my New Elementary article on Lilo & Stitch set Angel - which I don't like as a set design piece but which has some really nice bright pink pieces. The process on this model was certainly an unusual one, and I think the model is quite unusual, too. I first build the upper legs and the hips, reveling in those recolours. And I though it would be just another human character with fashionable pink trousers (and maybe some other pink garments too, or maybe a bright green jacket). But it didn't. I wanted to use the thin 45 degree macaronis, which were to most interesting pieces in the set, and I couldn't find a good use for them on usual human character. Pink hair, maybe, but pink hair with pink clothes wouldn't have stood out very well.

This took a sci-fi turn when I returned to work on it. First, I made the sleek boots with sort of okobo shoes, festooned with some bow ties. I still didn't know where I was heading. I still had to find out how to use the macaronis. I wondered if I could make some uncanny tentacle things, but that didn't proceed. Instead, I made a tail inspired by our cats. And with the cat tail theme emerged the rest of the model in very fast, straightforward process. 

Aside the tail, the bulky shoulders defined a lot, giving this a Samus silhouette (but with a long tail). Those big eye prints, asymmetrical with the other one closed, are pretty challenging pieces - but here I think the asymmetry works well, being more of an feature than a bug. I'm particularly happy how the black frames crop the shoulder pads. That aside, pink petal pieces made a nice pair of paws (albeit fragile ones). The head was made in a spur of a moment, combining Samurai X sticker from Ninjago with a petal piece, originally designed to be the face plate of super hero action figures. I like the cyberpunk uncanny feel of this combination, spiced up with the cute bow-decorated ears. Posing helped to establish the character.

-Eero.

Brown Lands Ranger

This was a fast last-weekend entry for Palikkatakomo's Monochrome (actually not monochrome) contest. We had two contests running side-by-side, and I had already completed my entry for the other one (I'll post it here later for weird reasons). I felt an obligation to make something for the other contest as well as I usually like to pay some attention on the colours of my MOCs; limiting to one gradient was an interesting challenge, as such. I had already done a model of that sort for Summer Joust in 2022, though. My small efforts were rewarded this time as I got the second place and the Plum Blossom set (I had reviewed it for New Elementary last year, but another one doesn't hurt).

I had some brief ideas of using green to make some sort of earth/plant creature, probably as a somewhat two-dimensional painting type. I have lot of green plant pieces as I havent built many green landscapes lately, and they're difficult to utilise in character builds in large masses. I abandoned the idea, though. Instead, I ended up using the vast palette of different browns - one of them is the skin colour here, included free of charge - with the actually plausible idea of camouflage. The jump to Tolkien-themed ranger associated to the notion of Brown Lands west of Morannon was a short one. Rangers are cool, and I find myself liking Aragorn more and more as years pass (though this is not him). 

The hood is an old tablescrap originally intended for the Death (of Discworld) years ago, in black. I thought it was best not to preserve that any longer. The dark brown beard is associated with Numenorean complexion - naturally I could not make this one bearded - and a simple serious expression felt fitting for this figure. I used more dark brown to add a simple leather armour detailing to the dark tan tunic, while the mudguard shoulderpads help to make the silhouette more heroic. The joints are made completely with brown pieces, evincing the pleasantly vast selection of pieces in these earthy colours. 

Themetically, this has more than few similarities with one of my Palikkatakomo contest entries of last year - Vainolaista vastaan built for the medieval diorama contest.  Both feature a down-to-earth warrior with a bow and arrow; though here I added a sword instead of a spear, as that felt more natural for a ranger fighting orcs of Mordor that Finnish iron-age hunter. The bow, while having some similarities, is a tad more "civilised" with S-curve near the tips. The quiver uses the same tech with the arrows.

The final tweak here was changing the trouser colour to dark brown. They were medium nougat at first, but that felt too 1970s-1980s, reminding me of the weird underparts Aragorn of Ralph Barkshi's animated Lord of the Rings and even He-Man. The dark brown legs were more clearly trousers and balanced the colour better - that was the point of the contest, after all. Finally, a patch of land with wretched plants demonstrated the camouflage attire's function.  

-Eero. 

 

Ihminen

 

I built this model in summer for New Elementary's mini bunny festival, which utilised parts from 31162 Cute Bunny, especially focusing on 7037 Brick 2x2x⅔ Half Circle with 2 Studs and Curved Top - here used on the nose (pun intended). The bunny is an excellent parts pack for a character builder; I had two to play with. Furthermore, this is a love letter to all the other sweet curved tan pieces we've gotten during the last couple of years. I think this is one of my best works so far.

 

 My initial inspiration and starting point was Emil Vikström's Pohjan Neito statue in my hometown Tampere (image in the end of the article). It's along one of my regular walking routes now as I live in the centre. There's certain simple serenity in it that I like; the statue is quite small and high up, so it takes keen eyes to see it in detail! There are elements of it in my version's facial features, but instead of the straight flocks (or hood) framing the face I made a tight bun; the aim was to display the shape of the face as unobscured as possible. Furthermore, the bun works as a balancing element in the back so that there's something interesting in all angles.

I wrote about the technical things in the New Elementary article, so I won't repeat them here. In general, the process was straightforward and enjoyable, which implies that the tan toolkit is currently well-equipped. The 2x2 quarter round curved slope is especially pleasant piece - I recently ordered 50 more in Tan from Pick-a-Brick.

 In a way, this model goes pack to DK's Great LEGO book released around 1999 and widely available in Finnish back in the day; I had it as a kid, and it showed me the potential of Travis brick, for example (I had two of them, in intensive circulation between different MOCs). The interesting thing in the book (compared to more recent Lego books) is that it had very little minifigure content but abundance of human characters in different scales, mostly models built for Legoland. Along with Bionicle, it might have pushed me into character builds in the long run; showing that Lego is not only about vehicles and houses and fire stations for minifigures.

-Eero.