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. 

 

Heitur Pottur

 Jump in... This is my entry for Summer Joust's Frozen Fantasy category. It's simply the first idea I got almost two months ago. I build the figures and the water before my summer vacation trips in late June and finished the encircling rocks after coming back in late July. Dwarves were a natural fit for the ice fantasy category, and I wanted to make something concretely connected to the temperature. What's the contested resource in icy worlds? Warmth, of course. And where do you find warmth in cold worlds? In summers, of course, but that would have missed the point. Then I remembered Icelandic term "heitur pottur" from my 8th grade Swedish book. Ultimately, turned out that it does not mean hot springs at all, but simply refers to artificial baths. Nevertheless, it felt good fit for three dwarves swimming in hot springs. Tolkien took The Hobbit's dwarf names from the Icelandic Poetic Edda, so dwarves + Icelandic hot springs was good enough.

The first structural idea was to use droid arms as the beard of the middle figure, floating on water. This is based on my own beard experiences. I had those in light bley, so he became the elder of the group. I gave him a pipe to reflect this, and sunk most of him under the water (this meant I only had to build the head, shoulders, and kneecaps; plus tan and dark tan plates sunken under the water tiles). The pipe had a smoke twist originally, but it looked too messy with the snow and the steam so I took it off.

The second dwarf is what you might call your stereotypical fantasy dwarf. He's bold enough to have the mail shirt off, but the iron helmet stays. He's extremely grumpy and has a well-groomed beard. It's based on the design I made for Glóin in my Hobbit Dwarves project back in 2014. (I think the direction had been good). It works so much better with the flat silver 1x1 liftarms than it ever did with the old type of half-bushings! I first though to giving this dwarf a more relaxed posing, leaning the rocks with a tankard in hand. Ultimately, the stiff stature had more character.

The last dwarf has more of him visible as he's wearing nothing at all and only part of his legs is under the surface. Fortunately (?) his impressive facial hair protects the viewer from full frontal nudity. The beard is really tangled and rugged and he's really in need of a hot bath. Initially, he was descending into the pool more carefully, but I ended up with an almost astonished pose instead - the water really is hot!

 Building rocks is generally boring. Here, I utilised similar tricks to those in Vainolaista Vastaan in 2024. However, I made the rocks even more rounded, as if polished by centuries of hot waters. Although I generally prefer lighter grays, dark bley was a good fit here, as the rocks are bound to be somewhat wet due to all the steam, water and melting snow. Furthermore, I positioned the snow in a way that suggest that the hot pool has smelt the snow near by.

Photographing this was a really tricky. I ended up with a weird shot, taken extremely close with a wide lense I borrowed from my university to shoot stairwells. This makes the edges rather distorted - the edged as actually parallel to each other. You can see the distorion extremely clearly by comparing the tankards, which are identical in shape. However, this shot had two major advantages: First, it shows the expression of both the low and the high dwarves (grey and brown hair). Secondly, it feels like you are actually in the pool with the dwarves! Engaging.

I have one more Summer Joust entry, which I'll post next.

- Eero. 

 

Bonfire Party Dress

 This was my second entry for Lego Idea/House 10th anniversary celebration contest, in the category of Dress to Impress. You can see the Ideas entry here and the voting page is here. Furthermore, the voting page for my other entry, Aria & Synth, is here.

 The contest proposal fit my building style very well, so I was able to built this very fast before my summer vacation trips (now done). I made the hair one evening and the rest in one day. The main idea was simply to use orange pieces and especially the orange and reddish orange axe heads from Botanicals pink bouquet. These pieces directed the model into a more free-form direction. I connected them to flex tubes (rigid 3.18 mm) and their curves defined the wind-swept form. I liked it, as it fitted the lofty summer vibes I was pursuing. Thus, I named this Bonfire party dress as bonfires combine summer and fire - and festivities.

The resulting effect was more akin to looser-fitting, probably knitted garments than usual high-end party dresses and night gowns with fine, flowing or skin-tight fabrics. I think it fitted the Lego House celebration nonetheless. I combined the hem with a upper part that is similar in colour but contrasting in pattern, being very simple and focusing on shapes. Using 47755 mudguard pieces (that I analysed in one of my first New Elementary articles back in 2020) as the shoulder straps was one of the initial ideas of this one, and it worked quite nicely. A discreet piece of opan trans-clear jewelry completes the attire.

As intended, the dress is strikingly orange. To contrast this, and to emphasise the party aspect, I completed the model with pale blue shoes and a handbag. They also use the opal pieces to continue the jewelry motif. I'm particularly happy with the bag - its standard, classic chain pieces works surprisingly well as a handle strap. The cloth piece is from Winter Village Carousel of 2013; I have one, and it looked nicely realistic as the flap.

Next up, more Summer Joust!

-Eero. 

Shoggoth Sculptor

 

Now, the real round 1 of Bio-Cup! The theme for this one is Magic and Mysticism, and as it's July, I had to make my model between various away-from-bricks vacation activities. This took 1,5 days but I'm happy with it nonetheless; I could have spent one more day on it, but I didn't have to.

As the name suggests, this is inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. Shoggoths are artificial creatures engineered by the Elder Things. Eventually, the rose to rebellion against their masters. I wanted to capture certain vibe of forbidden magical creation; the model does not strive to faithfully re-create neither the shoggoth nor the Elder Thing. I began with the head and the robe front made of Antroz's wings; the printed Dreamz shell was the first piece I decided to use. Getting Antroz's wings in the right angle was quite difficult; the way they reveal the more detailed inner robe was essential to the composition. In the details, I wanted to make something half-artificial, half-organic. 

The white "skin" contrasts with the darker robe. Instead of legs, I gave him a short pillar of tantacles that spread around. Very long, eerie fingers helped to make the character spooky while matching the weird hind limbs. The smoothness of the white areas extend to the scalp. In contrast, the lower part of the head is more detailed and fragmented. I liked how it reminded both an elongated human skull and the tentacle mouth of great Cthulhu.

To define the character, I added a baby shoggoth-in-progress. Full shoggoths are black masses with eerie green glow, but this is a blue bubble with a dormant maggot-like creature inside. Shoggoth can grow appendages whenever needed, so a similar but inverted approach felt fitting. The creature uses a kraata, matching the krana on the character's robe. 

 -Eero.

 

My Neighbour Keetongu

 

This little build is a trailer for Bio-Cup 2026. This time the contest has no elimination so I can take part in each four rounds. I built the model here for pre-game G1 Gauntlet round with focus on G1 (2001-2010) Bionicle pieces. I made it in about 4-5 hours during a 15-hour period I spent home between cottage trip and a holiday in Estonia. It was a blast to the past because I spend 2007-2010 posting Bionicle MOCs in Brickshelf (there's link named "old works" in the headline bar), and, naturally, CCBS pieces didn't exist back them. 

Unsurprisingly,  I wanted to build a keetongu. This is a young Keetogu at the time he wandered through various islands in the leg. I think he befriended some matorans every now and them, integrating into their society, while slowly growing larger and larger. Here he is portrayed as a fisherman, with a catch of a modified MNOG fish and a small friend who has caught some crabs. I did not find any good options for Keetongu's head shell in this scale (and with G1 pieces) so I gave him a leaf hat. It's a bit weird but maybe that's ok for such a fast model. It is a reference to Totoro's leaf hat, of course, and that realisation gave birth to the overall composition. The matoran has a matching leaf cape. He would have had a Miru Nuva hat, but I only had silver and blue Miru Nuvas around. Maybe next time. I didn't win but it was important to participate.

 Tomorrow, my round 1 entry!

-Eero.