Baku

It's summer again and that means Bio-Cup! The contest is made one round shorter and more competetive this year. It remains to be seen if I'll hang around until the final round this year. My goal is to make myself do some additional nice builds that I wouldn't otherwise do; and use some of these special pieces I've gained since the last year.

 

The theme for this year's prelims is dreams. This was my first idea for it - the Japanese folklore tapir that eats nightmares. When doing my background work I found out (in Wikipedia) that the creature is called Baku and the term also refers to Malayan tapir in Japanese. I also found out that this seems to be due a French misinterpretation of Chinese term Mo that means great panda (which westerners weren't aware of at the time) and mythical chimera Mo that is depicted on having rhino and elephant parts, thus looking like tapir. The French thus assumed that the panda would actually be an tapir; and it is possible that Japanese Baku is also a tapir because it's based on the chimera Mo that was thought to be the animal tapir and... this is something like a fever dream. Check Mo on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mo_(Chinese_zoology) 

 

 It was new to me that Baku is a mostly benevolent being - that's something I like. Especially as tapirs are friendly to start with. Nonetheless, Baku is a creature of night, so I made it somehow demonic (but not in a very serious way). It was also more amusing to build while looking slightly demonic! I began with the eyes (though the tire rims were later addition) and soon continued to the mouth (munching nightmares), snout and the cool mane. I'm very happy with the mane!

 

I wanted to have the colours of Malayan tapir, so this creature has a white "diaper". It's a lot harder to build white Bionicle mass, mostly due to limits in available parts, but also because the mechanical details look so severe on white - all the shadows are visible, and it's harder to build flowing shapes. Nevertheless, it turned out decent - only it isn't very visible in the main photos. 

Soothsayer of the Groves

I built this model for New Elementary review of 10347 Petite Sunny Bouquet. Lego gave us a hefty time frame before the review embargo, so I was easily able to make a MOC - something unusual for a prerelease article. The set had plenty of interesting pieces to work with, so this was a win-win situation. I began working with an old tablescrap of a ruffled dress; it was mostly white, but I extended it with a white-orange gradient, enabled by the bright light yellow recolours of the set. The character was then defined by the head scarf, made using yellow petals/shoulder pads from the set and furnished with some more bright light yellow recolours. They embrace each other beautifully. Otherwise, the character is quite simple - I wanted to capture the vibe of a warm atmosphere, free of stuffy clothes. The wrist bands are sunflowers from the set, and a pair of sandals felt like a fitting footwear choice. I paid extra attention to the sculpting of the neck - something that I might have overlooked in the past.

The staff was a relatively late addition, I felt posing the figure needed something like it. Those 3L long axle connectors are nice as they can be grabbed with fingers, enabling natural grips (but requiring very careful balancing). The staff was a good place for those bright pink recolours which I wanted to use but not on the figure's attire itself. I like their colour pop.

The base balances the composition, helping with the storytelling and again using some of the recolours. The middle part of the large flower is taken directly from the set, being its most succesful design. The white outer petals are my addition. Futhermore, I like how the tangling vines add a touch of randomness to the base. With its bright colours, especially the lime ground, the whole feels like an Easter ornament - but I suppose that was simply fitting for the time of its origin.

-Eero.

Kerosiinipelle

This is Kerosiinipelle, a character of Klaanon, and a gift built for the creator of the original character. Again, and like Keetongu last year, this is a System version of a Bionicle character; I've learned this concept irritates some Bionicle Revival kids so I have to make them.

Being a gift, this had to be sturdy enough to be handled someone who's not me. I also wanted to deliver this in pieces with instructions (and I did), so it could not be too tricky to built either. To be honest, my assistance was required once or twice, but I believe the issue was more in the unclear instruction design (made by me in Studio, of course) than the build itself. Anyhow, this smallish build packs a decent array of little techniques I've come up with; there are many hidden bars reinforcing the limbs, for example, so Kepe here can be posed without falling apart.

I've built Kerosiinipelle maybe two or three times before. The previous version from 2014 is here; I can't link the older versio(s) as Brickshelf is currently down. I must mention that I have huge respect for Wall of History for resurrecting it - I think Brickshelf holds the most imporant part of the history of this community, including plenty of my personal history as well. I've never been one to censor my older models, no matter how embarrasing they are. I made them as a kid.

I don't have many exciting remarks on this model, but I like to emphasis the head design. It emulates great Matatu, but in much smaller scale - earlier Bionicle sets had huge heads. Kerosiinipelle is a lightly built character, so having a smaller mask (or head) made sense. However, 3 studs wide felt huge and 2 studs wide way too small (miniland figure in an exo-suit). This has two bricks with a plate layer in-between, with some widening made with nexo shields - those pieces have the alluring slightly sloped sides, always so useful. The mad Lego maths mean that the 2x2 round tile with stud, turned 45 degrees, has its opposing antistuds in level with those bricks, one plate apart from each other. The same trick enables the classic floor technique I used almost ten years ago in my Winter Village Brewery. The math is not exact, but the tolerances allow it seamlessly.

-Eero.

Avacyn, the Guardian Angel

 

I make Magic the Gathering models on unregular basis. Avacyn is an iconic character and one I've considered every now and then. There are some large challenger on her - foremostly, she's an angel, which means the model should be able to carry two large wings, and the wings should have relatively natural-looking feather pattern - not easy task in any case. Secondly, Avacyn's skin colour is somewhat vague, being between ligh nougat and some sort of grey, depending on the artist. I settled on regular tan though, as grey didn't look good.

I built this model for a small one-day exhibit of Kauhucon (Horror con) in Helsinki. It was located in Richardinkatu Library in the centre, adjacent to some Lars Sonck buildings that I adore (the Korkeavuorenkatu Telephone Exhange is located next door; I have a large framed photograph of it above my screen right now). The event was laid-back and non-profit and had two attendees from our LUG Palikkatakomo, me the chairperson and the vice-chairperson. We did pretty well in the horror quiz, which included naming six Lovecraftian horrors; we got five out of six as they didn't accept Yoggoth (it's a planet and not a moster but I did not remember that at the time). Avacyn stood properly the whole day without topping, so she's pretty well balanced.

 

As a model, this began as a sidetrack of another character aimed for Kauhucon; the bust made of gorilla bigfig arms didn't fit the character but matched Avacyn depictions pretty well. There's a T-bar in the back connecting the upper torso securely to the main torso block, while enabling an slight backwards angle. The hip arch uses an excellent 45 degree trick presented by user named 1992pb in a fascinating New Elementary article on escaping the stud grid. I also utilized the sugar grid technique found in the article on the dark green skirt flowing naturally. I'm very happy with how it turned out; the dark green hexagonal windscreens on the hips really helped to capture the fine line between the bare upper leg and the skirt edge. The wind-swept sense of motion reappears in the hair.

The arms are very simple, with the main innovation being the fingers with inverted barbs (viking horns). They somehow resemble elegant fingers - being slightly too long but not as stubby as ones without the barbs. The legs have some more tricks, as Avacyn has boots with V-shaped opening above the knees plus another pair of inner-boots (or armoured stockings? I wonder which one makes more sense) with arching opening halfway up the upper leg. I used old solar panel pieces on the lower opening and formed the upper edge with some of the recent small Technic panels. The thin edges of these parts enabled natural transition between the colours.

I built the wings after finishing the body and most of the limbs. The connection is extremely simple - the wings are pressed to the back via dense sandwhich of bricks of plates, measuring 3x5. The wings itself have a layer of wedge plates with several hinges to achieve a slight curve forwards; this makes them look more natural, and, importantly, helps to set to point of balance withing the footprint. The simple plate layering is finally covered the with the feathers, utilising a wide range of parts from different systems and decades. They're not identical to any real-world bird wings, but I'm quite happy with the angles of the small and large feathers, working in a relatively natural way.

-Eero.

Supersonic Soaring Suit

 
This is my first MOC of 2025. It has been finished for two months already. The process here was very similar to Ronin Untasi a couple of years earlier: The torso is pretty old, being directly inspired by the Dots sets with those neon yellow pieces. It has a monster face in it, as some sort of reference to 1980s cartoon designs. However, the wing hat (that had only two wings until this January when I got some more) was part of completely another WIP, the main "seed" of this character: A flying person with open red jacket (referencing to bomber jackets) and white sneakers (that still wait their use). It also had these trans-orange claw piece as sunglasses, I'm very happy with them. The medium azure upper legs were part of this WIP and they continued into bare legs that ended up in the Roller Girl a year ago. The flying hat had originally semi-militaristic colour scheme of dark green and dark grey. This WIP character - full and standing but unfocused - stood or lay on my table in the previous Hervanta apartment for a year or so.

What I did for it after last Christmas was taking the fully separate torso wip and mixing it with the hat and the upper legs of the flying person WIP. The big rocket boots were built in January, as were the new arms. I replaced the dark green pieces with the Dreamzzz cat cycle's printed armour add-on, combining the magenta from the seed WIP to dark blue of the torso tablescrab. I aimed to overall futuristic feel with vibrant, dynamic colours.

The boots were the most major challenge, as the arms are quite simple (the rounded CCBS add-on is an universal solution). I wanted them to be bulky enough to fit both supercharged boosters and the actual legs (as this is not a robot). The silhouette is obviously similar to Dedofiktion Racing Unlimited Warpplasm Turbothrust Rocketsuit which has the same core concept without the wing hat. Here, the layered colour have a larger focus. Those boat hull pieces - from the crocodile car set - form the basic structure, along with the vibrant medium azure wheels from the cat bike. I like these rounded bulky shapes that still have certain aerodynamic vibes, like the engine intakes of jet planes. The round thrusters with their piping add another layer of partly visible mechanisms. This motif appears also in the figure's back. This theme is complimented with the more everyday qualities of the jogging pants with their sporty magenta pattern and the sunglasses akin to those that fast cyclists use.

So, this is the first MOC of 2025, but no worries - I have already three others shot and finished (one of them is 2024 though).

-Eero.

After the Gala

 

I built this for New Elementary's 3x3PO parts festival last December. After that we moved to a brand new apartment, which included some decoration and other kinds of "being busy" - hence no new models so far (I've finished one MOC this year). On the other hand, my building premises are better than ever, so I'll make new stuff before too long - no worries.

 The seed parts are from 75398 C-3PO - you can see all the new and rare parts I photographed via that link. The set has wonderful variety of new pearl gold pieces, and many of them are very fitting for organic builds. My MOC article on New Elementary was solely dedicated to this model, so I won't go to details here. In short, I wanted to make something luxuriously elegant, as suggested by the gold bricks. This meant a flowing golden party dress. And to make it different from my usually standing models, it's built into a relaxed, lounging pose. This enabled me to develop some new stuctural systems. It's quite impossible to build a garment like this that would adapt into sitting poses, so different torso structure is needed. This one has several joints along the spine line. On the other hand, I was able to build the legs shaping-first, as they don't have to support the weight.

The sofa is an old tablescrap, initially built to store masses of Brick Curved 8 x 2 x 2 (41766) after demolishing Grand Hotel Kudelma couple of years ago. I like the combination of pearl gold and dark red, refreshed by the green plants. There are sort of reduxes of 2025 Four Gentlemen botanicals I reviewed for New Elementary sligtly earlier. The goal was to establish atmosphere and to create colour harmonies. Integrating large-scale plants to my character models is certainly something I'll consider more often in the future.

As this MOC was already published a couple of weeks ago in New E, I've already received some feedback and questions, some concerning the hair. The bangs are reddish brown sausages, connected to the the plume holes of 1x1 round plates with bar (coffee filters) by their end pegs, whereas the bun has some ziplines tied into a knot.

-Eero. 

Tontun Lyhty

The name of this work is in Finnish as some things do not translate well. In dominant English-American culture, Santa's little helpers are know as elves, are generally small, cheerful, beardless and wear green. They are ridiculous. Their Finnish (and probably Swedish etc.) counterparts are known as tonttu (tomte), deriving from the folkore creature that keeps watch on saunas, barns, stables and so on. At least in modern descriptions, they are short, bearded, oldish, wear pointed caps and grey, red, brown and green. Some more, erm, traditional descriptions include grey skin and one, huge eye, but somehow those hardly ever make it to Christmas decorations. The word tonttu is closely relates to tontti, aka plot, and this is also obvious in Swedish (tomte and tomt). This is naturally because tonttu was the warden of the estate.

Anyway, I built this for my LUG Palikkatakomo's Christmas Ornament contest. I won the pro category. This was the third time, in a row, which is pleasant but also a liiittle bit embarrasing (I'm the chairman, again.) This took a little more than a day. The idea was clear: melancholy, a tonttu squatting in front of a campfire, small 1990s 9V battery box in the base, a light with those super cute 9V light bulbs. During the process, the campfire turned into a snowball lantern, but otherwise it remained the same. Most technical prowess was put into the beard (where else?) and some (maybe less successfully) into the connection of the shoulder pad hat. The rest was easy.

Christmas is over, but I didn't want to hide this until the next one, so I'm capping 2024 of 26 builds with it. Happy New Year!

-Eero.