Lydia Frenckell

This saxophonist started with a pair of legs, with the intention of using dark brown as stockings. It wasn't very easy, giving the limited number of parts available in this colour (still about 14 years after it debuted). Fortunately, the black joints don't jump out too much and the ankle rings of the heeled shoes make the ankle connections - small ball joint with a bar into the blocked stud of the 1x2x3 slope - sturdy enough to support the character. 

Playing the sax takes both hands and a mouth, and I didn't want the playing poses look too rigid.There is a ball joint below the bust, allowing more natural jamming stances. It makes the upper torso a bit too fragile, but I suppose it is worth it; I wanted the neck line to match the line with the tan inverter arches below, and this led to half-plate gaps inside. I'm rather happy with the Friends horse bridle as the top strap; it connects nicely around a 2x2 round brick, and its shape matches the black macaroni tubes.

Lydia's outfit turned out to be very dramatic in its dark colours, so I balanced it with the big, gold (brass!) saxophone and the bright magenta hair. All the previous "rock'n'roll scale" musician characters had got black hair, but I didn't have any real reason to limit that; and black would have fused too much with the clothes! I was also probably running out with black hair ideas... Anyway, it's balloon panel hair again - maybe third time - but for the first time with the curves turned inside. I like the way the hair hugs the upper torso!

The saxophone is a relatively simple affair with few key parts; a stack of 1x1 round plates with handles, braced with some robot arms and bars forming the... well, the bits that are played, probably. Elephant trunk makes a perfect mouthpiece; my only gripe is the somewhat filled "output" dish, but there arent's any good alternatives! The wamr gold colour is balanced on the skirt and the shoulder furs, adding some blight to the outfit.

-Eero.

Eithel Meristem

The story of this character began in summer 2020 when I was building Mangee Primula and came up with those bat boots, high and thin. They didn't really fit the character thematically, but I liked their silhouette and they ended up in the WIP box. Things that end up in WIP box don't have very good chances of being really used, ever, but this figure didn't need to stand, so the cool boots with their one-stud (or module) wide footprints worked nicely. 

But now I'm getting ahead of myself. This character, Eithel Meristem, was once again built for New Elementary, specifically my article on Dots adhesive patches. The point was that the patched can be stuck into things (with a strong layer of glue under a cover sheet) to decorate them with tiles. I didn't need to decorate objects, but I wanted to try something new on a display methods aka have a model under of a shelf, not on top of it. I stuck one patch into the underside of my pinewood Lundia shelf and built Eithel who's sitting in a swing, not unlike those on elementary schoolyards. 

The best part on this idea was that I was up to build a sitting character, something I haven't done often; Hans Langseth comes to mind. Having a fixed sitting figure meant I could build a skirt without the challenge of fitting a poseable pair of upper legs inside of it, which gave me significant freedom of design. I'm very happy how the finished skirt flows. Other than the dress and upper legs, the figure is technically similar to normal poseable figs; there is even a theoretical waist twist joint, though the jacket prevents it from turning.

I used light nougat pieces on the shirt/dress top for their novelty value; it's quite close to the skin colour of the figure, but as this hue is relatively common in real-world clothing it didn't bugger me. The leather jacket with its bat collar is a call-back to the boots, and the flower embroidery on the sleeves gives it some detail and colour. I'm rather happy with the aqua hair, and the earphone bow uses new opan trans-green tiles from the set. I used black earmuffs to balance the darks of the colour scheme; otherwise the head could have been too light.

The sswing itself is a 4x8 affair with two short System chains connecting into Bionicle chain on both sides. The model was fun to balance, and the boots and the small chain orientation could be used to adjust it. Balancing worked better with one hand holding the chain - though with no real connections; I find this amusing, as it's actually hard to stay on a real-life swing without holding the real-world chain with a real-world hand.

-Eero.

The Milky Way / Speed of Light

This MOC was inspired by 21333 Vincent van Gogh - The Starry Night set and built for an article about it on New Elementary. As you can read in it, is lovely set, likely my favourite ever - yes, even passing the nostalgia factor of childhood memories. I kept it build for a couple of months and then took it apart to build a MOC; I like to include a MOC on my New Elementary articles. For the first time ever I was solemn to do so. Maybe some day when I have a bigger home I'll rebuild it and hang it into a wall. It has a connector for that.

This MOC combines the 3D painting aspect with my usual character building. The colours are vital here, as the original set is an beautiful example of premium colour use on a model. This build uses mostly the same array of colours. I balanced the blues and yellows differently by adding the reflection of the moon to the water; the original Starry Night doesn't have any water in the landscape, but I think it fitted well, turning the village into a lakeside town. There's also the last (or first) shine of the daylight behind the fells on the background. In general, I think the scenery was inspired by some town in Northern Finland, with fells and a lake near by (there is always a lake). It was not deliberate to move the scene from The Netherlands to Finland, but then again, why not.

Most of the Starry Night set is plates, and I wanted to utilise there blue-hued plates to build an usually constructed figure in a dress. It is inspired by geysirs, the huge blasts of water rising from the ground due to geothermal activity. This made the figure relative simple, though there is plenty of SNOT inside! The figure is connected to the "painting" with two mixel ball joints, as those allow easy but very stable 90 degree grid changes, and are easy to include in a plate construction. I'm rather happy with the figure's hair.

There is also another human figure, also build mostly of plates, but mostly in two dimensions - a sort of link between the dress figure and the painting. She is the Milky Way, though I think the Finnish term Linnunrata  - The Route of Bird - captures the essence better. This figure also breaks the rectangular shape of the backdrop (which is mostly recycled from the set), creating a tension between the human-sized, town-sized and the galaxy-sized.

-Eero.