WIP: Steampunk airship

Yeah, another WIP without the previous ones being finished. This is, as you can (hopefully) see, a frame of middle-sized steampunk airship. I have had an idea of a MOC like this for quite a while, and when I recentely got some useful pieces for it, I decided to give it a try. The WIP is somehow inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky and it's wonderful Steampunk devices. 

The base of the ship is built with pretty straightforward brick-on-brick techniques, with the round shape achieved with 1x4 horizontal hinge plates and bricks. The doors seen in the picture above are for landing ramp (or stairs, actually). There is a slide behind the doors, and there will be strairs which can be put down using chain or cord from the slide. It it quite hard to explain, but more of that when the build is finished.

I have already built the main machinery what is located inside the ship's frame. There is a water boiler and the fire box there. I have also made some early versions of main engines. You can see the back propellor above. The main propellors on the sides will be a lot bigger.

Stay tuned for updates on any of my projects!

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Toa Kapura

Take a Toa-mod! Here's one more MOC from Klaanon project, Toa Kapura (no relation with "official" Kapura from alaways-so-awesome MNOG and Greg F's fanfics), a strange and paranoid blacksmith.

This is, as I mentioned above, a pretty basic Toa-mod. I like how it came up, especially the torso (the weird HF-handle part works quite well with Kalmah foot, my favourite chest armour piece) and the lower legs. The legs were the hardest part to build. I originally used a pair of Inika legs, but they were too dull and, well, boring.

 So, I took my Raw-Jaw (best designed HF set in my option!) from a shelf and took a pair of dark-silver (not sure what it's called now) shells and ball joints with axle hole (I love those, everybody does, right) and built custom shins. TECHNIC cams in the ankles keeps the armours in their places.

-Pate-keetongu

WIP: Humppa-Pub

I'm finally back home and have enough time to continue building the five WIPs I have under work. Here's some WIP material from the biggest of them, the modular Humppa-Pub project!

This WIP is the biggest Town-themed MOC I have done. It presents a German pub with dance floor and stage for live music. There will be, probably with no surprise, Finnish Humppa band Eläkeläiset bombing the town with humppa in the stage. And lot of drunken Germaniacs dancing in hulabaloobalaibish manner. The kleinbus from my earlier Humppa MOC will be parked behind the building.

The base will be built using Finnish LUG Palikkatakomo's ModuVerse standard so I can use it in the Moducity collaboration projects on the following events and shows of Palikkatakomo in Finland.

I can finish the project after the annual LUGBULK loot arrives, hopefully on the few following weeks. I will get some TECHNIC 6x8 frame bricks to build a stable base, 100 new brick-pattern-bricks in dark tan and last but not least a lot of bottles.

-Pate-keetongu

Ninja bargain go!

Yesterday I was a lucky boy. I was coming back from the north and visited Finnish department store Kärkkäinen in Oulu. The store sells LEGO around 20% cheaper than other stores around here, and it's always wort of visiting when passing by. Luckily they had some sweet Ninjago bargains!

First I got two 2519 Skeleton bowlings on the price 5€ per packet. They had marked those with 10€ prize tags probably due to error (S@H prize is 35€) and had 50% off some time ago. My friend and Finnish LUG head TheQ had picked up a few and he handled two to me. Big hand. Second, they had awesome bargain of 2521 Lightning Dragon Battle for 15€. That limited edition set is sold on eBay for around 150-270$. I think i should have bought few more and sell them on BL in few years.

I bought the sets for parts. I've already planned using those medium blue dragon wing pieces on angel-like Bionicle-MOC. But it will take some time, because I have three WIPs in progress now and it'll take a week to get enough time to built properly. Luckily I have still two months of vacation left...

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Toa Tawa

Hello again and regrets for inactivity. I was on summer trip in the northern Finland and came back yesterday. I'll leave for a week again on Sunday, but hopefully I can blog during that time on my grandfather's computer.

This action girl here is Toa Tawa, the leader and founder of Bio-Klaani organisation in Klaanon. I've made several versions of this character before. It's based on the figure in this magnificent animation. The color scheme is very hard to work with: There isn't much yellow and purple Bionicle parts. It took a lot more time than usually to built this MOC, but I'm pretty happy with the result.

The MOC combines SYSTEM, Bionicle and Hero Factory parts. I made the purple dress-thing using purple 2x3 wedge plates I bought from Chaos Pick-a-Brick few years ago. The upper legs are built with SYSTEM and HF parts, while about everything other is Bionicle. Using different building systems was the only way to tackle the color scheme.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Nazorak ice scientist 273

It's busy on the Klaanon series MOCing. This albino Nazorak (which comes actually from Nazi roaches, but that is un-canon) scientist known as 273 designs special ice and snow-terrain weapons and equipment to the Nazorak army. He uses his self-made sub-zero glove that has ability to freeze things.

I'm pretty happy with the lab jacket design. It hides the wings and smaller second arm of normal Nazorak soldiers. I also added the significant purple tie. The limbs (except for the glove) are extremely simple. At least I used the skies from Collectible minifigure series 2 as a shin armours.

I have two more Bionicle MOCs and one steampunk WIP thing coming, but I'm taking a trip to northern Finland on Sunday (paddling in Oulankajoki national park) and won't be active until next Friday. I'll probably write something in advance and set an automatic release date.

-Pate-keetongu

Old MOC revamp: Guardian

There's another revamped old MOC from Klaanon series. This skakdi called with codename "Guardian" is former Dark Hunter and a veteran of the civil war of Zakaz. Nowadays he's one of the four leaders of Bio-Klaani. Guardian carries Watchman Plasma Rifle and has a mechanical telescopic prosthesis.

This MOC is built on older version back from 2010. The main downside on the old version was the poor movement: it had the cool rifle but couldn't be placed on any proper shooting poses. I solved the problem by making custom shoulders (the old one had Piraka torso hidden inside) with two point of articulation and leaving the elbows unarmored. I also completely remade the upper torso and the ankles. I also added claws to the hand to make it look more piraka-ish.

I would have liked to put the Bionicle chains a strap to the rifle as in the older version, but one particular viking stole it and turned it into a chain mail. But I'm getting some (150 links) darker chain in the near future, so that will be fixed then.

-Pate-keetongu

Steampunk figbarf

Ah, it's summer! After spending my whole morning indoors (it's around 10 Celsius "warm" here and seems to rain all to time...) watching steampunk cosplay pictures for inspiration I built these purist steampunk figs.

First we have Corporal John Wesley McNeill Cassell with his specially manufactured grenade launcher backpack. Corporal must wear his insulator helmet or the weapons of his suit burn the sides of his head. Unarmored knees give extra agility in a war situation.

Professor Achibald Thornton Beechman is member of Northern Imperialist Discovery Council which Target was to find the northern land on Finn-land and add it to a part of the British Empire. The Council found the land in 1856, but the goal of the exploration wasn't fulfilled: They discovered that Finn-land was somewhat civilized and under the authority of Russia.

Betty Galvan Mallone is autodidact engineer & pilot in his mother's old light airship formerly called The Wallflower. Mallone improved the ship by changing the old Warhorse C-18 engines into newer SteamSurge-36 engines and painting the light green hull red. I really like the bride hairpiece from Minifigure Series 7. It works well on Victorian-era minifigs.

Doctor Sam Sinister has updated his uniform with stovepipe hat -mounted flamethrower and golden armours. He also carries Beedrill-stinger, a small-but-powerful rod. This fig was based on the hat-frying pan connection I discovered today. I'm not sure if it's new or used before.

Miss Elinor Sheenan Fleetwood is amateur bounty huntress who has to much money and free-time. As a daughter of rich and powerful family, she always has the best weapons and equipment. And if her adventures go into the wrong direction, she always has a gang of undercover bodyguards hired by her father around. Due to that she can safely adventure in  the underworld of London without necessary armour. She, however, doesn't know about the bodyguards herself; She just believes that all the delinquents yields to her and the complete strangers help her because of her attitude and looks. I like how the bride torsos Victorian corset look, and the hair is naturally full of Victorian upper class nonsense.

I might build some steampunk MOCs based on these figs on the future. The names are taken from Victorian & Steampunk name generator.

-Pate-keetongu

Re-photographing old MOCs part II

Re-photographing old MOCs part 1

I just can't describe the joy of having a decent camera after six years of grainy and blurry photos. There are some of the pics I took on last few days of older MOCs that are still built. There are quite a few there, so you can look for few "Less talk and more LEGO" post on the near future. My two-and-half-month summer holiday starts tomorrow (ten hours from now) so I'll have enough time for LEGO.

-Pate-keetongu