Some archive stuff

I was doing a sort of Christmas time cleaning on my computer, deleting useless big raw images and such, when I stubled over some MOC pictures which I never edited or published. Here's some, as there weren't really any good-quality photos of Qwena (original version). So nothing new really, but decided to show them anyway. There won't be any new uploads for a week now as I'm off to have some good time with friends and board games and such. See you later!

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Father Zeeron

 No, he's not Father Christmas despite the date. He doesn't eat ham or turkey or gingerbread or whatever people use to stuff into their mouths during the Christmas season. No, this old Matoran guy who lives in a tree in the deep Lehu-Forest only eats mushrooms. A lot of mushrooms. A lot of mushrooms that no one seems to care about.

But Zeeron's not a complete madman, even though he mutters to himself and reads other people's thoughts all the time. He's an ancient telepathic cleric, one of those who know the religion and lore of Athism by heart.

This MOC is sort of a revamp or mod, but then in other hand it is not. I have mentioned the Klaanon project few times in this blog. It is a bionicle-ish story written by group of Finnish old sort-of bionicle fans. It's a huge thing and I can't really explain it here, but some of my bionicle MOCs hopefully give some bits about the project.

The character Zeeron is not created by me, but it is actually based on one anonymous MOC by me:  the Athist Monk. The character turned out to be rather interesting and likable, so I decided to revamp the MOC to make it feel more the guy appearing in the story.

The tweaks are mostly basic stuff - filling the caps on the torso, making the arms more poseable with some fingers, adding some interesting eyes (taps they are) and updating the accessories, giving him a rotten wooden stick and a mushroom; the mushroom is important.

-Pate-keetongu

Post Scriptum: Merry Christmas!

MOC: Zero Suit Samus

 Video games are a big thing on the Internet, and two of most popular creations on this blog are based on video games: Big Daddy and Power Suit Samus. But I can't say I'm a heavy class gamer, no no. I have some history and some quite good achievements with Game Boy Micro and I have beaten Super Mario Land in something like half a hour, and I still enjoy great Super Smash Bros. Brawl matches with my friends, but the truth is that I'm not an video game maniac.

But still here's a rather big and time-consuming MOC of a video game character, Samus Aran in her Zero suit. The reason for this build was not, believe or not, "Popular character brings lot of views". I have played Samus on Brawl quite a lot, and if you have "AFOL MIND" that makes you wonder how to build things around you, you might know what happened: Play, ponder, think techniques and tricks, build it. Pretty much same thing than on Power Suit Samus and the Daddy. I have barely played any Metroid games and never Bioshock (though I have many friends who love both of these) but there just happens to be a wacky spin-off multiplayer stuff that I stumble upon from time to time. Brawl is awesome, and while I'm not very familiar with Sony characters, smashing stuff with Big Daddy in PSASBR (what a terrible "word") is quite cool work too.

The design here is not the Brawl one, though. It is more like the Other M suit with those (probably impractical?) heels. This figure worked as a reference, though I made some changes on the color scheme (because the lack of parts in some colors) and proportions, making the length of the arms more accurate. The torso is a bit longer on my MOC too, though it is in a bit odd posing on that statue.

The shoes were the first part built, as usually, though I reworked them a few times during the building. The legs came out rather painlessly with a lot of black placeholder parts (made an order on Finnish Bricklink store Lapasen Palikka later) but the torso was the real problem. Not the lower torso, I was easy. The upper torso. Hard shaping there. I pondered for a long time if I use Nuva shoulders or not. They are quite mundane, and sometimes look too big, but there isn't really alternatives in blue and the allowed me to put the pink marking on the left breast. The upper torso is still a bit wonky and is only connected via a half of a pin, but I think it looks good enough. The arms weren't easy neither, the rest of the arm is connected to the HF shell via ball joint and it's connected to the ball socket with 3-long bar. It took some time to figure out the best alternative there, but I'm happy with the results. It's quite sturdy.

The head was a challenge. A real challenge. The only somewhat good-looking female LEGO faces around are anime-ish and wouldn't really work here. It's vast different from the dwarves who don't look that glamorous, so headlights-as-eyes would have looked terrible too. My design sure is rather flat, but it at least has a nose, a mouth and rather stylised eyes similar to Qwena. It has some really, really tricky SNOT stuff inside. The hair is pretty basic thing with dinosaur tails and robot arms, but the forehead hair was hard to arrange correctly.

Samus also has her stunner pistol. I also took some action shots (which is always hard with tall MOCs like this) with a plasma whip she has on Brawl. At least it uses one of those odd TECHNIC slopes I have never used on anything before.

The scale is bigger than on Power Suit Samus, so these don't work on same scenes (except on the humorously one in the end of this blog). I was going to built this on same scale than Belsa, but the shoes were just too big. The MOC stands around 40 cm tall.

-Pate-keetongu

Dammit! Another one shrunken on the wash!

MOC: Harkel-Walker

A strange shape moves over the treetops... a long pair of thin legs clank as it walks... The Harkel-Walker, or in other words the Egg-shaped Steam-powered Moustache Walker has arrived! Piloted and built by engineer Jonathan Achemus, this handlebared machine brings hope and justice all around the world.

It might be hard to believe, but I was actually going to build a steampunk Vic Viper for Novvember (Rest in peace, nnenn, we miss you and your MOCs), but it turned into a moustache walker. Well, it is Movember too, so this still counts as theme month MOC... And if this raises awareness of manly diseases, the better.

I wanted to have a strong difference between the egg-shaped and simplistic cockpit and the mechanical and thin legs. The another main point (which was there even when I was building the Viper) was to use the big bubble canopy. I have always wanted to use that piece (but to be honest, it has been available less than 2 years and I have had it for a year, but I kinda saw it coming...) but didn't have a chance before (of course I had, no one prevented me from using it, but it never worked when I tried).

The legs use the studs-to-TECHNIC-holes joints. It is a very handy technique in thin limbs etc. as both "boat studs" and turntable tops look good when used that way and there are four connection points, not to mention the sturdiness of the connection.  The front supports of the legs are supposed to be solid and the back supports with black pieces are pistons. The upper pistons actually work and the walker can easily bend on the upper joint: see here and here. The feet are bit of a combination of the styles, and I quite like their fin-like shape. The new-ish brackets made their magic.

The top part has this round shape to fit with the bubble windscreen. It uses SNOTted 1x3 curved slopes which I managed to buy from an unofficial PaB in Prague. Inside the cockpit there is a few handy accessories, a bottle for refreshment, optic tools for navigating and a sack full of other goods. Under the cockpit there is some machinery and the exhaust pipe which was the last piece I added.

And yes, the moustache. It is important.

-Pate-keetongu

And... One more steampunk figbarf

 I like steampunk genre very much, so nearly every time I get more minifig parts I tend to build a batch of characters from Victorian steampunk settings. Hope you are not yet tired with them!

The mysterious Weldmeister has somehow captured the power of thunder into his super-strong suit of armour that has a power to fuse metal things together with a immerse bolt of lightning that blinds the mortal. Now many facets with different agendas are looking for to hire him... but who of them are worth of his extraordinary powers?










Miss Margaret Pisland was an ordinary art director. Or was, until he became an adventurer, as the dirty alleys and old castles of Brassport and its dwellings were still undiscovered. She still has some vision and style from her former job, but nowadays the painting brush is mostly used to mark the place and position of the corpse. And by the way, the onions are only for a snack. She isn't afraid of vampires.

Engineer Jonathan Achemus were forced to leave his hometown and live as a wandered with his awesome gadgets and vehicles. It really wasn't his fault: The reason was jealousy. The other men of the city were never able to grow a moustache able to challenge the magnitude of his fur on the upper lip. But somehow that's fortune to the world - His moustache has saved many damsels in distress since then.

 Lissie Burrong is a real Steam Punk. A steamhardcorepunk. She doesn't listen to authorities. She has a metal peg leg. She is not afraid to interrupt and is she wants to shoot an arrow through your head, she does. There is lot of room to some anarchy in Victorian era, the age of strict appropriateness. Plus she likes music that normal people can't listen without taking a few cold beers.

 Michaela Mallilme was hired by the Government to be the symbol of the new era. You know, posing for steam fighter nose arts, alluring young men to join the military forces and such. But some claim that she is an agent of a hostile foreign power. But who can you trust these days anyway?

Private Max Dankrough is an ordinary soldier of Machine-Buster division. His gas-function rifle can shoot through the thickest steel shell. And it wan be used to chop some wood to build trenches.



-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Rinsan

 Sometimes an idea leads to a whole different destination than you were thinking - and the it can probably come back to the original concept. That sort of happened with this female Toa of Iron.

The original idea was to build a Toa Knight using dark red KK2 legs and feet as a boots. I built a quite nice looking upper legs to go with them so I chose to make it female. In Bionicle canon (which for I don't have much respect if it doesn't have MNOG in its name) dark red doesn't appear in any female Toa color (rather strong gender roles in that theme, I tell you) but there isn't lot of known Iron Toas (they also say that "Toa" can't be used is form "Toas" but I don't listen to their ridiculous cavil). Well, I took some liberties. Silver isn't very interesting colour, but I had lots of pieces to work with and it makes the dark red stand out pretty nicely.

But at some point it didn't look Toa, or probably I wasn't interested to build one any more. I started to look for a more mecha-like MOC, with head similar to Belsa's, without hair (hairy mechas, nooo) but with some kind of headphones. It stayed on a wip stage on my "Bionicle table" for a month or something, but the idea didn't fly. It just looked bad and I didn't have any ideas about the weapons or tools.

So I returned to work on the MOC and somehow returned back to the original idea. The red-silver Ruru had been used as a chest armour on the mecha version (and it looked terrible even though the marbled effect has good) but I switched it to the face and built a new chest (which came out well in my opinion) and gave her a sword and an odd shield tablescap that had been floating around in the WIP-shelf for some some time.

I don't think that the finalized MOC is perfect, as the legs are rather rigid. But I didn't want to change them as they were the main point of the project and making them more flexible would have demanded some big big tweaks.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Brassport

Dear passenger! Wax your mustache or straighten your underskirt and step into Brassport, a highly industrial town of the new age. But don't be imprudent! Despite General-Governor Justanoff Crawford's guards aware ward, there is all kinds of folk in the town and all of them aren't friendly...

The main employer of Brassport is the New Factory of Piston-Brothers Inc., a big red brick building. For faster and effective profit, the factory has built a  private railway through the town. There is just a train full of secret good incoming, but there seems to be a bit of a kerfuffle... Outlaw heroes Pantelomeus T. Ongu and Edwin Pillingshot McBlaine seem to want something from the delivery! The green cyclops hangs fearlessly from a cable of McBlaine's (stolen) Capercaillie Tri-Copter!I wonder what is stored in this unfortunate wooden box...

But there is more stuff going on around the factory. At the left corner one legendary biologist is demonstrating his theory about the development of the species; the another frog lived in a green environment (a bog) and the another in yellow one (a polluted bog; downsides of the Industrian Revolution). His book is currently titled "Oranges and Peaches" but he is about the tweak it a bit, probably to "Orangutangs of Peaches" or something like that.


 At the right corner the improvised international oompah jazz band is playing its tunes. Gaffyn McGraffan is making some awesome riffs with his pneumatic-powered bagpipe. It leaves his mouth free so he can easily shout obscenities to passing-by women. William "Peg" Johnson is making some blues improvisations with his saxophone and Peruvian virtuoso Peedro Panama's accordion's tunes are about to shake the ground and the nearby buildings.

Next to the factory is the old People's House where nowadays is a craft shop and Nival Iccule's atelier. Iccule's wife keeps the shop where relic hunters Sir Daniel Slothabury and Katey Bruckhire are seeking for old artifacts. They wonder if these crafts have ancient curses or terrible powers on them... But I can provide that they are completely arti-free! Except for the Teddy-bear... You know never about the Teddy-bear.

At the basement there are a few proto-communists preparing for a revolution... They are digging a tunnel into the factory to "free" the workers. But they haven't done their plains properly. Actually, their tunnle is about to end into a vat full of molten iron. Well, it will be a red revolution after all.


 At the front of the building Little Tomer is about to earn his first bucks. He is scrubbing and waxing General-Governors boots. General-Governor is having his boots fixed just to have that "forward, lads!" leg-up pose. He likes it, as it has a feel of the suspended monorail charge...

At the other side of the canal there is a old fisherman Gilles's boathouse. The grumpy old man is sorting his fishes from the net (sorting is important) and yelling to the gull. He is so keen of his fishes that he doesn't even notice McBlaine's (stolen) copter floating over his shack!

Next to the boathouse lies the rail guard's booth, but the guard is so deeply immersed in his Solitaire game that he has no sense what is going on, neither up in the air or in the basement where Freddie "Booger" Brandon keeps his secret speakeasy, where all kinds of folk with dark business meet. Aikapoika is planning a time hop; he has bought a strange map from adventurer Alinen Flora Boing. Private detective Victor G. Gononde is going to make his thoughts clearer with the best absinthe in town. We'll see if the Green Fairy will help him solving the crimes.

Next to the speakeasy is one of the most important buildings in the country, Prime Minister Churston Windmill's house. In the downstairs lies his office with a big mahogany table and a ultra-modern tele-phone with artistic statue base representing the responsibility that the fast way of information brings. The second floor is the living room, and the steam-powered elevator can go up to the third floor, where is the most comfortable loo of the country; The Primal Loo. On the attic lives Doktor Heberron, as every man in charge should have a questionable scientist living on their attic.

Okay. Now that is all about the stories I thought when building this thing, hope you enjoyed them or found them fun to read. To the technical details, Robin!

The whole thing measured (probably around) 60x48 studs and weighs a few kilograms; it can be divided into few modules to be easily transported. This is the biggest single MOC I have ever built (Minas Tirith project was bigger but I count is a separate MOCs). I wanted to present different architecture styles: Industrialism on the factory, Victorian style on Prime Minister's house, some rather basic older stone buildings and a funny looking sand green wooden building with a bit of a wild west influence. There is a cog motif on the whole things; I'm especially happy with the gear arch on top of the speakeasy. It is built with those strange ball cogs on Toa Hordika's swinging arms as they can be connected to each other. I found that out accidentally.


 I also wanted to have different thoroughfares on this MOC: The railway bridge crossing a channel was there from the start. I like the railway as it has both heavy looking pillars and lighter net profile and captures the look of black steel.

 The train is rather traditional. It is not based on any particular engine, and has a different boiler/fire box than ordinary locomotives, but is still more of a real-world train than a wacky steampunk vehicle. Tri-copter's case is different: It has somewhat serious flavours on it, but I guess it couldn't really work. I am very happy with the SNOTty front, new bracket pieces I bought from LUGBULK really helped there. The cockpit is nearly airtight which is always challenging.

The roof window of the factory is one particularly steampunky bit that was interesting to built. It uses some old windscreens and trans-clear slopes combined with the steel arch built from 1x4 plates with two studs. I got a lot of them from Ninjago polybag promos from Model Expo (TRU gave them away) and that idea came long before I started to built this MOC. I'm rather happy how the railway goes under the glass shed like in some old train stations.

Another special thing was the color scheme of Prime Minister's house. Black and red is very striking, but I think it quite fits the snazzy punked-up victorian era. I could have used some brown or dark red between the red and black striped to soften it a bit, but it was too late. Well, guess the trees balance it a bit. At least they give some autumn feel rarely seen in MOCs.

I pondered whether I should use some tiling on the streets. I guess it would have looked a bit better, but even though I bought a big amount of light bley 2x2 tiles from LUGBULK a couple of years ago, most of them are in MOCs and I should have taken a lot of stuff apart in order to tile the whole thing. In addition, the studdy surface makes it easier to make scenes with minifigs as replacing 2x2 tiles with 2x2 jumpers is always troublesome - you have to remove everything from quite a big area to change the needed parts. 

I hope you enjoyed your trip to Brassport! See you later! Goodbyeeeeee!

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Toa Iniko

 And for now, something completely different! I mean, three years has passed since the end of Bionicle (and I have to say that I don't miss it, really) so I'm sure everyone is drooling to see some ol' good Toa-Mods! Either way, here's Iniko. He's a veteran Toa of Earth from Bio-Klaani, an organization fighting against the evil Nazorak empire in the Klaanon collaboration novel thing.

As a big number of "good guys" in Klaanon are actually former members of Bio-Klaani, Finnish (formerly) Bionicle-based (formerly) forum, I had some inspiration material for this MOC. Iniko, who disappeared probably in 2009 or 2010 has some old self-MOCs in his Brickshelf folder, so I began building a somewhat "modernized" version. I took the black-purple color scheme, as the it is very striking (the old purple is one of my favourite LEGO colors, but I rather dislike the current "dark purple") and the gold used in some versions didn't work very well to my eye. Because most of purple parts available are some a bit "retro-ish" Bionicle and TECHNIC parts from late 90s and early 00s (that's my early childhood) so this MOC came out as a combination of old and new action figure building techniques.

 There is actually even a classic gear function in this MOC due to Slizer (some call them throwbots) torso. When the small gear in the butt is turned, the body bends (see the last photo)! Well, not as snazzy as Tahu swinging his almighty Fire Sword, but at least that's something.

I made Iniko rather well armoured and wanted to achieve a look similar to Big Daddy of the first Kick-Ass movie. The HF pec armour and Drilldozer shoulder shell are some of my favourite HF pieces, and they worked suprisingly well with some black KK2 armoring, giving grand and well-armoured look. The round shaped also matched the black Miru quite well. Some basic Bionicle parts like Mata feet and Metru limbs make sure it still has some Bionicle aesthetics.

I changed the drill-like weapon to a bit more impressive pike with some scorpion blades, probably stolen from poor Lord Vladek. It's war after all. AND WAR IS HELL. IIiiiiIiIIIIIIIiiiiIIi!

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Bofur

 Ahoy, more dwarves coming up! Today it is Bofur's turn. The dwarf with his famous hat and positive attitude is masterfully acted by Jimmy Nesbitt and was one of the more important dwarves in the first Hobbit film.

This dwarf was on a WIP stage since June. I ran out of fingers some time ago, and had to lend four from Dwalin. I should BL them, but damn I'm stingy! Kick me.

I'm very happy with Bofur's face, as the inverted 1x3 arc with some teeth (or a tooth) creates the iconic smile. The braid idea came from my friend Humppakeksi and Sweetsha's Metal Head beat me using it.

Bofur also has a smaller nose than the most of other dwarves.
The torso and limbs are similar to Bifur's, as the cousins used a very similar costumes. Bofur's scarf and belt bag make him unique, though, alongside with the furred boots (I'd like to have boots like that).

 I'm very happy with the wristbands, too. The underside of the plate has such a great pattern and I pondered a long time how to build them. The design isn't the most sturdiest one (the plates are connected to a 2x2 jumper which is connected to the 2x2 brick via a "stud-pin") but works on a display.

  Bofur is completed with his mining mattock, a perfect household tool to be buried in an orc skull. It was actually the first part I built for this dwarf: The LEGO design for it was on my mind almost immediately I saw it!

And last but not least, here's a group portrait of family B. Bifur has gone through some changes (the arms are sturdier and the head is more accurate. See another views here and here.

Have good time waiting the Desolation of Smaug premiere and the release of extended Unexpected Journey,

-Pate-keetongu

Scifi-figbarf: Volume II

 Here's some more blokes and gals around the galaxy, this time in a bit more militaristic spirit. So load your rayguns and vaporizers!

 Some of you might have met Grookab, Blacktron II Captain Albert von Kopony's first mate, before, but he just wanted to get in this photo and he really isn't a guy that takes "no" as an answer. Grookab loves his three-barrel vaporizer shotgun and his Lowerjaw helmet is an heirloom of his grandgrandgrandfather from the Great War of Meteorblitzkrieg.

 Kheera Rumbaudibbel is one of these green thinking girls who have taken the justice to their own hands. She's an ecoterrorist according the Hyperspacecapitalists or a defender of the weak according to herself, but at least her actions to prevent overlogging can be vindicated with the fact that she's a plant herself... And I don't mean she would be braindead, but her skin actually has chlorophyll and can form sugar with carbon dioxide, water and sunlight.

 Xatnam Gruggah is a cult leader from the black abysses of the outer space; I wonder if you are surprised? But the truth is that once he was a normal boy. Okay, a spawn. Well, a normal spawn with dark-red scarred skin and mollusks. But he didn't get enough advice with his studies, became marginalized from the society and started to spend time with nasty gangs. Now he has billions of followers all around the galaxy and he is worshipped as a god by many. How sad.

 Lieutenant Jillian Daniels was one of the officers of Governor-Commander Justunus at the war of Invasion. She lead a band of Red Typhoons special unit with a great success. And hey... Goddamn longcoats. Goddamn longcoats under space armour! Whee!

Sir Barhaeon Vermont was another veteran of the Invasion War, giving advice even to the Governor-Commander himself. Vermont was nearly shot dead in the greatest battle of northern deserts, but his goddamn longcoat under space armour stopped the missile. A cluster took his eye, but it is easier to aim with one after all.

-Pate-keetongu