MOC: Avde

 If you have dozens of projects in progress it's always nice feeling to have one of them completed, especially if the project is bigger and has been under construction for a while.

This MOC is from Klaanon (sort of  a Finnish spin-off Internet novel Bionicle-ish thing with many authors). It's name is Avde, but not much is known about it (or him). It seems to consist of two creatures, though it is not known are they of same person. The one is the Matoran-looking Crimson Man, a small and suspiciously friendly little man. The other is The Deep Laughter, a black shadow mass with dozens of tentacles, red eyes and deep gapes. The Deep Laughter can appear both as a physical creature and nightmare-ish mental creature, though the latter require a use of a telepathic, as Avde doesn't have such powers.

In this MOC I wanted to capture the mental side of Avde as he appears on a person's mind. I have built the physical side a few years ago, and this time I wanted a vastly different approach. I built the MOC with white wall and floor using some a bit yellowed old bricks to create a feel of a bit depressing empty room. The white backdrop also brought forth the black and red creature, allowing to make shapes that wouldn't be possible without brick-built backdrop.

The Crimson Man is built using my old Matoran technique which reminds a bit of the 2001-2002 "Tohunga" design but is a bit bigger and has more movement. The blue Pakari might be a bit of a reference to Takua, the hero of MNOG (The best thing of Bionicle ever) and it also appears on some other characters on Klaanon.

This MOC was also built for a "competition" on Mike Doyle's homepage. The competition (which is not really a competition) searches MOCs with the theme "Dark" for the Second book on Doyle's Beautiful LEGO series. The first book was excellent as a builder showcase, art book and a source of inspiration. I got a free copy from No Starch Press as there are six of my MOCs from 2009-2011 in the book.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Floresta

 Here's just another Bionicle MOC fresh from the building table. She's Floresta, sort of a green spirit, life-giver of some sort, I guess. I haven't made so many green Bionicle MOCs, and most of them have used only dark green; Kathrienna is the exception here (and she even made it to Mike Doyle's Beautiful LEGO book). This one is a combination of a few floating ideas.

The first one was those small leaf-like wings constructed on dark and olive green 1x2 plates (from LUGBULK) and 1x1 round plates. That technique has been around for a while and sure looks good. I had those green plates around so I tried to do some leaves without knowing where to use them. They didn't came out very big as I ran out of trans-green 1x1 plates, but they looked pretty. I had an idea of some sort of a absinthe fairy (after reading travel guides to Prague last autumn) so I though that they could with with that.

I took the lower legs of another brown WIP (which is a WIP because I don't have enough brown Rhakshi heads; Only one and that's full of bite marks), built the legs (traditional but working Rhakshi shell design as there is not that many alternatives in basic green). The torso came out pretty easily, I especially like the green panels there. I'm also pretty fond of the "color layering" or "color blocking" or whatever  they say; green as the main color, dark green to bring it up, and some black for balance. Couldn't have done the hands on green and I quite like the feel of monochromatic black boots.

The trans-green wings had bee laying on my Bionicle table for a year or two. They are from the big odd Ninjago dragon set, though I picked them from Bricklink as the looked cool. There was a perfect chance to use them. They were a bit problematic, though - The stability of the click hinge alters and they ended up looking asymmetrical; Gravity angled some more than others. I had to sort them by the stability of the joint and rebuild the wings. I ended up putting the behind the leaves. The placement of the leaves wasn't clear until the end, they used to be on the hips or on the lower torso during the process.

The head also came through some alternatives. By first try was to make a head similar to Qwena or Zero Suit Samus, and that was the time when I was thinking the absinthe fairy thing. But I didn't have the needed parts and it would have looked way too big compared to the torso. The another idea was to make head similar to Belsa in white with tan hair, but it looked terrible - White just didn't work with the greens at all. So I ended up with rather stylished design similar to Karmenna and especially Lady Liberty 3000. This MOC is in may ways similar to the later, though their backstories are definitely different, as it is a mecha and this is a forest spirit. But both have transparent wings and sort of a crown, and they stand side by side on the top of my character MOC shelf.

There's more photos on Brickshelf.