A sort of a small redux on Steampunk Qwena

As I have noted before, I often do a little mods and corrections on older creations displayed on my shelfs. Buying three Mixels sets (Shuff, Zaptor and Flain) gave me some glorious eye-patterned WHITE ball joints, which made it finally possible to make Steampunk Qwena's neck all-white, and it seemed to be worth of posting; and the old photos of this outfit wasn't that good, which was another reason. There are a couple of other tweaks too. The stomach piece is brown, the hip case is gone (don't know why, but this way the dress seems more homogeneous (what a cool word) and there is more dark red in the upper torso. The shoes are different. I quite liked the heavier boots on the previous photos, but then again the shape didn't really work. But hey, I'm not going to babble more about this, you can read the rest about this model on the old post from summer 2013; but enjoy the photos anyway.

MOC: Oracle

 Here's another Klaanon MOC, from same photoshoot than the two Toas I posted few days ago. This guy is called Oracle, and he is a very old man of belief. Oracle is one of the Athists, Matoran group with religion vastly different from original Mata Nui worshipping. Oracle has something to do with powerful artefact Nimda, he has some (rare) knowledge on Avde and has mysterious connections with several characters. He is master in telepathy and mind-reading, but also uses small Eight-Ball explosives when needed.

This MOC was a little challenge build-wise. It took less than an hour, but included some special tricks. The descriptions tell that Oracle has a pale blue Pakari (blue Pakari seems to be motif here, as Takua wore it on MNOG and The Crimson Man has one) with red runic patterns. As I am a purist, I didn't want to draw anything on the mask (Even though I have 3 of those) but a rubber band did the job just finely. The red patterns continue to the body, 1x2 grill tile being the key part here.

I wanted to use new small ball joints in the limbs; I had bough a lot from BL a month ago. I had never seen them used on a Bionicle creation, but they work fine on Matoran scale. Oracle is somehow more light-build and taller than my average, MNOG-esque matorans; the design can be seen in Avde (linked above). The also gave Oracle heaps of movement, and I even could add moving fingers in such a small space. Tohunga feet add Matoran feel.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Toa Muothka

 Toa Muothka, Toa of Earth, is another warrior from the northern parts of the island of Bio-Klaani. His people lives on the fells near Guartsumountain - or lived, as they have moved into south due to the invasion of the Nazorak Empire. Muothka's folk are probably a bit more primitive than Korpraun's (see the previous post), with reindeer herding as their primary livelihood. It is also said that there is still some Graalok Worshippers among them, members of ancient cult centered around the great ash bears.

Muothka is short and strong as most Onu-Toas. He is instantly recognizable with his long beard and huge antlers (ritual thing, connected to mask) though. His outlook and dented axe definitely strike fear to the most enemies an even some of his allies. He's still a  trustworthy friend, if sometimes a bit uncivil.

I had quite a clear vision of Muothka in my mind when I started to build him, as he is a character mostly written by me. The stout shape was here from the beginning, as were the antlers. I wanted to achieve a "Lapland-feel" with different aspects than in Korpraun. Orange seemed to be a nice secondary color, as it dates back to Bohrok Animations as an Onu-Matoran color and I had already used purple in Toa Iniko. The beard was originnaly going to be a piece of fur, but looked great as beard so I left it there; the tan on it also looked great with the tan antlers.

The limbs are reinforced basic limbs, with upper legs a bit similar to Iniko's and Mata feet (they are best feet, hands down). Nothing too significant here, but I think the limbs are beefy enough to hold Muothka's mass. Unlike Korpraun who has Glatorian hands, Muothka has bigger clamps as small hands would have looked quite ridiculous on him.

-Pate-keetongu

Ps. Make sure to check me being blogged on ReBrick.

MOC: Toa Korpraun

 After a figbarf, steampunk creation and dwarf it's naturally time for a Bionicle MOC. This is Toa Korpraun from Klaanon project. He is a Toa of Stone and the protector of the Step of Tahtorak, a Matoran village on the Northern part of the Island of Bio-Klaani. The village is located between Mount Ämköö Guartsumountain but is currently abandoned because the war against the Nazorak Empire, reign of roach-like rahi species.

Korpraun wears a traditional colorful outfit over his tan Toa armor. It includes also a tall felt hat with four cones and numerous flags in blue, red and yellow, representing the rising sun over the icy fells. This motif is also seen on his many spears. The colors and hats are inspired by Sami people living in the Northern Europe, including the Finnish Lapland.

This was a fun build. Korpraun was loosely described on Klaanon a few months ago, as a robust light-brown Toa of stone with the hat and many spears. My MOC came out as somewhat more athletic and I also continued the Sami motif on the armor. There is also some asymmetry as Korpraun has a armor on the other shoulder and pendant sash on the other. The hat was a perfect fit on noble Huna (A 1x2 liftarm inside it goes into the hole on Huna's forehead) and I thought it looked good on it as I'm a big fan of 2001 Kanohi (and naturally there is best selection of those available). The color motif continues to the kneecaps.

The color scheme was rather challenging, especially the tan parts. I used most of Vorox's tan, some Roborider and Slizer parts and even some SYSTEM (dark tan 4x4 curved wedges, good stuff). The "destroyer droid foot" connector block is one seed part here, giving nice organic shape on the legs and lower torso.

Korpraun has five spears (should have given six as it's always six, but ran out of ideas and connection points) of three types. He has one long-bladed and colorful Sunrise Spear (the main Toa tool), two medium-sized one (for throwing, with bionicle minifigure weapons as blades) and two small ones (Probably to arm Matoran guards on tricky situations). Unlike the most Toas he doesn't magically hide his tools inside his back armor but keeps them visible as banner or deterrent. Korpraun is said to be a bit stubborn, but he is popular among his people and a worthy warrior.

I have some other Klaanon MOCs built, so keep an eye for more Bionicle stuff on the following days.

MOC: Kili

 The dwarves are here again. Or at least one of them. I couldn't bring the gang to Model Expo this year because I had too much ofter stuff (I had a big dwarf fortress. It was completely destroyed in the cardboard box during the way back. I'm glad that the big dwarves (ironic eh) didn't meet the same fate). But now I'm only two away from the adventure - Fili and Ori are still missing, and then there's of course Gandalf and the hobbit itself, Bilbo, but that will be another story. No wait. The story is the Hobbit.

Baaaack to topic. Kili, potrayed bu award-winning Aidan Turner, is one of the younger dwarves. He is the handsome one, with small prostectics and only a stubble. Guess how hard that is to achieve with simple blocky bricks! Quite hard, but I think this is good enough. Funny-looking characters like Balin and Bombur are just somehow easy to make look great with sort of a caricature style.

Making Kili's stubble with dark tan would have looked like a tan beard (and terrible with the dark hair) and black or grey beard would have been even worse. So, this is bit of a compromise, with a color slides using all of those colors. Nose is rather small, same size as Bofur's to make Kili look more human-like and young. Ears and nose grow all the life time, I have heard. The hair could have been better in dark brown, but I wouldn't have had enough pieces (Coat took lot of them, and there's still Fili to go...) and it would have looked too much like the coat, so I wanted a bit of contrast there. Some loose hairs in his forehead add a boyish touch. Otherwise the hair is very similar to Thorin's.

Torso uses lots of same parts: Dark brown 1x2 slopes and curved slopes. My collection of dark brown is limited, but I managed to catch the shapes quite well here. Gold and sand blue add some color and hint about Kili's status as Thorin's nephew. Reddish brown and dark grey add some contrast and help making the character less dark.

Kili has a good array of weapons to kill nasty enemies on every range. The sword was quite simple with brick-on-brick structure (the blade isn't that sharp...) some SNOT and slope on top. The bow was trickier. I didn't want to go with old good "Round bricks on rigid hose" trick, as Kili's bow is shaped differently; I don't know the term even though I have some experiences of archery (took a course couple of years ago). So I constructed it using some dinosaur tails, robot arms and other small pieces. The cord was a bit too long, but I spun it from the ends to make is shorter. Kili has also a quiver on his back. The strap here is done using TECHIC chain links. Works quite well on my opinion.

-Pate-keetongu