Old MOC revamp + rephotographing: Lady Liberty 3001

With Fili and Kili the amount of dwarves reached their "critical mass" and I had to rearrange my shelves. The dwarves formed a line on the top of it, and I moved MOCs displayed there to the lower shelves. This model, Lady Liberty 3000 3001 didn't fit there with her wings, though. I though should I sacrifice her to the gods of spare parts, but meh. I like this model quite a bit, but the color scheme makes it terrible to photograph. I took the challenge: Made some tweaks on the upper legs (inner side and back of the thighs were quite terrible), built a stand for some snazzy photos and used big black papers I happened to have as a backdrop. There was quite a thunderstorm near when I took the photos, but they came out quite well at all. Here's a set of seven and a couple of more in brickshelf, but those are not that good.

MOC: General Killjoy

 Here's Killjoy, General of war technology organization The Black Hand. He is one of the more important characters on Klaanon, and I have built him two times before, in 2010 and 2011. Killjoy is Vahki-like creature with powerful battle armor. He is member of Bio-Klaani, but his true nature seems to be shady to say at least. Killjoy is equipped with twin ion catanas (Finally got use for those odd Belville doors - Bought them from Panzy-boe at Model Expo in 2011) and missile launchers (six in both, but they say he can generate new ones with his elemental powers; Bionicle Magic). The right arm is cannon arm; The hand is supposed to go inside of the gun in shooting mode, but it is not, of course, possible in the MOC.

This was rather fast and enjoyable build. I began it yesterday evening and finished, photographed and edited today. I started with the arms, which are quite basic stuff, and then went to the bulky shoulders (Got some HF pieces, including the shoulder pads, when I bough two Brain Attack Breznikovas (or Breezs) for 2€ each during a vacation trip), threw togethed the torso and the legs and built the helmet. The model is somewhat based on this picture, but I didn't use it as a fundamental reference and went with the flow instead. The helmet design is pretty much taken from there though (and it looks a bit like Ant-Man's helmet).

The MOC combines Bionicle, HF and SYSTEM parts as most of my action figures do.The helmet uses only SYSTEM, but in the other areas HF and Bionicle blend in quite balanced way. I think HF parts work well on Killjoy's battle armor, and some smooth Bionicle parts like rahksi head with similar pattern are used with them. Kalmah's foot, which is probably my favourite chest armor piece, makes comeback here. It was used on the two previous Killjoy versions too.

The lower legs are probably my favourite part on this. The knee joint has ball joint with hole, and its axle goes through the red Pahrak-kal shields to add extra support. The boots have rocket boosters on them, which means they had to be very sturdy, so I went with bulky mecha-like design. The Piraka arm on the front allows mobility to the feet as it is connected via ball joint. Mechanical shells work as rocket booster machinery. In the previous version the jetpack using same pieces was on his back, but that wasn't faithful to Klaanon.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Fili

 Yezz, my summer job in north is finished and I'm back home and building business. I was planned to stay there until the end of the month, but there wasn't much to do (there was free time, but not very much, you know, activities, except reading or surfing on the web in reception). And before you call me job-alienating lazyguy, (which I am a bit probably still) my 11-month civil service job on Police department begins in September. Hooray.

Ah yes, the MOC!

Here's Fili, son of Frerin and Dis (who is Thorin Oakenshield's sister and only mentioned female dwarf in Middle-Earth). He is, of course, brother of Kili and one of the younger dwarves of the company. In the Hobbit films he is played by talented Kiwi actor Dean O'Gorman. Fili has lots of weapons, Including paired swords, four boot-attached throwing axes, two gauntlet-mounted knives and a war hammer, which is never seen in the film and neither in this MOC.

This was a fun build, and quite a fast too: around eight hours including the photographing and editing. That was partly due to LUGBULK pieces that I got on Tuesday (dark brown!) and three-month break after the last time I seriously MOCed (I bought five sets on clearances during my journeys, including Goblin  King Battle -52% though). I had thrown the head together many months earlier, but had to reassemble it because it broke: The design is far from sturdy, as the medium dark flesh hair and beard consists of 1x2 brick, Persian arches and three 1x2 tiles. Luckily those arches were perfect for Fili's flowing hair, even though they deemed some serious SNOT work that was not easy.

There was some concerns with the belts. It is hard to say what color they are on the film - something between greys and dark browns I guess, but I went with lighter options (dark tan and brown) to make it stand out better. The scabbard strap uses fisherman cord piece with headlights. It would have been very hard to make one with plates going diagonally over odd-shaped studded surface, so that was good alternate: Kili uses small tack links on the same purpose.

The arms are rather poseable with a ball joint on shoulder and a brick hinge on elbow. The sleeves have a fur wristbands. The boots are in my opinion two of my most succesful ones with throwing axes and all. They made Fili a bit taller than Kili, so I lenghtened Kili's boots my one studs. According to size charts Kili is a bit taller.

Now I have only Ori left with dwarves and then there's Bilbo and Gandalf to finish the project with. Ori will be tricky with his colors scheme: I'm going to mix dark purple and dark bley. It's too late to give up! Actually I put together most of Ori's head already, and I have Bilbo's hand too.. But before them, here's a group portrait of Thorin and his nephews. Enjoy ahoy!

-Pate-keetongu    

MOC: The Ventriloquist

Good evening readers. Here's the second part of MOCs built before I started my job here in north. This guy is from Klaanon. He's one of Avde's puppets, group of mysterious, powerful and horrible creatures that Avde uses to gain his aspirations. The Ventriloquist seems to be the messenger. He has a long, tentacle-like arms. By attaching them to a corpse's brain he can talk thought the dead in a horrifying way.

 This MOC is a good example of a character that differs vastly from basic Bionicle MOC design. It's awesome that Klaanon offers inspiration for such builds. The scale of this guy is quite small too - he's supposed to be a bit bigger than average Toa, but Cubedude head idea with those old style tentacle arms led into this scale. The figure is almost completely black if not counting the whiteware mask. The torso is built around couple of Bohrok torso halves, rarely used piece with surprisingly cool shape, and the Mantax feet add some mass to the sides. As The Ventriloquist wasn't supposed to be a fighter or a runner, I gave him thin legs, awkward hips and a pair of flat feet to match the hunchback shape that is supposed to look wrong and creepy.

I also threw up a dead Matoran to be The Ventriloquist's puppet. His colors have faded during the centuries in the grave and his body is growing moss and mushrooms an his hand has dropped off. The leg design in terrible movement-wise but well, dead men don't have to be agile...

-Pate-keetongu

Fantasy Figs Barfed

 I'm currently in Northern Finland on summer job in camping area (Oulankajoki in Kuusamo; feel free to visit.) but I have some unposted material on to post with me... Here's a fantasy-themed minifig barf; Enjoy.

Schaul Von Tryffelripper, known as The Iron Baron, was son of famous explorer Samuel Von Tryffelripper, but he did not follow his father's footsteps discovering nature, native peoples' customs and making maps more accurate. Instead he became into a cruel imperialistic ruler who tried to conquer ancient civilizations. What a scumbag. 

Condrad Gistardo is Von Tryffelripper's right hand and a brutal sort of a man. He loves gold, but not as a material; In matter of fact he loves to steal, loot and plunder it. No wonder he's not the most popular man in the village.

Avista of Langavia is the priestess of ancient and highly civilized cult centered around birds. That might be seen in his fine and unbelievably valuable clothes and accessories that include 42 kilograms of gold. Her favourite food is worm soup
.

 Huisynda is one of the defendors of the mountain realm of Langavia. These warriors have developed a way to glide with wings made of eagle's feathers. They are not that effective warriors, though, as gold is the only metal they know and it's very heavy and gets blunt easily.

Mantapaulus is said to be a great wizard, but that might be only because he is an old and bearded hermit living in the wastelands with animals. He might be just an old man, but in that case he wouldn't be that interesting and people would not talk about him that much. He thinks it is alright to be said to be wizard, because advice-seeking travellers often bring him food and gifts.