MOC: Annya

Howdy, guys and girls. The first week of of my civil service's educational period is over and I'm currently home for the weekend, listening to a Motörhead live LP and waiting for the sauna to warm up. An yes, writing a blog post about a new Bionicle MOC, fightress Annya. This one was build week and a half ago, but I had loads of stuff to post back then.

There were several ideas behind this MOC. The most important of them is the use of chain as - surprise! - chain mail. I like the effect achieved with them and other armor layers. The other ideas was simply centered around a Bricklink order where I got those tan Roborider halves (they are lovely pieces, having smooth surface and simple shape with loads of axle holes) and a tan odd face-slopes. I have used to before on MOCs like Lady Liberty 3001 and Floresta but didn't have tan ones before, and tan's the most realistic skin opinion around there. There can be seen some influences of my old MOC Neyva from 2010. I dare to say I have got better with this, at least if looking the anatomy..

The build was fun and enjoyable as a hobby should be. There were some problems with the upper torso, but some tactical curved slopes and TECHNIC cams solved them. I wanted Annya to be rather muscular and strong-looking, with armored skirt with layered mail to enhance femininity. The main color was going to be dark red on the beginning, but I changed it to green as I haven't done lot of green MOCs lately. I saved the red legs for another MOC though.

The boots are similar to my basic female feet style, but the knee joint has basic liftarm instead of cams for mobility's sake. I wanted this MOC to be agile, and it worked quite well, as you can see on the photos. The skirt is connected on a way that allows some great posing and the chain flows as a chain should.

I'm especially pleased with a sword. There is not many simple and straight one-edged Bionicle blades, and ones like Lewa's air catanas are still way too overused (in sets, at least). Matau's blades have a bad axle connection, but fortunately the boat stud/turntable top pin hole connection saved the day, again, and those ninjago spinner blades, jolly good pieces, made a nice hand guard. The head was another challenge. She has sort of a nun-like headdress, but I believe it is a some kind of helmet to finish the armor. The face is quite small but I think it looks fine as it is one of those stylised ones anyway.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: There's no accounting for taste

 This is my entry for this year's summer building competition on Palikkatakomo, the Finnish LUG. The theme of the contest was to build something based on a traditional Finnish proverb. I chose "Makuasioista ei voi kiistellä" which translates neatly into "there's no accounting for taste" and fortunately makes it possible to understand the MOC in English too. It's simple - A geezer's having his dinner in a restaurant, but the dinner appears to be something complete nonsense. Tee hee hee. Such fun!

There were no limits on scale or technique, so I went with figures quite near to Miniland scale. Basically they are similar to my steampunk ladies posted in March this year. I had two tablescraps lying around, the heads of the figures - One with beard built using Technic cams and one with that waitress-style head thing, what ever it is called. I browsed though Finnish proverbs on Wikipedia and ended up with this one.

I hadn't build scenes with larger figures for some time, so I had to pay extra attention on posing of the figures. Granddad with the cam beard looked rather stunned already, and I gave him a little hunched pose to enhance the effect. The waitress had to have a smart posing as she is giving the cheeky comment. 4x4 studless wedges gave nice shape to her dress, and I'm especially pleased with the pigtail hair.

The set-up is quite basic restaurant stuff. Building tricks include whips as the back rest on chair and leaves embedded into 3x3x3 cone. The table is 100% SNOT and yes, that's an alive ostrich head on the menu.

-Pate-keetongu

PS. The educational period of my civil service begins on Monday and it takes four weeks. I'm able to reach Internet, but I can't build except on the weekends that I spend at home.

Black backdrop is the new black: Two dynamic duos

This post includes two duo that unlikely have ever anything in common, but I don't feel writing different posts as the other one is just a cool pair pose of MOCs that I couldn't have photographed together before because black and white is gorram hard to shoot.

Firstly there's Balin and Dwalin, the first dwarves build for my Company of Thorin Oakenshield, originally posted in February 2013. These have, as you may notice, came through some mods and tweaks and updates. Dwalin's beard is better now, with more realistic nose and a bit of minifig hand magic. His boots are a bit further away from each other, the belts are angled in a better way, the bald is less studdy and the shoulder line is straighter.

Balin has got some muscle in his shoulders, a new nose, dark orange boots and least but not last his mace, which is not really a mace but something between an axe and a sword. Not very sharp, but it's LEGO, after all. Black backdrop makes it possible to photograph Balin's white beard decently, and in my opinion it looks a lot better. Saty tuned for more Dwarf group photos when the company is done - Ori is on WIP stage, head and one hand done and Bricklink order with dark purple incoming.

 Aaand here's Bladis and Same, moderator duo (or married couple) from Klaanon, first time in group shot. There's some minor tweaks on both of them, but the main point here is that they're in the same photograph, which means someone's neck is going to snap and something is going to explode.

-Pate-keetongu
 

MOC: Crab Beast

 Here's another of these black-backdrop MOCs. This big guy was built on late spring/early summer, but I didn't take photos until yesterday because black and white is horrible to photograph. These tunred out excellent though, if you ask me.

 This almost counts as a Hero Factory MOC, as there are strong Invasion from Below vibes here. Or, in other hand, just old-school Japanese Kaiju culture vibes. Either way, I've always liked the look of Carapar's face, and luckily it comes in three colors. This one, black with marbled white, came in Toa Terrain Crawler (Toa Maggot Bus if you ask me...) and is rarely seen in MOCs. I've used it once before, years back, but didn't find the photos.

As you can see, this fellow has a HF skeleton and even the torso piece which I rarely use (except on WIP stands). Of course they are layered with slizer feet and other everyday stuff, but still... And look, there's even some rubber joint supports to hold those giant pincers! I got the idea years back, when I was building the old version of Avde, and finally used it there. Fortunately I got two of Ogel's Mutant Killer Whales as a birthday gifts when I turned I guess 8.

I wanted to keep the legs thin and mollusk-like to create a contrast with the arms and pincers. It created a nice top-heavy look. The tail makes it a bit less human, while a dinosaur arm as a back toe adds support and allows better posing. The back is spiny as crabs use to be.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Turaga Bakmei

 Today's Klaanon creation is Turaga Bakmei, often known as The White Turaga. He lives alone on jungle island of Bio-Klaani. The island was formerly base and home of the Brotherhood of Ämköö, a group of skilled Le-Matoran led by -surprisingly!- Toa Ämkoo, former admin of Bio-Klaani and a scumbag turncoat traitor. Bakmei was his instructor and sort-of-mentor. He's not the cute and a bit eccentric nice old man you find in the senior home. Alright, he is a bit eccentric, and good at removing invader's guts, liver etc. with some cool kung-fu moves.

Building-wise this was a one challenging old-timer. I bought some mask and other stuff fom Bricklink store Bricksy, which was excellent one with solid 6,5€ packing and shipping fee for EU. Now I have all the basic-color Toa Mata and Turaga masks except dark grey, orange and lime Rau - I wonder if that mask is rarer than the others?

In the story, Bakmei has a white Huna, but that mask is a super-rare misprint promo thingy, so I went with Nuju's light grey Huna. The most iconic part of Bakmei's character was his moustache and extended beard (you know, the overhang on Huna is a beard) inspired by Vakama's additional eyebrow in Mask of Light. I achieved that with a rubber band, 1x3 tile and a couple of minfig catanas. With them the character was done and the rest of the design was just something to make the facial hair sit on. The torso was rather easy. It is supposed to be kind of a cloak you would expect for a Kung-fu master.

I'm quite happy with the hands. The design is similar to Oracle's. The legs were pain though. As you can see, he can't really walk, but at least he's got those Matoran feet and he can pull a split if he wants to... Boy, I wish we had some more ball socket pieces!

The staff is quite a simple thing to finish the build, and the bolts in his hand are some sort of elemental energy burst. This geezer has still a few tricks left.

-Pate-keetongu

Steampunk minifig barf: flavours from Eastern Europe

Here's another batch, this time with some eastern European flavours. I wish no one would find these stereotypical - keep in mind that this is a twisted alternative history.

Anna Mardozky is a Polish woman with tendency of looking suspicious things out. She's curious and brave, sometimes too curious and brave, and uses to end up in some big problems. So far she has survived, though.

Bombstez Zoadanyc is Serbian private enterpriser on logistics business. His airship fleet transports everything to everywhere, expect, for some reason, donkeys, raisins and meat pasties WITH pickle (but separately they are fine). No one knows why, but a popular rumor says that his dark past has something to do with those things.

Austria aristocrat Jens Von Tromtryffe is the steadfast and old protector of his castle and mountain realm. His white bushy moustache and hair help him hiding in the snow white shooting deer, strangers, spy balloons and mountain goats.

Natashalia Svetnikova is upper-class lady living in the Imperial Union of Russia, Novgorod and United Stans. She's highly educated and traveled far, and definitely sure that her home empire so much more powerful and beautiful than those marmalade-eating buggers on their tiny island. Likes red wine. And red clothes.

Corporal Mahchinovost of the Red Army of the Imperial Union of Russia, Novgorod and United Stans. His high-tech armor is designed to be shown in parades, conferences, marches and congresses. It features warm and impressive hat, heating-up longcoated armor and power boots. Naturally it's so expensive that it's impossible to arm an army with those things...

Steampunk Minifigure Barf: These are not going to end very soon.

 Here's one of these figbarfs things, this time with some newish pieces or recolors bought from LEGO's bricks&pieces.

 Miss Harriet Wonderboom is one of the ladies who use to attends these "high-class adventure activities". Golden bits in her adventure costume would raise dozen beggars to middle-class, but at least she learns some skills that might come handy id her family's big bearing-making company makes a bankruptcy.

 James L. Bangordon is the spokesman of unlucky miner's guild. The name of the guild is not very good though, as most of the incidents take place because bad planning, rotten supports and lack of occupational safety and health. Expect if you believe in things like luck and things like that.

 Rowena O. Onnet is a brave commoner with incredible skill of rollerblading on rough and patchy cobblestone streets. Her think leather bodice and skirt with a pair of boots, gloves and pads give her protection while leaving the joints free for mobility. Top-class goggles are obligatory on high speeds, of course.

 Baron Schaufen von Pavdrauger might have been dead for forty or fifty years, but folk don't seem to get irritated by that. Yep, his arm might suddenly fall of during a country fair, but he always buys lot of pies, pays the prizes for the cricket cup and is always polite to everyone. That his life, or whatever, after all.

Lady Mathilda Ainerdale is one of these fine ladies of steam, daughters of the Victorian era and its new possibilities. Or something dramatic like that. She likes to be dramatic and wears a well-made crimson overcoat with a top-class dress.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Visokki

 Today's (tonight's) Klaanon MOC is Visokki, one of the admins of Bio-Klaani. She is Vohtarak with powerful telepathic abilities, including strong mind-reading and probably even telekinesis powers. Despite being physically different from the other three (or two, as Ämkoo was a turncoat; the others are Tawa and Guardian) she's a trusted ally and friend.

This MOC is very simple, but it was not especially easy. I mean, she is just a Vohtarakt with black leg-ends, so the MOC was to be a Visorak revamp. I had tried to build Visokki few times before, the last try was in 2012, but they weren't very successful. But I did not have clear idea of a Visorak revamp until I came up with that leg idea yesterday. The legs of set Visorak always felt quite boring, as they were only basic canister humanoid legs with different feet. I wanted to make them creepier and more spider-like - we are talking about a species that destroyed many Rahi species. Some tentacles with sharp ends connected via boat-studs (one of my favorite pieces) did the job. The rest is just Visorak body with better armor and ball-joint-connected pincers; I left the upper legs armorless to make them more bug-like.

-Pate-keetongu