Who will stop the Steampunk Figbarfs?

 Yes, another steampunk barf. I have been keeping a bit busy with a LEGO convention Leiki Legoilla 2015 last weekend and numerous WIPs, both SYSTEM and Bionicle, Klaanon and castle, dwarves and non-dwarves. These figs use some parts bought from the convention and some ordered from TLG's bricks&pieces.

 Catherine P. Brundenberg is an inventor and wife of Howard H. Brundenberg. Vapour-trike "Rhebok" is their greatest invention, although it has provoked horror on the streets and slopes of Brasshill. Catherine is the master of the technological details while his husband deals with aerodynamics and things like that.

 If your airship's rotors are slowing or the steam on the tubing is leaking during a long flight, better call James A. Magnify, an air mechanic. He uses his protective suit to cling on the airship's hull or wings during the flight and welds, fastens or patches what is broken.

 Onia Von Bubberdubber is a fine lady, unsurprisingly, who enjoys travelling in the northern countries among the natives. She has collected many items from these cultures to her Cabinet of Curiosities.

 Sacharias Dabbel does the dirty work protecting the citizens when the police department is too busy. His impressive friendly muttonchops give him the authorization and his tattered vest suit shows who's in charge.

Allyna Vestermannen is a fashion designer and a tailor. She is tired of everybody having leather corset and tries to make a bit more comfortable clothing. Cardboard cog details are another thing she can't stand. Her favourite items are flowing capes and detailed leather skirts.





-Pate-keetongu

Mini-me?

Here's a minifig version of Tongu, thrown together using keetorange space marine armor bought on Bricks&Pieces. Or well, not really thrown together as it took time to find a way to connect the plate on top; It uses Ninjago skeleton arm and looks horrible from the back. Might still use this to make some SYSTEM Klaanon creations. Scale is a problem, though; If Tongu would be minifig-sized, average Toa or skakdi characters were microfigs...

-Pate-keetongu

PS: This is the 200th post of this blog. Well wasted on a single minifig. 

MOC: Kira

 This weekend starts nicely with (another?) character MOC combining SYSTEM and Bionicle parts. Actually I was quite surprised when I noticed that this does not have any HF (or well, CCBBSS or whatever it is called). Well, this (her? Who uses personal pronouns on plastic models? Does it matter? I just build.) didn't seem to need any.

This woman, Kira I call her, is based on Ninjago fig Nya's torso/leg print, which is very detailed with different layers of armor material and looked very inspiring. I made a fig using those parts, the hair from creepy girl, head with some sort of a gas mask and a compound bow. I did a concept art drawing of the character (below) and then, two or three months later (one and a half weeks ago) began working on the actual MOC.

I began with the upper torso, oddly enough, because MOCs like these nearly always start with the legs. However, the upper torso came around quite well, with always-so-handy rahkshi head shoulder armor. The challenges began with the middle torso, the part with 4x4 dark red curved slope and pearl gold claw pieces. I'm very happy with the shape, but it was very time-consuming to get together. I had to tear the armor off from the armpits to allow upper arm movement, and that left nasty-looking plate bit there, but the 3x3x3 cone cover it in most angles. Unfortunately, the steering ball joint does not have enough friction for cool archery poses, but other ball joint opinions didn't work. I wondered if Mixel joint would have worked, but it would have deemed completely different upper torso structure.

The apron overall was quite a challenging. As the lower part of it is very stiff, I had to make the legs a bit flat; I was going to use rahkshi backs, but they extended too much forward, and I ended up making a similar upper legs than on Alina, though there are a bit shorter and have a back armor. The boots are quite simple, with thick soles to go naturally with the height of the character.

The arms include some archery equipment, bracers and partial gloves. I didn't check any reference material. I took an archery course a couple of years ago and tried to remember the equipment from back there.

The bow was very fun to build. I was going to use insectoid legs from the very beginning, and the black SW cannons worked very well with them. The long antennae were a late addition, and they were very loosely connected at beginning, but I altered the design and gave them a slight curve. The string is just well... a LEGO string that is knotted at the ends. It can also shoot, though the bow breaks if it is pulled too far. The quiver is quite simple and was swapped to the right shoulder for practical reasons.

The head was quite damn hard. I'm very glad with they eyes though, and in my opinion these have been getting slowly better from the simple faces of Qwena and Brenda. This design was a bit narrower at the beginning, and it led to very nasty mathematical problems with 1/4 plate measurements. The gas mask helped as I didn't have to shape the nose or the mouth, and the forelocks helped to cover the upper part of the face. The long side bangs used tentacle pieces at first, but those odd wedge piece with old plate hinges worked a lot better.

One thing is still a mystery; Who is this Kira? I don't really know, at least this in not steampunk. A friend of my suggested it might be sort of a cyberpunk Mongolian warrioress, and I quite like that description. To me she is a raven-haired compound archer based on a minifigure print.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Toa Ursanga

 Once again it's Klaanon time, and today's MOC is the last one of the Toas of North, the group that consists of Toa Muothka, Toa Korpraun and Toa Ursanga. They represent Akamai elements - Earth, stone and fire. Ursanga is a bit like most of the Toas of fire we know - he's aggressive and a friend to few. His people live in desolate caves at the slopes of Mount Ämkoo/Guartsuvuori/whatever,  and they worship Ash Bears and live with those noble beasts of wilderland.

Bears are Ursanga's main theme; He has a hood made of ash bear's skin, probably the area's previous alfa bear's, and his sceptre has bear's skull on it. Even his boots have paw-like shape, enabling him to walk on snow and marshland.

Using Raw-Jaw's (and that is one of the best HF sets around) head as the hood was the main idea on this MOC. It also settled the black/red color scheme that looked striking and aggressive. The hood came out quite easily, but I had to bulk up the shoulders as the neck had to be quite long. Paws used there are part of the bear motif, resembling the new Kopaka a bit. They also help to create the image of the Toa who survives in the cold temperatures.

The arms are quite basic stuff. The hand design is taken from the BCth. I used them on Toa Samol a few years ago. The legs were trickier. The shin design, basic but good-looking, was there all the time, but Inika shins and metru feet were dropped with the dark red. The Belville saddles and Glatorian ankle guards were a late addition, but they worked well with the bear feet.

-Pate-keetongu

Brickfilm: Puuroa - Porridge

Today is the premiere of the latest brickfilm by Vuhvelituotanto, an experienced Finnish movie company consisting of me (Okkonen) and my friend (Karvinen). This vivid stop-motion film can be seen at our Youtube Channel.

The film was done for Palikkatakomo RY:n 11th animation contest with the theme of fairy tales. The 10th had two contestants and we are the only one so far, so the contest does probably not happen; others have now six hours and twenty-six minutes to post theirs as the deadline is... Well, today. A bit depressing.

As in out previous brickfilms I built the models, then we did the animation, speech and sound effect together, and finally my friend did the editing and the music. The models took several hours during the two weeks before filming, which took seven hours of last saturday; Sound stuff took two hours.

This animation had quite a lot models, and I had to cheat a bit to make the things work. The mansion of the three little pig has only a facade, and their individual cottages were designed during the filming (which is quite obvious). The same threes appear all around, but this is a magical forest after all. The house of the seven dwarves was the trickiest set, as Goldilocks was up to eat all the porridge of the dwarves; Four barrels. Goldilocks eating porridge is the main theme of this film.

The brickfilm is in Finnish. Subtitled version does not exist, but I can clearify a few things: The dwarves have a Savonin accent (though I doubt none of my internatinal readers know about Savonia; Lucky buggers). Goldilocks' only line is "porridge" and she was voice acted by me. The last of the dwarves, the poet one, wishes to get his comrades back when the genie appears, and is dissapointed when all the genie can create is a couple of garden gnomes. The bridge troll isn't any luckier; He wants a motorbike but gets a bicycle instead. At least it is one that can be ridden on a river.

-Pate-keetongu