MOC: Novo Atlantis

1924: The expedition of Scottish adventurer Roy McBridge discovers the mysterious ruins of assumed New Atlantis at the bottom of the North Sea.

This diorama was built for Finnish LUG Palikkatakomo's summer building contest. The theme was "Finding, discovering", and there were two categories, diorama (Max 64x64x64 studs) and vignette (max 16x16x32 studs). This is, obviously, for the diorama category.

This was built around the Clam-type heavy diving suit. It's top half and the arms are a tablescrap from last winter, and this felt a perfect chance to use it. So I finished it and built some aquatic scenery around it, simply put.

The suit begin with the goggly lamps, a little technique first used on Vapour-Trike Rhebok. I'm sucker for big round headlights. The mech frame ended with some heavy top armor, suitable for high pressure, so it felt natural to make it a piece of scuba equipment. I added some moustache-like tubing and a periscope and they worked nicely. I wanted it to have a dieselpunk-esque feel, not as detailed and decorated as steampunk stuff might be, but with a bit similar attidute. Reminds a bit of my Diver and Big Daddy MOCs.

I had a rather vivid image of the scenery I wanted to achieve in my head. Some sand, naturally, but no too much as I had used lot on the bases of my Nausicaä figures. Interesting shape, not lot 90 degree angles, enough algae to make it look lively, and then some ruins. The statue, a draw-back from TLG's Atlantis line a few years back, was there from the beginning, and it gained a corkscrew pillar when I noticed I had plenty of 2x2 jumpers around. The ruind have plenty of life around them. Flags as alagae was trick I had used several years back with sand green ones, but now I threw in some dark green, dark red and red ones - not all algae have chorolophyll (I reckon). I also threw in some fish, a fish guy that appeared on one of the Historica figbarfs earlier, and couple of members of the expedition with scuba gear to make sure this happens underwater.

I naturally also made a MOC for the vignette category. It might be possible to find my entry somewhere, but more of that a bit later (because the last day to enter is tomorrow).

-Eero