MOC: Susan Sto Helit

 The series of Discworld character builds continue! This is Susan Sto Helit, the (sort of) granddaughter of Death, as she appears in Soul Music. I chose that appearance, the substitute Grim Reaper, as the costume was probably the most interesting one and the afroish hair felt fun.

The scale is smaller than on the wizard. It felt easier to build Susan in this scale, especially when the frontpiece of the dress, using odd-shaped dark bley piece, seemed perfect. The dress overall is inspired by Paul Kidby's art, but some own impressions are thrown in too. The main construction is similar to some things I've done before, for example Major  Sir Edward Hornblom, though the exposed leg and curved skirt were new challenges (though somewhat explored on Palutena). The hands are my own design, seen before in some Steampunk characters.

The face uses same design than some of my Nausicaä builds, though here 1x4 double curved slopes are used (ran out of 2x2 ones and don't have baby bows in tan yet). The hair uses basic SNOT, Lowell-sphere techniques and stuff like that. The Death of Rats was thrown on it to emphasize Discworldly feel. It came out looking rather nice. It's the bony nose sticking out of the hood, I quess.

The scythe was a challenging one. I wanted it to be curved, which is not easy to achieve with mostly stiff plastic bricks. This one uses rigid hoses, but as bare bar would be too thin for figure of this size, they are covered with friction pins. The pegs make it possible to Susan to hold it, as those hands don't have any grip. Balancing it was rather hard. The centre of gravity was on the upper peg, so it stayed on the hand nicely, but spun around madly ending up in seemingly gravity-defying stance. But careful balancing was rewarded with time.

-Eero

MOC: The Librarian

Oook.*

*Here's another Discworld MOC, probably the most popular wizard in the series, The Librarian of Unseen University. He was turned into orang-utan by a magic incident, and is very happy with it, as he can grab book with his legs and wasily swing between the shelves, but you already knew that, right? The Librarian appear in a great number of Discworld books, including many that don't involve other wizards. He's a people person and takes part of many form of entertaiment, especially if they have pies thrown into actors. With his wide armspan, University's Man of the Forest is talented keyboard player and visiting musician in The Band With Rock In.

I began building him soon after I had completed The Dean. This needed to be done. The head took its form nicely last night, with the minifig arms beginning as the brow but later moved to be the lower jaw. I'm rather happy with it, yellow teeth and all. The handebar is a piece of many possibilities.

Everything else was built today. I was rather limited with the dark orange pieces (a lot of it is on Dain's and Gloin's beards, at least. Luckily I have bough 1x2 plates, 1x1 bricks and 1x2 bricks via LUGBULK earlier). On the dark grey sections, dishes became key pieces. I think they look very natural, and The Librarian is described looking a sack or pile of car tyres, so they seemed fitting.

I wanted Librarian to be poseable, and that was pretty easy to achieve, as he doesn't wear any clothes. The shorter legs use small ball joints, arms both sizes. This ape can grab things with both its fingers and toes, of course. They are black, as I didn't have enough finger pieces in dark bley and those bar-plates used on the legs don't come in it. They look alright though.

I also made a magical, chained book and a banana for the Librarian. The banana is sort of bananananaception, using minifig-scale (oversized) bananas as the peels. And a super special light yellow cone as the eatable bit.

-Eero

PS. Please check the Orangutan Foundaton and their Sir Terry Pratchett's "Oook" Award.

MOC: The Dean of Unseen University

 This grossly fat wizard is The Dean of Unseen University from Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld (where I have spend rthaer lot of time lately) books. Actually, he's not the Dean anymore, having left UU to be the Archchancellor of University of Brazenecks in his native Pseudopolis. His other names, according to Mastrum Ridcully, are "Two-Chairs" and Henry. He's hungry for food and power and thinks he'd made a lot better Archchacellor than Ridcully. Dean is also very prone to external influences, often running after mysterious enemies with this staff shouting silly "Hut hut" and "Yo!" sounds. During the onslaught of Music With Rocks In he made a leather jacket with "BORN TO RUNE" written on the back, and it's naturally included here. He's not allowed to join the Watch's Specials because he's too dangerous with his staff.

Why I built Dean? He's not among my favorite Discworld characters, but I generally like Wizard plots, and Dean's clothes had nice challenges: The odd, seremonial robes, huge belly and pointy shoes combined with the leather coat. I also though Mustrum Ridcully I built before needed something to... Well, shout at, probably. I think I should build The Librarian, too.

This is somewhat inspired by Paul Kidby's art, though I took plenty of liberties. I began with the SNOT letterning on the coat; It was quite a puzzle, especially with the TO on the middle. Ts are hard. Then I made the head, basic stuff, made plenty of bearded faces with the Hobbit project.  The torso was rather fun to build, the stomach came out nicely and the flapping robes added some detail. The odd width of the leather coat was problematic, but was solved with combination of offset and SNOT. The legs were fun (usually they are dull). The pompous trousers (combination of curved slopes and travis bricks) look nicely ridiculous with white stockings and the pointy shoes. They are also nice contrast to Ridcully's more practical boots and trousers. I also made the lgs rather thing and the boots small to emphasize Dean's bulk. The arms are basic, with ball joints on elbows. The staff (with, as Nanny Ogg would note, knob on the end) turned rather nice.

-Eero

MOC: Cyira the Paladin

 Sometimes you just feel you want to build a brave paladin woman in a shining suit of armor. I did, at least. Again there is no backstory behind this, just everyday fiddling with parts. Art, in other words.

There are plenty of things you've seen before, like the legs on the whole, but I hope the "big picture" is interesting. I like it, at least.

This began with the torso and the upper legs, and the came together rather nicely. As I said, there are plenty of old tricks. The new things include Matoro Mahri's armor pieces as hip plates, Guurahk's staff end (I got my first on new Kopaka, surprisingly) and Okoto add-ons as armor and sword scabbard. The dragon shoulder pads were the last addition on armor, and I think they create a very imposing profile; without them it looks quite boring. The sword was here from the start, while the shield was a last-minute addition.

The head was a challenge. There was several different versions and most of them didn't work at all. Early versions used dark red fur add-on pieces as hair, and I struggled to get some KK2 masks to it as a visor. Well, their connection points are awful, so it didn't fly. Then I went to slope-face-with Bohrok-shields-on-sides look. That was used on Floresta and Lady Liberty 3001. I made a similar headband than on Floresta with high spike on top. The mullet, or ponytail, or whatever, was a late addition, and I think it was very good. The wing parts are only partially connected, but stay together fine.

There are +30 photos. Some of them weren't good so I took plenty of to have at least few good. They were easy to edit on black backdrop so here they are.

-Eero