MOC: King Dedede

Yes... Another Super Smash Bros. creation! This very fat penguin in King Dedede, Kirby's arch enemy. He definitely one of the coolest Smash characters. I've mostly played him on Brawl, where he wields a hammer but uses his head and feet in the most destructive strikes. Of the irony! Dedede can also eat his enemies and throw minions kick enemies around while loafing around happily. What a guy!

Dedede is big and round and therefore not so easy to build using mostly blocky bricks. I began with the belly, which was quite challenging due to zig-zag triangular patterns. I made them less steep, as I wanted to make them somehow, and ended up using old good Cheese SNOT. The belt is sunk into Lowell-sphere-esque belly with bright basic yellow and red hues. I like bright colors. MOCs don't always have to be grey and black!

The angles of Dedede's cloak offered some additional challenged. I wanted to use those long bow pieces, as they create beautiful shapes and three-dimensional feel. They are angled, which means they are only connected via one studs; However, they are quite sturdy. that can't be side about the angled 2x3 slopes near them that are connected to each other via plate hinges. They tend to fall off.

The legs are only odd slabs under the penguin's fat belly, as they should be; But still remember to beware Dedede's kicks (back aerial!). This arms are pretty poseable, though. The sleeve-ends were tricky, I tried to make them using mudguards are first, but they were too big and I ended up with curved slopes instead (good pieces, good pieces). Dedede also has his big wooden hammer; The middle parts is a bit boring, I know, could remake it sometime if I get a better idea. It also lacks a knob in the end that it sometimes seem to have. But most pictures of Dedede found online have his hammer posed in a way that hides the end, so I didn't bother with the knob at all...

The head was fun. I took some liberties to make it look funny and a bit silly. I flattened it a bit. I tried several different eyes. 2x2 round tiles could have been good, but I didn't have any (except those with half-shut eyelids). Minifig head eyes with classic-space helmets looked quite nice, but a bit too evil (Dedede doesn't feel very evil, you know?). 2x2 dishes with 1x1 round tile eyes looked like Dedede had been hit with Ness's PK Flash or something - This was the best alternative.

-Eero 

MOC: Nori - Regal Armour

Yep, a dwarf. Nori in his Erebor regal armor, in fact. This was built as a fast relaxing little MOC between some modular buildings I got stuck with (One of them, an old light-yellow one, is almost completed though). When nothing seems to work, make a dwarf. So it goes.

This was of course inspired by Weta Workshop's last Hobbit Chronicles book, Art of War, with nice photos of dwarf armour (though sadly not dwarves wearing the armour...) that never got enough screen time on the film (and that had odd CGI lighting too that ruined the colors.) It's unfortunate as these suits are magnificent, and Nori's beautiful brown one has especially cool pauldrons built using overlapping panels. I started the MOC with them, and added on lots of black chain mail bought from LUGBULK. It has nice, shiny quality on it - very regal indeed.

Otherwise this is random mix of basic stuff and odd techniques. Robot arm pieces can be found through the MOC. I had plenty of them in reddish brown, so they ended up in chest plate, helmet and (naturally) gloves. Another interesting pattern is done used reddish brown flower plates on the skirt - LUGBULK stuff again. Even some cheese SNOT mosaic made it way to the armor.

The spear was a challenging one. Nori also has a magnificent star-shaped mace in the film, but he's not really seen with it wearing this armour, but had a spear on the ramparts scene instead. I tried to build the mace, but the eight blades were hard to make work on this scale, so I went with the spear. That wasn't easy neither, as sharp, straight angles are hard to achieve. This design is a bit too stubby and stout, but I think it's good enough and stays together surprisingly well. I sat in the sauna thinking how to built it a finally came up with this solution using 1x4 slopes and odd 90 degree lightsaber handle piece.

-Eero

MOC: Rincewind & The Luggage

Return to Sir Terry Pratchett's Discworld, and to the very beginning of it! Here's Rincewind, the first main charater on Discworld books, with his sapient pearwood monster chest The Luggage. Rincewind books are usually not among my favourites (except The Last Hero which is simpy awesome), but I quite like these characters. Rincewind's cynical realism has a nice contrast to everyday fantasy books heroes. And these being among the most iconic Discworld characters building them would be obligatory sooner or later, so here they are.

The Luggage was actually build a month ago or so. It began with a simple SNOT frame using some brackets, headlight and log Bricks, but eventually evolved into something a bit more complex. I had spectacular luck with the parts there: I randomly picked just the right pink parts on PaB walls in Britain in August, and as I mentioned in the previous post, I got some of those cool dark red windscreens from a convention last month; they are perfect for tongues, as seen on the magic box here. The teeth are 1x1 tiles stuck into the undersides of 2x4 plates, a bit odd technique that enables nice gaps between them.

Rincewind was a pretty straighforward character build, mostly using techniques developed on previous creations. SNOT cheese is used here to achieve his anxious expressions: They were also used -inverted-  to create The Dean's angry face. Rincewind's shaggy and miserable beard is done using grille tiles; overall the look is based on Paul Kidby's visual, which PTerry has said to be spot-on. Particulary this image found on aforesaid The Last hero was used as a reference; Hopefully that can be seen on the posture and the clothing details.

Here's also a group shot with the wizards so far; I achieved a nice compact layot with maximal optical zoom and long distance between the camera and the creations (to make them all fit in front of the backdrop, to be honest).

-Eero

MOC: Fómhar

 Ideas for creations come from many different sources. Dave Foreman suggested me to make personifications of four seasons (well done, that man) after I posted Forfhuarú on Flickr. I began working on Autumn girl almost immediately and here she is now, after being completed for a week or so (weathers have been bad - This is not autumn like this any more, no warm hues and beautiful leaves, just mist, sleet and darkness). The name is Gaelic again, meaning simply Autumn, to continue the name motif.

The main idea was the dress made using dark red and dark orange leaves. I have plenty of them from 2014 and 2013 LUGBULKs. The skirt was done using everybody's favorite leaf weaving technique. Connecting it was a bit tricky, but I succeeded with inverted TECHNIC tyre, which had both good shape and needed friction. The upper torso is connected to it with couple of TECHNIC axles like in Forfhuarú. It has a simple tank top design, with some added bulk on shoulders that use Bellville saddles (Great pieces, cause confusion) as some sort of fur collar etc. I think it creates a nice silhouette.

The arms were tricky. The lower arms are same design as seen on Forfhuarú, but I wanted to extend the bare arm a bit upwards. Tan boat studs are used here a lot, they are definitely one of the key parts on character building. It's one of my favorite parts in general, and being widely available in tan is something like a gift from the gods. There's bit of a black sleeve here, using yet another 2015 LUGBULK goods - Pin hole/Pin connectors and black T-bars, to be precise. The movement is not perfect as ball joints are not used and the saddles limit it, but I can cope with it. There's plenty on poses at the end of this post.

I'm very happy with the head. The face is similar to Forfhuarú, and I wanted to make the hair bright and effective. Kalmah's tentacles were a shot in the dark, but the worked rather well and I had four of them. The bright orange looks neat with the more earthy warm shades. Hat was another thing I just had to make. I really like cool hats (I own quite a few myself - My everyday fur felt trilby, black Borsalino Homburg for festive uses, Australian outback fedora for adventures, old and wiry badgeless police cap for woodcutting, Swiss Railway Station Master cap bargained for flea market and so on) and have build those to several character on the past, including Sheelika's Femme Fatale hat and Alina's cap. This one uses couple of dishes, leaves, flowers and one of those odd tongue-like windscreen pieces. I love them! They have been on my BL wanted list for years, and I never managed to get any, but finally I got three on a convention. I know they are not rare, but I never stumbled into them before... Anyway, I think the hat adds lot of character here.

The legs are pretty basic stuff, mostly seen before. Grey parts on upper legs are not perfect, cut I had ran out of black ones and they're mostly hidden anyway. The heels are a bit thicker than usually, making a nice contrast to Forfhuarú's killer heels and fat soles.

The base was originally a wall of LUGBULKed olive green bricks and leaves on top of it, but it never worked properly, so I just removed the bricks. I think it looks nice. The MOC doesn't really need it to stand, but it makes a nice continuity with Forfhuarú's snowdrift.

I've already built stuff for Spring and Summer girls, but I think I have to Bricklink a bit before completing them... Anyway, Spring's mostly SYSTEM, and has a bare feet and lower legs - Something I've never done before on this scale (expect on Bilbo, but that barely counts).

Next up some Discworld stuff - See you later.

-Eero

 

MOC: Tahtorak

No, not the green beast than won the Rahi compedition back in 2004 or 2003 and was pretty good MOC for its age despite some flaws, no. This is an airship, as you can notice, named after the species. So yes, a Bionicle MOC. Pretty thick, right? At least a Klaanon MOC. In Klaanon story, the protagonist organization Bio-Klaani has some steampunk airships and vessels used formerly for cargo business and currently for defence against The Alliance's Nazorak Empire. The Fleet is (surprisingly) led by my self-character, Tongu.

Tahtorak is the mothership of the fleet, being aroud 450 meter long from tail to nose. The cargo area is located on the wooden fuselage on frontal area of the ship. The bridge and the crew's facilities are located on the top of it. The engines are located on the middle part of the ship, the large steel pot with huge furnaces, boilers and pistons. There are two main lift rotors create the upwards momentum while three strong back rotors make it move forwards. There are also two steering propellors on the side.

This model is motorized. I was beginning to build it, and had my old 9V motor with the huge 4x14x4 battery box around so I thought, why not? The battery box is located on the front, which was voluminous enough to hold it. The motor is at the back of the engine cylinder and the motion is instantly directed to the main vertical axle that turns the lift rotors. Above it a gearbox makes the motion horizontal again and leads it to the back of the ship using chain drive. A few gears and 43121 Engine, Larges used as gearboxes make the side rotors turn. I don't know if they are used as gearboxes before. It's a nifty little technique, though I think it might have too much friction if the speed is too high. Works pretty well here. Five turning rotors with one motor!

The design is based on a drawing and a watercolor I made. I also had another, four or five years old drawing on it, but it was too dull and needed a redesign. These concept art pieces can be seen at the end of this post, along with some Klaanon post pictures done using beautiful backdrop photos from Flickr's Creative Commons group and freeware Photoshop CS2 downloaded from Adobe's homepage. So a bit extra stuff here, too.

-Eero