MOC: Foraois

So, here we are, at the end of "Four Seasons" project, with the summer personification, Foraois (Forest in Irish). Concepts behind this one varied a lot; there's pretty much nothing from the first sketches here (I rarely sketch creations, but here I did few drafts). At the beginning there was sort of a harvest motif, with some crop, sun and possibly a sickle, but didn't fly. There was even a cornucopia idea, something that was at some point going to be on Lingeán, but that was too close to the sprout feet so I ditched the whole harvest thing. Harvest has never been anything I've associated with summer; I've always lived on a countryside, but not near fields; It's forest all around. This is Finland, after all, too northern for proper farming. So I went for long trumpet-style dress and a birch motif. Nationalist art, what?

I wondered the colors for some time. Green would have been logical, but I already used it on Lingeán. Yellow or bright light orange would have been nice too, but somehow too close to the skin color, and I wasn't sure if I could have hoarded the parts in those colors. So I ended up with white, as birch bark. Birch by far is the most common leafy tree species in Finland, and the green leaves on them is probably the most apparent sign that summer is, after all, here after long dark winter.

Not now though, these was slight snowfall when I photographed this.

I build the dress in black at first to see which kind of bricks I need; My white curved part collection isn't too big. So I have (so far headless) WIP with 78% same design (upper torso is different with single strap, and the arms are bare), and it's actually the original. I bought white parts from two Bricklink stores, most from Finland and some from France. The dress has some SNOT, as the lower part is identical on both front and the back. 90s hinged car roof are excellent for this kind of  180 degree plate SNOT!

Black is secondary color here. It's not very summer-y color, I think, but birch branches are black, and hell it's easy color to work with. Naturally there would also be some green. I was thinking of doing a sort of a scarf or a shawl with it, but they developed into something bigger and snazzier. Autumn and Spring girls had rather ordinary clothes, but Forfhuarú had those striking ice wings, and I though it would balance things to give summer one something extraordinary. The leaf snakes were even crazier at first, but gravity pulled them down after a while, so I had to make them sturdier.

Head was (almost) the last part. I knew I'd make black hair (winter had white) and bat wings worked rather nicely. The rest was harder. Ehlek's spikes used in Lady Liberty-like manner saved the case, also being a note to Forfhuarú's icy crown. But it also caused problems: It kept pulling the head halves apart. I actually took a set of photos in same session with Ridcully, but the head looked bad on almost all of them, and I reworked it a bit: I made the structure sturdier, loosened the crown and added some hair, including the bangs. It improved a lot!

I naturally also made a base. This one is similar to Fómhar's leaf base, but more organized, creating a star-like shape. I also added some lever-base-boosted flowers to it, but they too are organized to the corners. But then I felt that it wasn't enough, and the character needed something else, probably an animal friend! I though of a fox or hare, but didn't feel like building another mammal, so I went for a bird to sit on a finger; a little posing aid. It was a White Wagtail at first, but the grey color felt a bit bland, and I went with a magpie instead. Magpie is a very common bird around here, but a beautiful one, with its dark green wing marks and the long tail. They are also very clever and playful animals, definitely worth being in this MOC.

These series, along with dozens of other MOCs, will be on display on "Leiki LEGOilla 2016" event at Imatra, Eastern Finland, during this weekend. So if you happen to be around, take a visit; It's at Imatran Kylpylä (spa). There's sale area and everything!

-Eero