MOC: Sergeant Littlebottom

 Yep, sticking on the Discworld character builds. This is my sixth Watch officer so far, Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom from the forensic department in Ankh-Morpork City Watch. She's a former alchemist (having left the Guild through the roof, as usual) and the first dwarf to express his female gender openly: Traditionally all dwarves are automatically male, despite having their real sex hidden under layers of beard, chain mail and leather. But Cheery started using some make-up, leather skirt and weld-on heels on her iron boots, causing fury among more conservative dwarves, but eventually encouraging other dwarf girls to show their gender.

I though it would have been harder to make Cheery 1. female 2. bearded and 3. watchman without making her look ridiculous, but everything came out pretty nicely! Beard style is almost copied from my Thorin II Oakenshield MOC, but I lengthened it using one of those claw pieces and a golden ornament to tie it up; Movie Thorin's beard was always a bit too short for my liking, even for modern female dwarf like Sgt. Littlebottom. The tied beard made it possible to show the Watch badge, which is connected in rather unorthodox way here! I even managed to build a conquistador-style helmet I tried to make to Commander Vimes but ended up using a KK2 armor piece instead.

The arm design is almost exactly the same than on Lu-Tze, as there were similarly sized characters. Cheery has one glove to hold hot (al)chemisty equipment; This is due I having only one reddish brown boat stud (I'll soon get 150 from LUGBULK). But I think a bit of asymmetry is nice, and it made it possible to give her also a less dangerous equipment for the other hand - Now it's a clipboard with some fingerprint samples and an alchemy scroll: That's Discworld to you!

-Eero

 

MOC: Lu-Tze

 Aaand we're back to the Discworld. This time our destination is the valley of Oi-Dong at the Ramtop mountains where the secret monastery of The Fighting Order of Wen - also known as History Monks - is located. Lu-tze is the most legendary of these monks, though he probably isn't a monk after all. He's a Sweeper, because no-one notices a sweeper, and therefore he can go where he likes. Lu-Tze is several thousands years old and an incredibly skilled martial artist - Always remember the Rule One!

As a small wrinkled old man Lu-Tze is one of my favourite Discworld character. Well, to be fair, I have dozens of favourite Discworld character anyway. As a MOC, he wasn't a particularly hard one: Around two hours, I'd say. I began with the head. I had some strong visuals and it took couple of versions to get it right. There had to be smile, and way to get his rollup inserted into it (see the last picture). Making a bald head of a old bearded man reminded of building Cohen the Barbarian: But Lu-Tze didn't have to look angry so it was rather easier. I'm particularly happy with the beard. The third horn is attached between the clips and stays there surprisingly well.

Lu-Tze is other portrayed having a orange or saffron robe; After all, the monks are referred as Men In Saffron, and remind of Buddhist monks clad in orange. But Lu-Tze is just a sweeper, and Thief of Time clearly states that he has a dirty white robe tied with a string, so I went with it. I even managed to use those basketball player arms without moving hands as the ends of the knot!

Lu-Tze also has some of his accessories: The broom, rollup and couple of Bonsai mountains. The other one had even developed a glacier! The bush as the broom bristles and the snake as a smoke are both old tricks stolen from other builders; But both of them are widely used, and who knows who came up with the first.

And least but not last: Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!

-Eero

MOC: Agatha of Four Colours

This is an another old WIP finished. You might recognize the overall shape from another creation, Foraois from February. I mentioned back then that I built a black version as a prototype to see what pieces I had to bricklink in white. I didn't know what to do with it, and I didn't really want to finish or publish it very soon due to similarity.

The dress developed arms rather quickly, but stopped there. I tried several patterns, finally setting on black-and-white whirly design, but it took several attempts to make it right. The defining touch was the white ornament on the right shoulder; I was developing a natural feather/bone ornaments for a Zyglak character in Klaanon (Coming soon!!) but it turned out too big; But it looked good there! Another one was put on the elegant handbag.

The hair had been another problem. I ended up with a slightly dreadlock-like thing utilizing mostly only 1x2 plates in dark red. I don't think they are actually dreadlocks, as they would be rather strange choice for a character like this; But who knows? I like how the hair pattern is very different from the swirls on the dress - as those tail pieces are often used in hair.

There's also a glass of red wine to go with the red hair - I'm happy with the simple four-colour scheme.

-Eero

MOC: Arrogant Lieutenant-at-Arms 955

It's time for some Klaanon. This character, Arrogant Nazorak Lieutenant-at-Arms 955 is from 2010, when Klaanon was pretty much only an another text-based RPG and 955 was its first "Enemy boss". He fought Suga and Matoro, destroyed Manfred's armor, wounded Kepe and Snowie and was ultimately killed by Ämkoo. 955 has earned a nickname "Ass" among the readers. It's partly due to his idiotic nature, but origins from edition 1.0 hand-written SALSA (Klaanon card game) card, where "955" looked unmistakeably "ass".

The starting point was the head. 955 had been describer wearing a round helmet remind a German helmet from WW2, but with some sci-fi flavours. I though Thornraxx/Black Phantom spider launcher's head piece was just perfect. It has organic looking occiput and insect-looking jaws, so it fitted the insect theme these roach-like warriors have. Couple of lime green viking horns looked nice as the eyes, and I fought to get two reddish brown minifig heads under them as a circles to create badass and arrogant feel. I'm also very happy with the skate teeth that pair nicely with the small teeth on the helmet piece.

The torso is quite ordinary CBBS build. There is standard torso bone there, though the hip joint is separate to add more height and make the stance more interesting. I really liked the Stormer XL attachment piece as the chest plate, and the extra arms (Nazoraks have 4 arms) clustered nicely under it. There's one interesting connection though: This odd 4Juniors winch seems to snap tightly around double ball cup piece. 955 was described having a wire weapon on his wrist (among chain weapons, missiles, guns and blades) but I moved it to a belt in sake of rationality.

The legs have chicken-style ankles, like on my other nazorak creations, 001 and Hands of Blue, but they are somewhat bulkier. 955 had rocket boosters in his legs, as Nazorak wings aren't strong enough for decent flight, especially with an armor. I though that the bulky upper legs could hold gasoline for the boosters on lower legs. The toes are Skull Spider legs - an another piece I like a lot.

-Eero

MOC: Kirika Towa Alma

 I haven't been your most active blogger recently, sorry, but here's smoething for now! Usually summer is the best time for writing a blog about a hobby, but it feels that I've just been running around the whole summer... I visited Norway, took part in a LUG exhibit, spent a week on our family cottage talking about Klaanon and participated in 9 university entrance exams. But they paid off: I got into Architecture studies in the Technical University of Tampere (TTY).  It's something like 400 km away so I'll be moving soon; I've never moved in my life (and I don't have an apartment yet, neither). But no worries. I won't abadon LEGO hobby, even though it might be... interesting to make everything fit in smaller space. Bricks, alright. But the completed models... That might be challenging.

Life updates aside, the most important (well, technically) thing on this post is the creation, Kirika Towa Alma from video game Shining Resonance which seems to be only released in Japan. I've never played it, but I stumbled into some cool character designs when cruising around the seas of World-Wide-Web. In a way, the process reminds of Palutena from the last autumn. No deep meaning, just cool thing seemingly never done before in bricks.

Kirika Towa Alma seems to be an elf. I generally prefer dwarves, but as I've already built 20 of them I though some diversity would be fitting. There were some extraordinary shapes challenging to represent in brick form, but then again, challenges aren't that bad. The costume had also really beautiful colours, and features quite lot of snazzy medium azure I had collected but never properly used on anything.

I began with the large, detached sleeves. They're really heavy and balance each other. Luckily I had decent amount of medium azure plates from 40107 Winter Skating Scenes given away at LUG events to make the ruffs. The sleeves went through 2-3 versions. They had to be smooth and sleek, not too blocky nor heavy, and preferrably in different positions. The left arm ended up being almost straight on side, which made the sleeve easy to build; the right arm was on around 50 degree angle and deemed some hinges and wedge plates, but ended up being lighter. The upper arms needed to be sturdy enough to support the sleeves, so they don't look perfect. I didn't want them to look too muscular, given that the sleeves are supposed to be only cloth.

The torso was more pleasant, if not easy, to build. White square pattern on the skirt ended up looking quite good, as this the ruffs above and under the dark blue area. The middle torso provoked some challenges; I needed to connect the ribbons both in front and the back of it. Fortunately I had got some 2x2 macaroni bricks in medium azure from a flea market lot fewa years ago; they saved the day. The upper torso displayed some interesting shaping, but with help of my favourite piece, the boat stud, I succeeded decently. It's a bit loose and required some tweaking during the photographing, though. The shoulder connection is usual t-bar-in-bar-hole, but seems to be strong enough to support the heavy arms.

Heads are never easy. The reference material was anime-inspired, which is visible here. The eyes use Water symbol tokens from Elves sets specifically bricklinked from this use. It originally used just printless trans-blue or trans-medium-blue 1x1 round tiles, but the stud behind them created a rather disturbing glare; this is not perfect neither, but at least it's an interesting piece use and of my own design.

The hair was a lot funnier. I knew from the beginning that I'd use katanas from Dragon Bolt, very cool pieces, but my lack of yellow TECHNIC made connecting them hard. Boat stud is used here, too; naturally. The bangs are made of pneumatic hose. This was the first time I cut it for a MOC, but it's still a purist technique: They come uncut in sets. At least some sets. Well, anyway. I'm very happy with the butterfly ornament. Transparent colours are challenging to use, but the create a nice effect.

The legs were mostly stolen from another WIP; The design is very similar to Adela and Lingeán but white colour of the sock made it possible to use the smallest CCBS shell as a kneecaps. The legs bend on the knees, but the model pretty much impossible to pose, so I left out the poseable ankles; They would have never worked! Minifig arms are used as straps on the upper legs and the cool platform sandals. You can usually rely on minifig arms when it comes to rarer colours. The shoe straps are actually dark azure, though; sorry! I only had one pair of medium azure ones. The shoes are connected to the base that uses two boat weights to balance the figure. I think I should get more of those. But damn they are expensive...

Next up, an idiot roach warrior in a power armor. For diversity.

-Eero.

Stuff from Palikkapamaus 2016

Two weeks ago in Harjavalta, Satakunta ("About Hundred"), southwest Finland there was a LEGO exhibit where our LUG had a MOC show. I had several MOCs of mine and some special builds too. We had this Action Figure building table for visitors, and I couldn't resist making something there, so I built a rather muscular she-devil with a machine leg. There were apparently pieces of three Raw-Jaws here, so it helped to build the big red torso; But there weren't enough pieces for two identical legs so I went with a machine legs using dark pearl grey pieces. It's far from perfect, and it was pain to make the shape even somewhat alright with random bits on the table. I don't really like the arms very much either, but I had to finish it quickly to be able to present my models to the audience. I'm happy with the hair though, and overall it was a nice experience.

The bricks are not mine, so I don't own the model, but the owner of the bricks, Ismo "Awis" Aavaharju, who has a permanent exhibition in Citymarker store in Imatra had an idea to display it there. I also made a lot more simpler samurai-like figure but alas there are no photos of it.

Another model where I contributed were our Minecraft collaboration. I've never played Minecraft nor bought any Minecraft sets, but earlier this year TLG send us an Activity Box full of Minecraft bricks via LUG Ambassador program (I'm our ambassador) and the deal was that we have to do something with it and give at least three good quality photos to TLG to use of it. These five are the photos I took of our display. The aqueduct was designed by me. Other builders were Antti, Arttu and Susanna Aavaharju.

As I mentioned, I had a few MOCs of mine on display. Most of them were new creations of 2016 (Porco Rosso, Arcane Samurai, Adela, General 001, Toa Ruki and Mustrum Ridcully) but there were also some older creations, including some of my personal favorites (Lady Liberty 3001, Samus, Savoia S-21 and Doktor Viktor Von Nebula).

More photos of the exhibit can be found on Hovinet Gallery.