MOC: The Lecturer on Recent Runes

We continue our adventure on Discworld! The wizards of the senior faculty of the Unseen University are my favorite characters of the series; I sort of began with them, opening the TV when Ridcully was about to take the bath in Hogfather mini-series; Looking back to it, the adaptation was far from perfect, but you got to start somewhere, right?

This is The Lecturer of Recent Runes. He's a thin character, usually having strange adventures and (mostly) ridiculous debates with his colleagues, without really ever standing on his own feet. I could have named this MOC The Chair of Indefinite Studies as well, or maybe even Senior Wrangler; he's got a bit more character, but Pterry didn't describe the look of his character much, so it doesn't really matter: Long beard, pointy hat, wooden staff and some jewellery and you have a wizard; Congratulations! At least this one differs from Ridcully, Dean, Librarian, Rincewind, Bursar (Coming soon!) and Ponder Stibbons (Coming soon-ish). 

This MOC was built both before and after moving. The hat, head and beard go back to spring, and they were a WIP of Albus Dumbledore for a while (after re-reading Harry Potter books) but I realized I didn't have enough purple and went for a more familiar Discworld magical territory. Dumbledore (and Mad-Eye Moody, who's cool) might see the light some day, who knows?

The upper torso, including the golden flame collar, was built before moving, and then the partial wizard was stuffed in WIP box 1# (characters and misc) for a month or so. When I finally got around finalizing it, the hard parts were behind; I filled the back, stuck on arms and legs (with similar appropriate curled-up wizard slippers than on Dean) gave him a staff.

He ended up being surprisingly not-very-fat wizard. The problem is the beard; It had to build the beard on big, looming tummy, and the tied-up beard was the starting point here (beard usually is the starting point if there's going to be one). Maybe his friend Chair of Indefinite studies will be more round. Bursar won't be, tough.

-Eero

MOC: Dwarvish Dragonguard

 This dwarvish dragonguard, armed with elaborate and destructible dragonstaff, isn't from Discworld or Middle-Earth; He's actually an unit (and what an unit!) from old, ever-developing open-source fantasy strategy game Battle for Wesnoth. Wesnoth is loved for it's pixel graphics, vast array of units and sheer amount of user-created content, but also often hated for it's luck-based aspects (your 70-per-cent magical attacks seem always to miss, but of course, deep down, it's just an illusion created by human mind). But I like Wesnoth. And I seem to have quite a good luck with these dragonstaffs or thunderstaffs. It's always cool to hear the "boom" sound effect, followed by formula 1-style wrooom that, for some reason, marks that you're just "killed" an irritating enemy ghost. They seem to eat lead pretty well...

On brick perspective, this MOC was a perfect way to try out some LUGBULK pieces. I got my order a month ago or so, but I didn't manage the post this MOC until now; I retook the photos this morning. The old ones weren't that good. So yeah, I have had my LUGBULK pieces for some time now. I have already several WIPs, as always. 1000 dark red masonry bricks have already shown their power in facades designed to continue my New Century Corner! Other LUGBULK stuff included odd and interesting gold pieces, which have been used on the staff: The sprout pieces are fantastic is pearl gold (I also got some in olive green) and created the nostrils, arms, jaws and horns of the dragon quite nicely. I also got lots of cheese slopes and 1x1 round bricks, as you can see.

The majestic flowing cape is one of the key features of dragonguard sprite, and the robe took most of my dark red curved pieces; I need more, as I love dark red and curved pieces. I also tried to copy the facial hair of the sprite; It's triangular shape with massive moustache and conical beard. The dwarf's hairline is also drawing back a bit. He also had a monocle at one point, but I removed it for the sake of accuracy.

The boots use cannon ball joint pieces, which I rather like; I'm also very happy with the gloves. Ah, reddish brown boat studs. Now I can make all the brown leather gloves for my figure builds. One of the best pieces, as I've stated several time before.

There's usually two images of every Wesnoth mainline units, the little field sprite and the bigger profile picture in the "pokedex" of the units (you need to see the units in the game to unlock the data). The field sprites are the ones you see when battling, so they are loved and adored. The profile pictures are usually less cool, despite having more detail. Somehow the little, simplistic sprites have lots of more character in them. But I had to take some stuff from the profile pictures too, like the details of the mail armor (unseen in the sprite) and the elaborate cannon (more shotgun-esque in the sprite).

What else? There's Pii Poo's brick event next weekend with a MOC show by our LUG Palikkatakomo Ry, and I'll be there, for sure (this dwarf will be, too). Then I'll have a week off. It's actually a test week on the university, but as Architecture students don't have many tests, ever, it's free. That's nice, as we've had loads of deadlines recently (I have to do a storyboards of two-page comic about Pispalanharju district for Friday and that's it for the first period).

Next up, some wizards, sooner or later; Discworld awaits!

-Eero