MOC: Madventures

Hello readers, here I am again. Sorry for lack of inactivity, the reasons remain the same - studies and a modular building project slowly but steady getting done. There's still awful lot of back walls to do, and few roofs, and one facade... but I'm getting there.

Now this is a character build, or perhaps an actual person build. 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of Finland, and as the only (and best) Finnish LUG Palikkatakomo is hosting a Suomi 100 contest with two categories, An Important Finn and Moment from the History or Mythology. This is entry for the former - Madventures, AKA Riku Rantala and Tuomas "Tunna" Milonoff, two traveller-journalists known from several TV-series and books. The original Madventures show is about travelling, mostly in the third world, with just them two guys and some filming equipment. The first two series (2002 and 2005) were made in Finnish while the third (2008) was made in English for international audiences. Madventures is the most widely broadcasted Finnish TV program with 200 countries or territories. They are also awarded with several awards, including National Award of Information Distribution (or something like that anyway).

But above all they're both very entertaining and thought-provoking, diving deeper into the global wonders and issues. I think that qualifies for An Important Finn.

Build-wise this was just another character build, though not without challenges. I built them partly simultaneously, first making some drafts of both heads, them building mots of Riku (left on the photos) and then rest of Tunna (whose head got redesigned few times). Riku was somewhat easier: His style, with distinct beard, stays pretty much same through the series, and as Tunna spends more time behind the camera, there was less reference material of him. Riku's clothes are based on Indochina episode (Bad quality photo, I know), with red bandana, blue utility vest and trekking shoes. Sleeveless undershirt leaves the tattoos, here achieved with couple of tan printed round 2x2 tiles; the PotC one with stylish world map work pretty well, I think.

Tunna's clothes are more casual, with dark green T-shirt that cunningly evaded me from using valuable pieces for tan shoulder joints; the trousers and shoes are similar to Riku's. Tunna's head was challenging, partly due to limits of the colour (dark tan) and lack of coherence of the man himself. After all, they're on the road for months and hair and facial hair grows all the time. Now the moustache might be a bit too bushy, looking like 3/4 of 80's Black Sabbath, but it was the best alternative. I also built a camera for him, based on what I believe are promotional photos of season three.

These are my first character builds based on real people (not including fictional characters portrayed by real actors). Time will tell how they'll do in the contest.

-Eero

PS. Photographed another creation with this, so it shouldn't be so long gap before the next post. And I'm still having loads of WIPs around!

MOC: Robin

No, not the Boy Wonder. Nor the Sherwood vigilante. Nor the small bird. Nor the Sir Not-as-brave-as-Lancelot. This Robin is from Fire Emblem series (which I haven't played, but I'd like to if I I had consoles) and Super Smash Bros. 4, where she (or he, but she on this occasion) is rather fun character to play due interesting Tome and Levin Sword mechanics. So, this creation is rather similar to Samus, Dedede and Zero Suit Samus. SSB is cool.

Building Robin began with the robes. She has rather sensible garments for a video game heroine. I began with the buttoning, using pearl gold cheese slopes for triangular patterns; the first try was too think and heavy, so I ditched a purple line there should be and made it a bit simpler. Fence pieces are used as golden lining. A blade piece is used on the hem for detail. They should go all around the hem, but you can't have everything: They would have been very hard to connect to the TECHNIC panels used at the back, and I only had two!

Thunder!

Under her robe Robin has white shirt, some sort of belt-like garment with couple of buckles and some black-gold leather armoring. The legs use lot of CCBS parts that are sturdy but give some dynamic posability. Black lines of the white trousers are built using T-bars, lightsaber hilts and viking horns. The feet are somewhat unstable, as there are both ball joints and T-bar joints: the T-bar is connected to the underside of the smallest CCBS armor piece working as an ankle boot. The arms are quite basic stuff - CCBS on the upper arms, formula 1 tires to fill them, 3x3x3 cones (lovely pieces) on the lower arms and a big hubs for golden wristbands.

The head was hard. I tried several different designs. Stylished Nausicaä-style head was too small and made the shoulders look too broad and manly, and Batwing-eye-style looked too big. I finally settles with a design using minifig arms as eyes, similar to Red Lady of the Stream. It eventually grew on me, and I quite like it. Longer hair sets Robin apart from her male counterpart, otherwise they're quite identical.

Archfire!

Robin also has some accessories. Most importantly she has her Levin Sword, which is weird zig-zag-blade impossible to fit to a scabbard; but it's a magick sword that breaks down after few uses, after all. Building it wasn't that easy, and it isn't perfect (or symmetrical), but captures the overall look alrighty in my opinion. She also has two of her Tomes, Archfire and Thunder.

So, this was the first MOC and post of 2017. Last year I wasn't as active as before, and I can't promise to post as much stuff this year than in 2015 neither. But I have few tricks up in my sleeves: I've been building modulars for an exhibit beginning next month in Vapriikki, the most important museum in Tampere and one of the biggest museums in Finland. There's still plenty of things to build, but I'm progressing, and I naturally also have lots of other WIPs and ideas.

Time to tip the scales!