MOC: Lumiére

 Worldcon begins in Wednesday and I've got plenty of things going on, three builds photographed and everything, this is one of them; and I should be writing some exhibit material too and probably have a talk of some sort, probably in English, even. Our booth is even listed as Palikkatakomo/Cyclopic Bricks in the con website. Witness!

But here we have the fire personification girl, Lumiére, which is French and means luminary (surprise). I think this ended up quite a different than I had planned at the start. There were several version, which I was not sure if they would even be this MOC, the fire goddess - like one with white dress and sitting pose adapted from a Mucha sketch, with only some reddish jewellery to form an inkling of the fire theme. But it didn't get it work and approached the subject on different style. I had lot of fire part gadgets lying around, like these big circles made of 3L CCBS bones, flame chains, golden fire wings and so on, but I simpled it around a lot. The long black (coal?) boots were there from the beginning, and the lantern (which is of course super fragile) was probably the first thing built, along with the big ponytail (That misses one tail end. It fell of at some point. Fortunately doesn't really show on the pictures.).

The ruff on the hem of the shirt was one of the motifs here, too. I made like 13 of those ruffs, both in red and dark red, to form sort of a Flamenco dress (Flamenco sounded good for a fire) but it was too rigid and short, too, as I didn't have enough pieces. But I left couple of those there, and they definitely don't amount a skirt, but at least a hem, and some shape to the silhouette of the build.

The pearl gold sprout details on the chest, along with big shoulder pads using container pieces and printed double bow pieces, helped to define the character. I think they give sort of authority feel suitable for the fiery element. Another "element point" was the gradient trousers. They were dark red at first and it looked dull, so I embarked a conquest to make a gradient. Which isn't always easy. But I think I managed quite well, despite having to add a black lines to the sides. Funny that I had needed pieces in dark red, red, orange, bright light orange and yellow... There was also an alternative with white bit after the yellow, but it didn't quite work. A motif of the gradient can also be seen on the sleeves.

The head was challenging, mainly because of lack of dark red (I ran out of headlights). I tried to use Friends arms as eyebrows to add some variety. A baby bow is also used to connect the eyes, instead of not-properly-connected 1x2 tile. It makes it bit odd on the nose department, but is more dynamic overall. Not sure which is better, though. The hair, in other hand, is rather basic ponytail design with some side bangs, but I hope the jewellery makes it more interesting. I wanted to use those Atlantis keys (underrated pieces, probably) as a jewellery here. It has a crab print, which is more suitable for a water theme, but probably it is a fire crab or something. Ornamented wheel is also used on the back of the head, forming sort of halo or a Mucha-style ornamentation. I wondered if this is really the first time I use that part on anything. I've had those around for couple of years, and been planning to use them on several builds, but now I can't remember any. Odd. But here's one, after all.

This one is easier to balance than Cielan and Kuohu, so I ended up taking lot of photos. There was a tragic episode, too, as when I photoshopped a batch of 12 shots I ended up saving them with level 5 quality jpg (medium). So I had redo all of them. But here they are, and they're quite dynamic shots, in my opinion.

-Eero.