Fresh fruit not good enough for you eh?

 There is still couple of days of MOC Wars left. Here's my sixth entry, for the category Not the bees: "Most actors have their overacting moments. But there are those few special snowflakes who turned it into pure brilliance. Nic Cage, Shatner, Nic Cage, Chris Tucker, Nic Cage, Samurai Cop, Nic Cage and so on. Build any of these overacting moments. Except for Tommy Wiseau - he gets enough credit for it as it is already. Consider focusing on silly facial expressions, go crazy." Simply, it was a catgeory for a movie/TV scene with overacting actors. The thing is, I'm bit left behind on the (American) actor scene. Only Nic Cage film I recall seeing is Kick-Ass. I of course liked Ace Venturas as a kid, but didn't really feel returning to them. They might not have aged that well - who knows, so I left Jim Carrey too (He was good in Kick-Ass II, by the way). I am a character builder, sure, so the category was a good fit for me, but finding the topic was the matter.

Then it came to me, like a thunderbolt from clear sky. Monty Python! It's loved and well-known, and seen numerous times in Brick form, most memorably by Iain Heath. It has a mental connection with me - meaning that it's a thing I care about, which is very critical for inspiration and the creative process. Making a scene for some Jim Carrey film I haven't seen or don't remember wouldn't have been the same thing.

In other hand, I have no idea how I ended up with the Fruit Self-Defense scene. It first appeared in Flying Circus and was re-shot as a shorter version for And For Now, Something Completely Different. This is the latter version, as John Cleese has a moustache (I naturally went with the moustache version). But honestly, I completely forgot the thought process before choosing the scene. Sure, Cleese is perfect in it, with odd body language and extreme facial expression. But I haven't seen the film for couple of years and it's even longer since I've seen the Flying Circus version. But I chose it, and found it on Youtube for reference, where I studies Cleese's facial features (very square jaw, wide shoulders and think neck). My first try was to make a bigger figure with more cartoonist features. I tried mixel eyes but the didn't work out. It's not my style and I don't get it to work. But again, like in Highlands Shepherd and Captain Nemo, eyebrows partly over eyes made the expression. The rest - thight shirt, big shoulders and neck muscles - were quite cool to build. SNOT work on the neck with its slight angle was probably the hardest part.

The comical scene didn't work with just John - he needed someone to yell at. The scene features all the British Pythons (that is, minus Terry Gilliam) in white sport attire, and building all of them would have been too time-consuming, repetitive and would have taken more curved slopes in white than I had around. In the scene, Eric Idle's character asks about pointed sticks, resulting the most over-acting scene in it: John's sergeant yelling to Idle's face about maniacs with loganberries and such. So I made Eric Idle too, poor man to be yelled at from couple of inches. He was lot easier, as the expression is more neutral and his body form isn't so bulky as Cleese's. Getting the arms flow naturally was the main challenge, and as a special trick, a short white string part with studs in ends is used to hold them, hanging naturally. The figures are not very poseable, but there was no intention as is a scene. I'm also very happy how the composition works, as the characters are very close to each other (physically that is). They are not that small, but fit a 16x16 plate, with John Cleese aggressively invading Eric Idle's personal space. Don't come crying to me!

Next up, minifig scale, architecture, fantasy scifi setting. Tomorrow on this same bat-blog.

-Eero.