Hippo Gibbon

 So, it's the last day of MOC Wars and it's time of MOC War boys to start their final raid with "Hippo Gibbon", polecat pickup rod enforcer. This category is called Young Max Rockatansky: "Little Max got a little mad because all he got for his birthday were Technic pieces and some silly motors. Build a vehicle fit for Fury Road at least 16 studs wide with working features able to enact some proper vengeance." So, basically, a 16-studs-wide Mad Max inspired vehicle with working function.

I do really like Mad Max Fury Road. I think it just might be the best film of the last century, and I've made MOCs inspired by it before, too. Actually I also had a WIP of Immortan Joe around for couple of years, but I never finished it. But those were characters, and undoubtly the most popular thing in Mad Max movies is their vehicles. Rust, dirt, mixes of different cars, weapons, spikes, flags, supercharged V8s - those are in the core of films about chase scene practical effect galore.

I was bit stressed about this category at first. I'm not really a car builder. I now practically nothing about cars. Okay, I know how the drive them, I got the licence, and I even was a vehicle caretaker person of local police station six years ago (in my civilian service). But I'm very unsure about the pistons and pipes and gears and things. There might be some several car design errors here, but hey, look is the most important thing.

As often in my builds, some interesting piece uses were the starting points. I've used dark orange balloon panels before, in HAVOC-DISSECT IV's hair. But I got some more recently and went with them as the mudguards. It's not very interesting part use, as it's seen on official sets, too, but it captures the retro aspect of Mad Max cars (modern cars with electronic micro systems don't work on deserts) with beautiful rusty shade. I had also nice collection of dark orange wedge slopes, curved slopes, tiles and 2x2x2 slopes around, so it worked as the main colour. The minifig coffin piece was another root part, forming the fender. And supercharger - from Tuneable racer again - is used as supercharger, yeah dull again, but hey, who's ever seen that part? I only bought it from event a week ago... And some silver Nexo Knight wedge slopes are used on the cowcatcher. The doors open, and there's little miniland-scale war boy driver behind the wheel.

Along the aggressive shaping I also had to design the function. It was clear from the beginning. In Fury Road there are those Polecat cars, with war boys hanging from long poles balanced by counterweights. I wanted to make one. It uses three boat weights and a boat mast and miniland war boy with explosive spear. It was challenging to get right and took lot of adjusting; the counterweight should be little heavier than the pole. Or actually it is lot heavier, but closer to the axle, so the momentum is almost the same. The guy on the pole had to be balanced, too, and this is achieved by adjusting the spear arm on good position. Fine tuning! The effect is shown on the video below; sorry for it being idiotically shot vertically, but I hardly ever mess with videos and just think them as moving images, which they are not. It was also very windy.

So, that's it for MOC Wars. There's lot of time to build now with everything cancelled, but I'll keep few day's break from photographing and posting models. Thanks for Absurde for asking me in, and all the judges, house team co-members and participants for joining the battle. Hooray!

-Eero.