Esmaralda, Aegis of Emeralds

Hey ho, my semester has ended now and everything left is my diploma work, technical equivalent of Pro Gradu, that makes me an architect SAFA in May if everything goes well. Until then, creations; this is Esmaralda, an emerald mage, who was built during several small sessions during this autumn. It's also the first creation to use pieces from this year's LUGBULK: White T-bars and some inverted curved slopes on the back of the head.

Idea behind here was to use beautiful trans-green colour on wild attire with dark tan skin and white details. Dark tan isn't the easiest colour to work with, as it's still somewhat limited colour (especially when it comes to joints), but I wanted to give it a try for sake of challenge. The end result ended up looking something from Mardi Gras carneval. The seed part was 4x4 double wedge plate in trans-green, which I got bunch of cheap from local BL store; in addition to the skirt and hair ornament they form magical shield as seen in some photos. Their transparenty forms quite interesting patterns, and transparent green things - like bottle glass - tends to be beautiful.

The constructions of the torso is quite unique, as it was clearly based on options the parts palette was offering; most of my patent solutions weren't available. I'm glad that I managed to use trans-green 2463 3x3x2 quarter facet brick part from 1992 on the chest; I've had one around for years, and it's not the most versatile part ever! The neck connection offered plenty of challenges; the aforementioned facet brick has solid stud, and as it's not rounded, nothing can be connected behind it as it's on 45 degree angle. My solution uses 1x2 round brick and 1x1 plate with vertical clip and is decently sturdy, if not the most elegant. The headlight brick that connects the shoulder T-bar is connected both with antistud on the back (to macaroni brick) and stud on top; I've noticed that double connection like this is required to make the model plesant to handle, without arms falling off all the time. Hooray for 40-years-old Headlight!

Positioning the skirt was another though bit, as those wedge plates connected with mostly hidden mixel joint plates took plenty of tries to align; also their connection on the back had to be sturdy enough. I'm happy with the infill of the gaps though, and the legs - quite uninteresting basic affair with 1x2 plate with pin hole working as the kneecaps - have satisfactory range of motion. The hair formed itself during a remote lecture; I'm quite happy with it. Ears and earrings seem to add surprisingly lot of character to well, a character.

-Eero.