Augur of the Last Peak

 I recently bought a bunch of parts from BL. This is not exactly common; while I've been a bit more active BL user during the pandemic (due to loss of first-hand used brick vat browsing on events and such), my prevous order was half a year ago to complete Grand Hotel Kudelma. The new order had lot of cheap curved slopes on pleasant colours, and they inspired me into sort of "free building" without any specific idea. From such ground emerged Augur of the Last Peak.

The seed part, aside the curved slopes, was oil slick -esque cape piece from Friends funfair theme; more about it on my review on New Elementary, from May. I didn't build any creations for that article, but I knew I would use that interesting cloth piece sooner or later. It was here, making the mantle of the robe along with pearl gold and medium lavender pieces. I wanted to keep the robe very simple and elegant; I think it turner out pretty good, except for the back, which has bit too severe blocky steps. That was due to lack of arches or tall slope pieces (except ones on the upper arms) available.

The character ended up being smaller than usual. I first tried six-wide upper torso, but that looked too muscular. I settled on this overall four-wide torso. It also sort of solved the hand problem of not having needed pieces for basic hands in medium nougat (gloves didn't feel fitting for the character) as those hands would have looked huge in the scale; instead I built long sleeved with a tips of fingers (simplified as 1x1 round tiles) peeking from them. The head is usual scale, but does not look out of place. This is new design for double cheese slope chin variant that debuted on Dedofiktion Rocketsuit in January. This new version doesn't need old 3651 Technic Axle And Pin Connector with its loose and weirdly logoless side studs; instead it uses another long gone part, 4081a Plate, Modified 1 x 1 with Light Attachment - Thin Ring. Plates connected to each side of the thin ring line up with the 1x1 plate, so the width of the head is not disturbed. I should probably post a break-up of this and the usual head version. 

But back to the character. She ended up looking like a monk (nun?), or an oracle, or an augur. Some sort of mystic. And she was a rather stiff model with not much poseability, so I wanted to compleate it with some scenery. One alternative would have been a body of water, like a still lakeside or a stream (like on old Red Lady of the Stream). But I wanted to make something airier. The process was influenced by my recent re-reading of Tolkien's books, and I though of Varda, or Elbereth, one of the valar and the creator of stars who lives on the holy mountain Taniquetil in Valinor across the Sea. From the prehistory of Arda arose this mountain-side with its white snows. I first experimented of some more expressive clouds, using balloon panels and dinosaur tails, but they didn't fly; more two-dimensional silhouette clouds were better, with petrified movement and sense of altitude. The cliff has boat weigh pieces inside to give the composition unreal feel - I'm rather happy with it - while keeping the model in good balance. My new blue background sheets helped with the airy feel. I bough them and new black ones today, as the old ones were too crumbles and messy; but they will appear on the next post, as its model was photographed some days earlier.

-Eero.