Commander Strax

 So, before I got distracted by Bio-Cup, and in generally building, I was posting my models from new Elementary's Flowerfest. This won't be the last MOC of it but this was the last one I built; I had used most of the interesting parts but I still wanted to so something with the medium nougat pauldrons used as rose petals in the set. I just fiddles with them and sculpted with them; I noticed that the bar connection made a nose, and I was able to make another connection inside by sticking a clip between the support prongs of the bar addition. The medium nougat mudguards from the set made humorous ears.

I first thought it would make a humorous stereotypical "politician", with a suit and a tie. But I had been watching some Dr. Who (Capaldi series) and it struck me that the doodle looked quite a bit like good Sontaran Commander Strax... The suit would still have been appropriate, as Strax tends to wear suit in Victorian London, but I went with the full Sontaran armour as it was recognizable - and I wanted to use some sand blue I had gathered. The head jutted perfectly into the ring of macaroni bricks, so I knew I was in the right direction. I didn't use any other Botanical set parts in this, as the ones I used were heavily enough in the focus - and sand and dark blue colour scheme didn't offer any possibilities.

Working with limited colour was relatively easy; Strax's physics and Sontaran armour design is well suited fot brick building. Funnily the dark blue shoulder pads were the hardest part, as I didn't seem to have any hollow bit in the right colour (I only got two dark blue bohrok head shells some time later). I solved this by making the pauldrons separate blocks with joints for both the shouder and the rest of the arm; thsi allowed a natural stance. The sand blue areas formed itself around few different elegantly shaped curved parts from early 2000's my childhood sets.

The eyes were late addition. It looked alright (and rather dramatic!) with just dark areas under the neanderthalian brow. They eyes help to focus on the head, though. They're 1x1 round tiles connected to battle droid arms.

Sonta-Ha!

-Eero.

Harvest Merchants

 I was supposed the post those remaining Flowerfest models, wrote the texts and everything, but ended up being unable to post them; or to put it better, I just didn't. Probably writing those Instagram tags is too bothersome. They will be the next ones... right. My summer holiday started, I had a canoeing trip, and I came back home just in time for Bio-Cup's Round 2 with theme of Biomes - Flatlands that ends tomorrow-ish. Two of the suggested subjects were farmers and hunter tribe, and I combined the ideas to a nomad tribe thing, that ended up being two matoran merchants and their prehistoric lizard (or amphibian, maybe) friend. 

The beast of burden was going to be silver and rhino-esque at first, but I ended overthinking it and working in silver wasn't fun at all. Bionicle has too much silver! I dumbed all that and returned to the recently looted dark red Fenrakk (Skirmix) heads I had tried to use in the previous build. I used them as reptile heads, but I suppose the huge lower jaw and lever lizard eyes are enough to make difference. I purposefully made the lizard fat and jolly, slow and friendly-looking. It was a fun build and uses lot of real Bionicle parts around a liftarm spine; there is no CCBS at all and even the system per cent is relatively slow, especially in the lizard. I managed to make the building fun after ditching the silver; key to success! The build was strongu defined when I tied the tohunga head statue to the back. And the lizard didn't even have a head back then...

The matorans are completely new design. Foremost, I wanted them to be small to make the lizard friend look big enough. I emulated Tohunga physics with more poseability (and sadly fragile arms). The red Ta-Matoran guy is tougher, as he smokes a pipe and carries a bamboo disc, classical matoran defence weapon. I suppose he's the boss, as he's not carrying a bag. The Po-Matoran is more local-coded with a funny hat, sort of a coat and fabuland bag. I knew there had to be a funny hat in this trio; they needed one.

-Eero.

Seize the Night

 

This is the prelim entry of Bio-Cup 2023. Wish me luck! I've been rather sluggish in posting the New Elementary Flowerfest models, but I've now written the remaining two to be ready; just had to take a break to fit this in before the deadline.

 

The theme for the preliminary round is Villain. A good, universal, character packed theme. It wasn't the easiest for me; I'm generally more into good guys. I always side with the good guys. Empire has cool gadgets and walkers, but I'm still in Rebel Alliance camp, ever day. But the entry had to be a villain! What does that mean? Antagonist, the opposing force of the protagonist? Or simply someone who's bad? I went to the second route and tried to capture few villain clichés in a cool way. As this is for the Cup, I mad a real constraction figure, lessening the amount of System a lot from what I usually do: The base is system, of course, as are the feet and the upper arms; but rest is based on the technic/bonkle system. It was refreshing, really. I've been doing a lot of architecture lately.

 

Blood red armour? Yeah! Blood red armour with an evil demon-face on the chest? Hell yeah! The armour face was my seed part; the pauldrons were going to be dark red Fenrakk (Skirmix?) heads, but they were way too big. The wheel hub was there from early on, I like its pattern with three 6x6 dishes underneath. The spiky KK2 armours deserved more loce, and Skrall armours are one of the nice, not over-designes bonkle parts I enjoy. Humorously I think that them, the knee spikes and the Y ball sockets are the only Bionicle-introduced parts here; but hey, there have been many constraction themes.

 

Aside the armour, pose was one of the main points here. She's a villain, but she's winning. She's like a villain and a protagonist. Forward! Knee up, sword in front and rising the flag. The flag pole was there from the early on, but I swapped it to the other hand and added the bat sword, meaning she can put some weight on the pole, making the pose feel more impressive. I chose a bright red hair as Tahu Star's sword looked to nice with its gradient, and the red eyelines separates the face from my usual ones. Seize the Night! Seize the Cup! Gonna be a busy summer again!

 

 -Eero.