Virva Staccato Revisited

Happy New Year 2024 and nice Presidential Election! Here's the first model of this year, which I hope to be bountiful in creations. This is an updated version of an older model from 2021. Virva Staccato is a drummer and the original model was built for one of my first New Elementary reviews, of Andrea's Family Home. Now I'm again in the middle of Friends reviews (the first one of January 2024 sets was posted today!). But as Virva doesn't have to reflect the parts of that set any more, I was free to update some parts to meet current requirements (I have developed during the last 3 years and there is more parts available now). This felt necessary, and above all fun, as I've been displaying this imaginary band every now and then - and already updated the two earliest members.

The main objective was to build a drum podium, so the drummer wouldn't look like hiding behind the other tall musicians. I have some (or many) coral 1x2 bricks and plates, and I made a pattern that appears to be curved despite being flat, with means of an optical illusion. Some neon yellow stripes (souvenirs from our September trip) enhanced the feel that is inspired by the aesthetics of 80s-90s arcade games. The facade went through two iterations; the first had four trans-light blue 8x8 plates with heavy coral frames, and I planned to add a light inside the illuminate some symbols on the plates. It didn't quite works - the coral frames were too overwhelming and the old, studded trans-light blue plates looked noisy and dirty. The second and final version has plenty of different elements and colours, but I think it's both more coherent and beautiful.

I also wanted to make the drum kit larger. I was not happy with the dark orange hi-hat of the old design, but I had only one pearl gold 6x6 dish. I solved this by making a larger 8x8 hi-hat with round tiles with smaller dishes on top. I also added another crash/ride cymbal. The old floor tom had uses couple of cool metallic silver 90s wheel hubs, and looked pretty cool, but didn't feel connected to the rest. I made a new one with a curious 5-side pentagon frame. I gave it a yellow macaroni tube tripod, similar to the original snare drum (that didn't need any tweaks) to create some continuum between the parts. I give the bass drum a total overhaul, keeping some of he colours but making it more refined. Lastly, I made a small tom, but as I didn't want to add it to the bass drum I made an extra yellow macaroni tripod with an additional small cymbal, using the previously mentioned sole 6x6 dish. I have no idea if this set is even playable, as my first-hand experiences on drum kits are rather limited.

The second half of this revisit was the character itself. The head has only minor tweaks: I added golden handles to the sunglasses, but that's about it. The original proposal with the glasses, hair buns and the large earrings was strong enough. The old trousers were good too, but I reworked the construction and modified the shoes to have a bit more detail. There was a slight rainbow theme on this character, so I added it as shoelaces to the sneakers. I kept the arms bare, but modified the shaping with some modern parts and made them tad shorter; hopefully not too short.

The most important refurbishment took place in the torso, which originally used most of the reviewed set's parts, resulting some rather weird solutions. I ditched the window shutter collar, which had deemed quite a lot inner structures. I completely reworked the belt, keeping the shape but abandoning the hanging long and fragile macaroni domes; the new version uses macaroni tubes, and I like the ball joints in this new one. I also reshaped the middle torso a bit, but kept the aqua colour, that ties it to the drum kit's colours.

The upper torso went through the largest change. I kept the 3x3 quarter domes, as they give the shoulders their distinct shape. It is more visible now that I took off the shutters. On the bust I managed to use a peculiar pineapple curved slope from a weird junior Friends fruit truck. Tino Poutiainen handed it to me when we were grazing used bricks table at Pii Poo's event somewhere, and I'm glad I took it. The collar took many versions, but I'm happy with this version that also uses some Dots prints with rainbow wi-fi logos. I'm also happy with the flat silver zipper!

Next up, two totally new band members, photographed today; and I'm currently working on a model to my LUG's medieval diorama contest.

-Eero.