Avelin Annumin

Three posts about band members in a row; the next post will be something different, though. This model was built simultaneously with the last one. My prize in the underground category of Summer Joust 2022 morphed into a Pick a Brick / Bricks and Pieces gift card, and I bought a lot late last year. I got plenty of medium nougat parts, as it's a good colour for characters, but has been quite sparse in variance untiel recently - and to some degree still is. The upper arms deemed all the tricks I know, because neither 1x2 round plate nor a boat stud exist in medium nougat. The introdiction of 1x2 SNOT brick with one middle stud (or, alternatively, stud-pin with friction) made it easier to make a Eero Okkonen head in this colour. The chin still uses cheese slopes. 1x2 double slope was introduced in natura history museum last recently, and I pondered whether I should wait to get some for this; but in the end, the less pointed jawline fitted the character just fine.

Another seed part was the triangular, curved Technic panel. I got a nice secetion of those smallish panels from Lego store in Wien last Septmber; they had parted out Bugatti Bolide in there, I bet. They formed the top part of the dress, and the curves felt so elegant that I wanted to emphasize them with a contrasting colour; I chose a classy white. I had many ideas for the lower part of the garment, from sort of trouser thing to a geometrically ornamented skirt, but ended up with the simples, cleanest form possible.

The hem of the skirt uses a new technique. Instead of having a skirt shell with the legs inside it (like in real life) the legs are the sides of the skirt; they're connected with ball joints on the waist. The sockets hide behind the CCBS shells which also enables the movement without large gaps.The middle panel is same block with the rest of the figure. Naturally swiveling them sideways doesn't work very well, but the ball joints nevertheless brings the possibility of fine-tuning when balancing the figure. Inside the side panels, there are actual knee joints, again helping in the fine-tuning. The shoes are very small (and were designed in Studio during the Christmas holiday), so the balancing isn't very easy.

I had no clear idea about the instrument; I wanted it to be something that doesn't obscure the dress too much. String instruments felt fitting, but I already had a violinist; double bass and cello would have been to heavy. I ended up with an electric cello; a very obscure instrument. I doubt I've ever seen one. It enabled me to build an amplifier with a fuzz pedal - no point in playing e-cello without effects - but the most imporant aspect was it lightness, weirdness and the elegance of shape. This is loosely based on some models that mimic the shape of "real" cello. Some e-cellos were very ugly, looking like a combination of a Bionicle weapon and office furniture. The spike of the cello uses a rubber knob designed for thread links; it keeps the instrument from sliding off, felling and demolishing the musician.

-Eero.

Mathilda Crawatt

There was always going to be a keyboardist in my band project, but somehow I ended up making some relatively more obscure (in popular music sense) instruments before it. I wanted a proper keyboards/electronics set-up with two to three machines; at one point I thought I'd combine it with a full-fledged percussion set, but I'll do it separately so I can build more characters...

This model was built in two phases; I made the first version of the skirt and the keyboards late last year and all the rest in January. The skirt is inspired by one worn by some passer-by in Riga last September; some versions included also bright pink, but it didn't work - it was probably too dark - and I setteled with these three. I'm happy how those hues, being so close each other in (dark/light) value, seem to merge... A bit like the gradient in early evening sky, I think. I wanted the rest to be simple and soft, so I left the legs bare and made a fluffy woolly jumper. Unusually it's designed mostly in Studio: I was away from my bricks for almost three weeks and made some CAD sketches, including two dozens for the milit'ry boots, and also some extra shoes for the next build I'll publish, likely. It took some fixes in real world, including the red detail, but it's mostly the digital design.

The hair is something I have wanted to try for a while. I bought plenty of those ziplines in reddish brown and flat silver from Lugbulk last year, and I already used some on my Bio-Cup entries. They're probably the most hair-like plastic elements that exist; I made two braids, six lines each, and they took a few tries to get decent. The side buns were even more complicated - their logic is unknown to me! The back hair has simple three layers, 5 or 6 lines each. The large bow was a late addition, but the model needed it; just some upwards-oriented shape to contrast the downwards-sloping ones in the skirt and locks... There was a similar issue in the first Doreen Inverardi, which I fixed succesfully in the revisited version.  

The keyboards are basically based on the technique I developed for Mika Rättö's Roland Juno in my Circle project in 2018. They don't mimic any real instruments but are based on my metal images of Nord Electro and Eko Tiger Junior. They're not accurate at all! Neither are the connections authentic, because I was after the chaotic feel of such machinery and wiring as experienced the listener. There are some pedals, as they're potential for dynamic posing, and an additional effect/loop machine. The amplifier, or probably it's a monitor (which probably should be aimed at the musician herself), was a fast build too; and one I'm very happy with. I had three spare banana gears, and it's not easy to use three; and I has been wanting to use those hockey nets, too, but their colour is kinda bleak. They look decent against black, though, and slot perfectly into the grooves of the banana gears! 

An unifinished version of this, without the loop machine and one layer of hair was exhibited in Pii Poo Tampere event 13th-14th January. Here's some photos of my set: