The Athlete

 Another one "from the archives". I built this athlete for a New Elementary article about Pink Flamingo set(s). There are some coral pieces from the sets here, always to difficult to photograph - my camera cell doesn't seem to understand it! It looks more vibrant in person, I swear. 

I've mentioned before that real, random people are a major inspiration for my character models, and that applies also here. Coral is a popular colour in sports clothing, hence the idea; I also got some inspiration from athletics events Pinja watches from television every now and then. In a nutshell, I wanted to make an athletic person - not one with weight lifter's physique, but something typical to runners and jumpers. I'm first to admit I'm not super familiar with this word! Nonetheless, I tried to capture the vibe with small adjustments on shoulder and upper arm silhouette. 1x2 round tile ("soap bar") is a fantastic piece, and I also used some on the 4-pack (the two missing abs are in the shorts, I think). I'm also happy with the rounded concave shape of the waist, made with two big macaroni tubes.

The coral pieces from flamingoes are used mostly on the legs. as I wanted continuous coral mass, I had to make unusual hip joint; Technic Steering Gear with 3 Towball Joints, Compact is suspended by the central ball from the torso, and the legs connect to the side balls. This mean that the actual joints are in weird locations - obviously too close to each other. But this also enables hiding the grey joint pieces in a very small package behind the wedge curved slopes; and as the whole ball cluster can twist, it allows enough flexibility for decently natural posing.

There are some fun piece uses. I got the Gravity Games plastic sheet a couple of years ago, and wanted to use it in this kind of character. The one shoe is recycled from a WIP that became Supersonic Soaring Suit. The touch of neon yellow matched the sport vibes, so I gave her a wrist band of this colour, also found on the shoe. And finally, athletes usually wear thei hair tied (for practical reasons), which gave me an excuse for a playful hairstyle. This one uses pot cut hair that I got for New Elementary Parts Festival in 2019 in Denmark - but never used in the said festival. Now, finally, I used the ingeniously as hair.

-Eero. 

Cronje

Despite numerous claims, I have not been able to boost my rate of writing these articles. It might just be that writing the other type of articles - that is, scientific journal articles - for full-time might drain my writing juices... and then there has been some Klaanon, more than usually. So here I am posting MOCs from February or such.

 This is a small and relatively fast one, build out of habit (and duty) for Palikkatakomo contest. The theme was "dream" and this one is related to my academic dreams, and the journal article I am currently writing. (I'm still in campus, but it's Friday afternoon and I've made some good progress but enough is enough and too much is too much; my brain can just handle this MOC article at this point.) So, Tampere Savings Bank organised an architectural contest in 1900. The winning proposals have never been published, but I discovered them in the building a year ago. Unfortunately, the "Cronje" proposal, which was ultimately chosen to be executed, is still lost. So, this is my "scientific" reproduction of it, in Lego. It was made by architectural firm Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen, and most likely Eliel Saarinen, as two proposals were sent from Paris where Saarinen was building the Finnish World Fair pavilion at the time - Gesellius and Lindgren were in Finland. 

The contest (Palikkatakomo 2025 one, not the 1900 architectural one) limited the size of the entry to 32x32x32 studs. The other contest limited the building withing the plot borders, which could not be crossed with projections such as bay windows. Cronje broke this rule and was disqualified. Thus, I took the final drawings as a point of deparature, and added two bay windows projecting from the surface (they are topped by the 3x4 wedges). Furthermore, I made the entire facade in light bley to represent Finnish granite. Tampere Technical Club minutes suggest that Cronje was designed to be clad in granite, whereas the final version has natural stone only on the ground floor.

 These are the simple speculative choices. Otherwise, I wanted to capture the Art Nouveau graphic feel with the curving clouds and smoke trails, and medium azure background makes the whole a little more cheerful. Finally, the contest entry needed a motto, so I added it in yellow. 

As a small technical brag, I made the windows with homely trans-yellow hue and without opaque layer beneath, so they glow a bit if there's light behind the model. This made it a bit more exciting to look at. However, this (nor the very personal AND scientific background) didn't win the love of the voting audiences, and I got no prize. Maybe winning three consequent Palikkatakomo contests last year was enough.

-Eero.