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.