Ihminen

 

I built this model in summer for New Elementary's mini bunny festival, which utilised parts from 31162 Cute Bunny, especially focusing on 7037 Brick 2x2x⅔ Half Circle with 2 Studs and Curved Top - here used on the nose (pun intended). The bunny is an excellent parts pack for a character builder; I had two to play with. Furthermore, this is a love letter to all the other sweet curved tan pieces we've gotten during the last couple of years. I think this is one of my best works so far.

 

 My initial inspiration and starting point was Emil Vikström's Pohjan Neito statue in my hometown Tampere (image in the end of the article). It's along one of my regular walking routes now as I live in the centre. There's certain simple serenity in it that I like; the statue is quite small and high up, so it takes keen eyes to see it in detail! There are elements of it in my version's facial features, but instead of the straight flocks (or hood) framing the face I made a tight bun; the aim was to display the shape of the face as unobscured as possible. Furthermore, the bun works as a balancing element in the back so that there's something interesting in all angles.

I wrote about the technical things in the New Elementary article, so I won't repeat them here. In general, the process was straightforward and enjoyable, which implies that the tan toolkit is currently well-equipped. The 2x2 quarter round curved slope is especially pleasant piece - I recently ordered 50 more in Tan from Pick-a-Brick.

 In a way, this model goes pack to DK's Great LEGO book released around 1999 and widely available in Finnish back in the day; I had it as a kid, and it showed me the potential of Travis brick, for example (I had two of them, in intensive circulation between different MOCs). The interesting thing in the book (compared to more recent Lego books) is that it had very little minifigure content but abundance of human characters in different scales, mostly models built for Legoland. Along with Bionicle, it might have pushed me into character builds in the long run; showing that Lego is not only about vehicles and houses and fire stations for minifigures.

-Eero.

Lyn Satz

 This was the second MOC built for my New Elementary article on the Creator Pink Flamingo. After finishing the Athlete, I still had idead for those coral pieces that evolved into a bodice, decorated with some bright light yellow ruffs and a rad spiked belt. The positioning of the 3x3 quarter curved slopes was relatively difficult, as they're connected via the central tubes instead of usual antistuds, positioning the connection on irritating 1/2 offset grid. It looks nice, though. Another piece use from the set is the bright pink faux fur collar, using the newly recoloured rock pieces. I continued this motif with arm bands of bright pink crosses.

Although not introduced in it, the flamingo set featured these beautiful opal-trans-pink fern pieces. I wanted to use them as a hair, but it was challenging. Finally, I settled on a mohawk, which was simply enough - and I was able to nest it among pyramid slopes, common in trans-pink. I had not explicitly decided that this was going to a be musical person, but I think it was there on the background thoughts; thus, the hairdo, associated with punk, seemed fitting. It helped to create a strong silhouette.

I was completely at loss with the legs as well! As there's no skirt or dress or coattails of any sort, the legs were completely visible. Something on a rougher side felt fitting, but the choice of colours was not an easy one: I didn't have enough bright pink or coral, and in any case I wanted something with enough contrast with the coral bodice. Furthermore, the legwear had to be something worn under the bodice. In the end, I chose dark blue skin-tight trousers with very tall dark red boots with some spikes, coral details and rough soles. I even managed to use one of my favourite pieces, the tongue-shaped windshield, to create the hip curve silhouette. I left a sticker above the left knee, as such touch of asymmetry felt fitting.

The instruments were the last part I built - or actually not, as I had built the amp over a year ago and just had it around, waiting for a perfect use. Well, I chose it after finishing the character. The guitar is mosty a recolour of the Flying V I designed for Janne Westerlund in my Circle project already in 2018. I think the bright light orange (keetorange) and trans-clear colour scheme looks killer, though! The aerodynamically iconic shaping of Flying V fitted this character perfectly.

 I set a new month-long exhibit in Messukylä library yesterday, and it's there until 30th of October. There's a posted in the end of this post. You can see this MOC, some older and many unpublished ones there - and you can see ME and my new minifigure scale architecture MOC in Pii Poo's event in OULU this weekend!

 -Eero.