Moirai

  
And so Bio-Cup 2026 draws to its end. The category of the final round was Fate and Fortune; I build the Moirai, or the three fates from the Greek mythologies. They appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. From left to right: Atropos, the cutter of the thread of life; Clotho, with the thread of life on her spindle; and Lachesis, the measurer of the thread of life. Now, this MOC was very stressful to make. I had a hike in Käsivarsi (Arm) wilderness area two weeks ago, five nights in tent and 80 km of walking on the fells. Came back in middle of this round. I like the category though - but the subject I chose was not the simplest one! The contest season of this summer drew longer than expected, and I had plenty of exhaustion levels at this point. But I'm happy with the result, especially its colours.

Atropos I built first and the upper part remained quite a similar thorough the process. I really like Scarox's mask, it's a jewel among the subpar Brain Attack sets; creepy and chunky. Here, it works as a crown that also covers Atropos' eyes. The stomach features the mask of... I don't know what, but the evil mask from Bionicle Generation II. It reminds me of real-world death masks of pharaohs and such, and felt fitting here. I positioned it as the uterus the emphasise the symbolisms of birth and death. Atropos was initially going to have a sprawling, tentacle-like lower part instead of legs; initially, they all were going to have something like that, being connected to each other via base... or something. I was too stressed to concept anything like that, so I went with legs. Mostly.

Of the three, I'm happiest with Clotho. The head with a distantly hoplite-like helmet, made of trans-clear opal leaf pieces, was part of the original concept along with the fancy Avokhii pauldrons. Red mantle worked well with these elements, also tying it to the Bionicle colour theme of destiny (the red star). And dark red always looks nice, right? The idea of continuing the robe to the lower part was actualised late in the process, and it enabled me to make some authentic Bionicle part sculpting. The patterns are messy, of course, but that's Bionicle to you. If you want smooth shapes, use boring curved slopes... No jokes, I'm happy with it! Though I had no idea what to do with the feet, so I just obscured them with the crib! The string is from some big Technic crane, it was a spontaneous addition to Bricklink cart two or three years ago. Fortunately so.

Lachesis was confusing one. I wanted to use silver to complete the colour scheme of the trio, and to match the golden pieces of Atropos. It also felt fitting to make her less dramatic and more benevolent. Nonetheless, the large hair - or is it a helmet? is not entirely reassuring. Spinax's head piece was here from the beginning, giving an impression of a draping metal gown frozen in time. I also like the jewelry on the upper arms, contrasting to similar golden motif on Atropos. The wing foil sheet ultimately saved this model, as I had no idea what to do with the legs. They're actually pieces exhibited on Pick-A-Brick booth at Skaerbaek 2024 with other new parts. The parts were given to the New Elementary team, and Jonas Kramm sent me the foil pieces, conveniently in a letter. I just removed them from their punching sheet for this. Thanks, Jonas.

 Next up, another contest entry. But I've built and shot and submitted it already, so now I can declare the contest season of 2026 over - and relax and pick mushrooms and build whatever I like. I won every catagory of Summer Joust I took part in, so this season has already been successful enough.

-Eero.