MOC: Lady Liberty 3000

 Far on the future, the Statue of Liberty is replaced with gigantic mecha that fights for freedom and liberty and against tyranny and persecution.

(And that backstory of this build was invented in five seconds after I attached that barraki spine in that head and noticed that it looked like Lady Liberty's crown.)

As you have noticed, I built a big-scale Bionicle MOC after a half year's break. There is not any exciting backstory with this MOC. I guess it started with those heeled shoes; I first made the other one black and planned to build a MOC with inverted color halves, but didn't have correct pieces (the biggest grief of a LEGO builder) so I went for normal coloring instead. As those shoes seem like they are impossible to walk with, I decided to build a mecha, as most of my Bionicle MOCs are less mechanical and more organic characters. Or something, they all are plastic after all.

I had wanted to use those Insectoid wings, terribly underused and beautiful pieces, for a long time, and this seemed like a great opportunity. To match the big trans-blue areas, I added bits of trans-blue all around the MOC. There are, for example, minifig visors used as small pieces of armour on the arms. 

Photographing was pain. White models shouldn't be photographed on a white background, but I couldn't use very dark backdrop either, because the wings wouldn't have looked so good with it. I used plywood boards at first, but then used grey cardboard. They weren't very big, so the MOC is near the backdrop and these pics are a bit poky.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Bifur

 It was nice to see that many people enjoyed my big Hobbit dwarf figures, so here's the fourth I've promised: Bifur, cousin of Bofur and Bombur, a toymaker dwarf portrayed by Kiwi talent William Kircher. Bifur has  remains of rusted orc axe in his skull and is rather odd fellow, but somehow very gentle fellow - and apparently vegetarian. He didn't have very big role in the first Hobbit movie, but he's got some sweet background activity is you look closely. There's a cool article in Tumblr about it.

Like the previous dwarves, Bifur was quite a fun build, having lot of interesting patterns. I made the head first, as the main idea of building this guy was the cheese SNOT on the beard (yes, he has snot on his beard, badum-tish) and mustache braids built using 1x1 round plates. The cheese pattern is similar to Balin's robe, though it is made in smaller space. I like how its diagonal line matches with the robe's pattern.

The robe was pleasingly easy to build. I luckily had enough dark tan slopes and 2x2 jumpers to make the pattern. It is also rather sturdy. The hardest part was to angle the knife correctly. It is done using ol' good T-bar, which are also used to make the shoulder joints. Elbows are basic 1x2 brick joints, sadly not dark tan but sturdy design.   I'm particularly glad of the use of barrels as bracers, as they are very similar to original. Fingers are same as Dwalin's, tan skeleton arms from Ninjago Skeleton Bowling.

Bifur is pegged with boar spear, long-bladed spear with great profile. Very easy tool to build - just some slopes, round bricks and awesome 4-bar-connector.


When it comes to future of my Hobbit dwarves project, I'd like to say few words. I like building these bearded fellows, but obviously my LEGO collection is limited. So, I'm not going to build the 9 waiting dwarves very soon, but might make some when I like to - and I can say I have some plans for Thorin II Oakenshield. But time will tell.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Imperial Steamguard Suspended Attack Monorail Gondola

 Hello dear readers, as you can see I'm back in one of my favourite themes, Steampunk, loaded with nonsense vehicles and cool goddamn longcoat Victorian officers. This "baby" is  Imperial Steamguard Suspended Attack Monorail Gondola for urban warfare in alternative history's giant steam capitals. It hangs under a singe rail like suspension railway. Yes, the long thing on the top of this MOC is the rail and not part of the MOC itself; I'd like to build some building to stuck the rail on, or probably a station with longer track, but didn't have enough pieces. Yet. The name also suggests a gondola lift, or a cable car, which have similar function.   

 So, this Attack Gondola clanks around on under the trackes between the buildings and fires enemy suspended monorails with its double Gatling guns. It of course makes no sense on strategical ways whatsoever, but as long as it's wacky and steam-powered, it fits well on a steapunk universe at least in my opinion. And there are always enemies to fight for.. What about suspended monorail pirates? Anarchy in the UK!

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Anti-Pigeon Fighter

Steampunk -or dieselpunk, whatever- has sometimes no sense at all. This Anti-Pigeon Fighter-Ornithopter designed by Professor Marcellus Gartland Ostrich, whimsy gentleman and inventor. It's function is to eliminate the pigeons (Columba livia domestica) that commit acts of terror around London's House of Parliament.

Anti-Pigeon Fighter is a fast aircraft with rather light-weight hull and three engines which positions can be angled. To make the fighter agiler, it has no landing gear nor any sort of wheels that could be used to gain speed on the ground before take-off. Because of these absences, Professor usually begins his vendettas against pigeons from the Clocktower of Big Ben, and after he has shot as many little flying bastard as possible, he aims to the river Thames and makes a cool "landing" which includes very big cloud of mist and steam. Because of the wet nature of landing -okay, rivering- he always uses his Neptune scuba powersuit to walk through the pollution of Thames to get back to civilization. His suit and fighter are of course covered with thigh layers of varnish so contaminants don't corrode them away.

Anti-Pigeon Fighter is armed with four light and inaccurate cannons and one heavy machine gun with super-rigorous aiming mechanism. It has two magnifying glasses, on on the helmet and other on the gun which makes it possible for professor to count his victim's chest fluff before the strike.

-Pate-keetongu

PS. to animal lovers: I have nothing against pigeons, those grateful lords of mid-air.

MOC: Toa Atya

 As you probably noticed, I built a Bionicle MOC after few-month break. Or actually just finished a WIP. This gal has been on my table all the way from last summer.

Toa Atya is a Toa of Water and leader of her small team. Or was before he committed a suicide for she couldn't kill her former rogue team member Toa Ämkoo. She's quite a tragic character and had a restrictive sense of moral.

I've build this character before, few years ago, with quite a bad results. It is based on This drawing by scary gentleman Don Delucci, who also created this character on Klaanon project. I liked the colours, gold and blue and splast of dark red on the cloth piece on hip. I had got some beautiful pearl gold pieces earlier when I bought Glatorian Tarix from flea market. I built the torso and arms few months ago, but got struck with the legs. But few days ago I realized I had got many pearl gold EF robot arms from somewhere and started to greeble a femur armour with them I quite liked the results.

 I wanted to make the high-heeled shoes blue, but realized that I didn't have blue Bohrok feet at all - What a gap in my Bionicle parts collection! I need to bricklink few some day. Useful bits. I also wanted to use more teal in this MOC, as there is one part on the chest armour, but didn't find any places to mess up with my very limited collection of that classic rare colour. But on the other hand, I like the color splash it gives.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Oin

 Dwarves do not arrive all-in-one packs, so here's Oin (portrayed by talented Kiwi actor John Callen) in your service, brave northern dwarf and pharmacist of Thorin Oakenshield's company.

This was, like Balin and Dwalin, an interesting character to build. I started with the head and beautifully braided beard. I got the handcuff idea previously, and I had to built this older gentleman just for use that design. I came out pretty well, I think. The basic shapes of the head are quite similar than on my previous dwarves, but I altered the nose and some other bit to make them look individuals.

Like Dwalin, Oin has movable arms. The shoulder joints are built using T-bar hinges (one of the best pieces ever) and elbows are ball joints. The hands have six points of articulation on each. I gave him tight fingers as he has fabulous knitted mittens on the movie.

Another part of the original idea was using "brick-bricks" on the woollen cardinal as the texture of the overcoat. I like the effect. The torso has quite a lot SNOT on it, as it it built studs facing on the both sides. It isn't the stablest build I have ever done, but stays intact pretty well. He has a belt like other dwarves and a grey scarf.

The boots were a bit challenging. They they have quite a flat and rounded shape which was hard to shape with my limited arsenal of oddly-shaped brown parts. Well, they are not especially flat, but at least they have round shape and those wool shreds on them.

The staff was interest, too. I made several concepts, but didn't have needed pieces for all of them. Now I think that the final design of the ends is a bit oversized, but at least the shape is right... I will change them a bit before the next exhibition or show.

I'm already building the next dwarf, the one who is vegetarian, but I might take some time before I can finish him. I'm not sure if I have enough pieces, but we will see that. I've already built the head, and that's usually the most fun and interesting part.

-Pate-keetongu

EDIT: Here's a reference pic:

MOC: Dwarf brothers Balin & Dwalin

 I've spend hours and hours of browsing pictures and concept art about The Hobbit movies during the passing year. It's a fantastic film (and luckily we have more to wait for) and has some incredibly cool designs. Here's couple of dwarves, Balin (fantastically portrayed by Ken Stott) and Dwalin (Badassly portrayed by Graham McTavish), old fighters and loyal friends and relatives of Thorin Oakenshield.

You may remember  Balin from the bust I made on December. I wanted to built the whole figure back then, but I thought that I wouldn't have enough dark red. But some time later I came up with an idea how to built those beautiful ornamental bits on his jacket using cheese pieces hold between 1x2x2 panels. It looked very good, so I couldn't resist building the rest of Fundin's son. The panels are Trans-black, so the cheese slopes used are normal red and DBley.
 The only movable parts are the fingers, but Balin is more of a counsellor that fighter anyways. He also has a boots with the same ski-slope motif than in his white beard. And yes, those are SW engine blocks used as the sleeves.

Dwalin was a lot harder fellow to build. He is quite of a fighter, the "Scary biker" of the dwarves, as actor Graham McTavish mentioned. I wanted to give him movable arms so I could pose him with his warhammer and axes. But the hardest part was letting go not ta the angled fur pieces on his shoulders. The battle droid arm  design was here from the start, I liked the pattern of mixed tan and dark tan pieces, but I tried couple of alternatives before this one. It's surprisingly hard to add odd-shaped angled parts to basic SYSTEM builds like this.

The weapons Dwalin uses were eather fun to build. The axes can be putted on his back.  They're quite simple, but I like their dwarven feel. the warhammer was a bit trickier one, as it has some shapes that are pretty impossible to capture with LEGO bricks, but I think I succeeded pretty well.

Dwalin's legs look quite small in these photos. Now I think I should have put them a bit further from each other, but it's also the angle of these photos which makes them look a bit odd. It's tricky to photograph these stiff SYSTEM figures with all that Bionicle stuff.

Pic for reference, taken from http://heirsofdurin.files.wordpress.com

Killing a dragon and reclaiming the lost homeland is not a job for pair of dwarves, so I promise there will be (at least one) more. More of that later. But it will have something to do with bad hearing and mixing up ravens and thrushes...

-Pate-keetongu