MOC: Metorakk

 Here's the last MOC on this batch of Klaanon MOCs. On contrary to Kepe and Snowie, Metorakk is definitely not a laid-back peace-loving good guy but a ruthless bad bounty hunter. He works for General Gaggulabio, a cigar-loving skakdi officer who is one of the Alliance commanders. Metorakk isn't his master's servant though, and is likely to go where he likes; that means the places with the bloodiest battles and best lootings.

Metorakk is a 100% fighter. He wears nazorak-made elite battle armor with leg thrusters, arm-mounted missiles and a protective helmet. The armor is still aerodynamic enough to enable Metorakk to move sharply. His favorite choice of weapon is powerful morning star.

This MOC is loosely based by an old creation by a man caller Dr.U. I picked the helmet idea, which looked excellent and gave heaps of character on U's MOC. Otherwise this was quite a simple humanoid MOC. I'm happy with the aerodynamic torso and the hand design especially; Movable finger usually give extra character on a MOC. Metorakk is holding a stolen magic sphere which is said to give overhuman powers to some special Vahki units.







This MOC combines Bionicle, HF and even small amount of SYSTEM parts. HF parts are used on the upper arm as I did on Kerosiinipelle, but there have also some extra beefing and Metorakk is more muscular guy. The legs are rather basic stuff. I made the ankles a bit sturdier, as just a ball socket on a piraka foot looks way too weak. KK2 armor part was an easy solution, but I like how it flows with the simple shape of Vikings dragon skull.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: The Snowman

 After posting a new version of Kepe yesterday it makes perfect sense to post a revamped version of The Snowman (Or Snowie-Sno-Snögubbe-Snobla-Snörbels-etc.) today. He and Kerosiinipelle are always paired, and while Kepe is the brains of the outfit, Snowie definitely isn't its muscle. Of course he's bulky, but not a fighter at all, even though he once beat a flying cigar-smoking skakdi (or at leat that's what they say).

 Snowie's body consists of snow-like material that he can arrage in the way he likes, which makes him nearly indestructible, but not resistant to pain; he usually tries to avoid the conflict as much as he can. Bio-Klaani often sends him to convert factions to their side. But as a peaceful and laid-back guy Snowie is one of those who make sure that Bio-Klaani is the good guy of the conflict. 

I have build Snowman before, and that even made it to Mike Doyle's wonderful Beautiful LEGO book. However, I felt the old model had too many holes, pins and axes sticking from the white mass. Building white mass definitely isn't easy with Bionicle parts! White nuva shoulder armor is the key piece here; thanks to those very odd NHL player sets those pieces exist. Getting them to the right angle was very hard, and this MOC was on a progress state for a very long time. I had to sacrifice some mobility and the look of the back for decent front view. There is rather lot of SYSTEM there, especially on the legs. They are probably my favourite area on this guy, and they were a lot easier to build than the body. I think the hero feet look great there, as they lack the biomechanical detain and have only a simple roundish shape.

There will be some more Klaanon stuff tomorrow, and then you'll get some steam straight from the 1800s. I have plenty of time in my hands now and lots of finished stuff - Stay tuned!

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Toa Kerosiinipelle (+delays are "dangerous")

Hey readers, nice to see that many of you have been browsing my blog during the last month even though I haven't blogged really anything! But don't worry, I have been building a lot, and there is several MOCs, Bionicle, SYSTEM and minifigures, coming soon.

I have been lazy updating this blog, but if somebody said that I have been lazing, I would probably punch them on the face (or not, as I am not a violent man; but I would stare at them on a nasty manner). I have had my final exams on Finnish Upper Secondary school; they are bit like A-levels on Britain, or at least that's what I have heard. The exams (I had Finnish, English, Swedish, long math and physics) lasted to weeks, and then there were three weeks of reading break - I used that time to do my advance exercises for the architecture department on university. And as I said, I have been building, as it's nice contrast to all the reading and, well, knowing. Writing a blog on a language that it is not my natural one wasn't, so I just build the MOCs to release them afterwards. But now I have a bit less than three weeks until Model Expo, the biggest exhibit of Finnish LUG Palikkatakomo RY, and I have some projects to finish for that; but I have no school anymore, so I'm a free man. Brilliant! But now, to the MOC.

I have built Toa Kerosiinipelle three times before as he is one of the basic characters on the Klaanon story, but those MOCs were either too muscular or too small. Kerosiinipelle, or Kepe, is not a fighter Toa. No, he's more like the scientist guy, and even though he has elemental powers of ice and plant life, he has tendency to panic on tricky situations, and save the day with a fire extinguisher instead. 

This MOC is a dyed-in-the-wool Toa-mod. The legs are basic stuff: foot, shin, shin fillings, upper leg socket, armor on the both sides. The torso is a bit more interesting if not incredible ingenious, with some embedded system to achieve a better shoulder connection. The arms and hands are the best part here, and I built them first; the hand and its connection to the arm is similar to Floresta's design, with skeleton arms as fingers and boat stud to make the shape a bit more organic; they are among my favourite pieces. The arm is combination of Bionicle and HF stuff, and works quite well. Thanks god I had a lime green ball joint, as a black one there would have ruined the color flow; White and lime are definitely flashy.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Avde

 If you have dozens of projects in progress it's always nice feeling to have one of them completed, especially if the project is bigger and has been under construction for a while.

This MOC is from Klaanon (sort of  a Finnish spin-off Internet novel Bionicle-ish thing with many authors). It's name is Avde, but not much is known about it (or him). It seems to consist of two creatures, though it is not known are they of same person. The one is the Matoran-looking Crimson Man, a small and suspiciously friendly little man. The other is The Deep Laughter, a black shadow mass with dozens of tentacles, red eyes and deep gapes. The Deep Laughter can appear both as a physical creature and nightmare-ish mental creature, though the latter require a use of a telepathic, as Avde doesn't have such powers.

In this MOC I wanted to capture the mental side of Avde as he appears on a person's mind. I have built the physical side a few years ago, and this time I wanted a vastly different approach. I built the MOC with white wall and floor using some a bit yellowed old bricks to create a feel of a bit depressing empty room. The white backdrop also brought forth the black and red creature, allowing to make shapes that wouldn't be possible without brick-built backdrop.

The Crimson Man is built using my old Matoran technique which reminds a bit of the 2001-2002 "Tohunga" design but is a bit bigger and has more movement. The blue Pakari might be a bit of a reference to Takua, the hero of MNOG (The best thing of Bionicle ever) and it also appears on some other characters on Klaanon.

This MOC was also built for a "competition" on Mike Doyle's homepage. The competition (which is not really a competition) searches MOCs with the theme "Dark" for the Second book on Doyle's Beautiful LEGO series. The first book was excellent as a builder showcase, art book and a source of inspiration. I got a free copy from No Starch Press as there are six of my MOCs from 2009-2011 in the book.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Floresta

 Here's just another Bionicle MOC fresh from the building table. She's Floresta, sort of a green spirit, life-giver of some sort, I guess. I haven't made so many green Bionicle MOCs, and most of them have used only dark green; Kathrienna is the exception here (and she even made it to Mike Doyle's Beautiful LEGO book). This one is a combination of a few floating ideas.

The first one was those small leaf-like wings constructed on dark and olive green 1x2 plates (from LUGBULK) and 1x1 round plates. That technique has been around for a while and sure looks good. I had those green plates around so I tried to do some leaves without knowing where to use them. They didn't came out very big as I ran out of trans-green 1x1 plates, but they looked pretty. I had an idea of some sort of a absinthe fairy (after reading travel guides to Prague last autumn) so I though that they could with with that.

I took the lower legs of another brown WIP (which is a WIP because I don't have enough brown Rhakshi heads; Only one and that's full of bite marks), built the legs (traditional but working Rhakshi shell design as there is not that many alternatives in basic green). The torso came out pretty easily, I especially like the green panels there. I'm also pretty fond of the "color layering" or "color blocking" or whatever  they say; green as the main color, dark green to bring it up, and some black for balance. Couldn't have done the hands on green and I quite like the feel of monochromatic black boots.

The trans-green wings had bee laying on my Bionicle table for a year or two. They are from the big odd Ninjago dragon set, though I picked them from Bricklink as the looked cool. There was a perfect chance to use them. They were a bit problematic, though - The stability of the click hinge alters and they ended up looking asymmetrical; Gravity angled some more than others. I had to sort them by the stability of the joint and rebuild the wings. I ended up putting the behind the leaves. The placement of the leaves wasn't clear until the end, they used to be on the hips or on the lower torso during the process.

The head also came through some alternatives. By first try was to make a head similar to Qwena or Zero Suit Samus, and that was the time when I was thinking the absinthe fairy thing. But I didn't have the needed parts and it would have looked way too big compared to the torso. The another idea was to make head similar to Belsa in white with tan hair, but it looked terrible - White just didn't work with the greens at all. So I ended up with rather stylished design similar to Karmenna and especially Lady Liberty 3000. This MOC is in may ways similar to the later, though their backstories are definitely different, as it is a mecha and this is a forest spirit. But both have transparent wings and sort of a crown, and they stand side by side on the top of my character MOC shelf.

There's more photos on Brickshelf.
 

MOC: Nori

 It hasn't been long since Glóin stumbled in from the green round door, but here's Nori, the thief of the group. Played by Peter Jackson film veteran Jed Brophy, Nori has joined the company to leave the town and get some profit from Dragon's hoard. He's brother of Dori and Ori and distant relative of Thorin Oakenshield.

Nori is quite a basic dwarf construction-wise. There's some little tricks used to make his unique - The use of old dark grey and dark bley to create the correct color patterns, the hidden knives and foremost the odd starfish hairdo. I'm especially pleased with those whips used to connect the eyebrows to the hair. The beard has design similar to Thorin, but with three braids added. The side braids are minfig legs, similar to Glóin moustache. There weren't much joint pieces in brown so I had to improvise again, but it looks quite cool.

The torso is basic brick-on-brick build with some SNOT on the belt (or, of course, the whole thing is SNOT when the dwarf is standing, but you know what I mean) and tiling inside to add that zipper-like armour thing. The back of the belt has scabbards for Nori's double daggers. The back uses inverted tiles and this is actually the first time I used them on a MOC (I have 150 or so).

The arms are deadly similar to Bifur's with barrel bracer and all. Boots have some diversity, though. Back of the have couple of hidden knives in case of sticky situation or goblin kerfuffle. As always, the were the last part to be build.

Now it might be a while before I have the next dwarf built. I have only three left: The three of the youngest, Fili, Kili and Ori. Ive already built Fili's and Kili's heads, but have lack of dark brown parts to build their coats. Ori is another challenge. I have no sense how I could achieve the lavenderish color of his coat! But time will tell, as always.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Glóin

 Hip-hey! Say hello to Glóin son of Gróin, who's the newest dwarf in my Hobbit dwarves project. Glóin, palyed by talente Kiwi stage and screen actor Peter Hambleton, is father of Gimli of Lord of the Rings and younger brother of Óin. It's three months from the last dwarf (Bofur) but I promise the next one will come out faster - probably in three days or so!

The beard and hair was the first thing I built on Glóin. I think it was the last summer, so it has been quite a while on a WIP stage. Dark Orange isn't that common colour, but luckily I bought some via LUGBULK last year and also Bricklinked some wedges. The moustache is built with minifig legs, connected to a bar via minifig hands; I'm quite pleased with the look of it. Glóin's ornamental beard featured some greyish metal ornaments, which I included in the MOC. The beard uses even a couple of chicken legs with old-type bushes to represent Weta's design!  

The body involves more SNOT than the average dwarf like Bifur or Bofur, but not as much as Óin or Bombur did. The distinguishable pattern is achieved here with simple angled plates on a studless surface, but it has a nice effect. The belt has some bags and containers, as Glóin is the Money of the company.

The shoulder joint have couple of ball joints and even a short HF bone to allow enough movement. The elbow works with a T-bar, though the connection isn't very stable. Gotta ponder if I would come with a better alternative later. The boots are basic stuff and always the last part to be built, but I think these are some of my best. The round shape came out well to my eye.

Glóin also has his battle axe which is later given to Gimli. It isn't that sharp, but I like how the shape turned out; It can be seen better here. The handle would be better in dark brown, but I didn't have enough free 1x1 bricks or round bricks.

And on the end there's a picture of sons of Gróin:

-Pate-keetongu