MOC: Turaga Bakmei

 Today's Klaanon creation is Turaga Bakmei, often known as The White Turaga. He lives alone on jungle island of Bio-Klaani. The island was formerly base and home of the Brotherhood of Ämköö, a group of skilled Le-Matoran led by -surprisingly!- Toa Ämkoo, former admin of Bio-Klaani and a scumbag turncoat traitor. Bakmei was his instructor and sort-of-mentor. He's not the cute and a bit eccentric nice old man you find in the senior home. Alright, he is a bit eccentric, and good at removing invader's guts, liver etc. with some cool kung-fu moves.

Building-wise this was a one challenging old-timer. I bought some mask and other stuff fom Bricklink store Bricksy, which was excellent one with solid 6,5€ packing and shipping fee for EU. Now I have all the basic-color Toa Mata and Turaga masks except dark grey, orange and lime Rau - I wonder if that mask is rarer than the others?

In the story, Bakmei has a white Huna, but that mask is a super-rare misprint promo thingy, so I went with Nuju's light grey Huna. The most iconic part of Bakmei's character was his moustache and extended beard (you know, the overhang on Huna is a beard) inspired by Vakama's additional eyebrow in Mask of Light. I achieved that with a rubber band, 1x3 tile and a couple of minfig catanas. With them the character was done and the rest of the design was just something to make the facial hair sit on. The torso was rather easy. It is supposed to be kind of a cloak you would expect for a Kung-fu master.

I'm quite happy with the hands. The design is similar to Oracle's. The legs were pain though. As you can see, he can't really walk, but at least he's got those Matoran feet and he can pull a split if he wants to... Boy, I wish we had some more ball socket pieces!

The staff is quite a simple thing to finish the build, and the bolts in his hand are some sort of elemental energy burst. This geezer has still a few tricks left.

-Pate-keetongu

Steampunk minifig barf: flavours from Eastern Europe

Here's another batch, this time with some eastern European flavours. I wish no one would find these stereotypical - keep in mind that this is a twisted alternative history.

Anna Mardozky is a Polish woman with tendency of looking suspicious things out. She's curious and brave, sometimes too curious and brave, and uses to end up in some big problems. So far she has survived, though.

Bombstez Zoadanyc is Serbian private enterpriser on logistics business. His airship fleet transports everything to everywhere, expect, for some reason, donkeys, raisins and meat pasties WITH pickle (but separately they are fine). No one knows why, but a popular rumor says that his dark past has something to do with those things.

Austria aristocrat Jens Von Tromtryffe is the steadfast and old protector of his castle and mountain realm. His white bushy moustache and hair help him hiding in the snow white shooting deer, strangers, spy balloons and mountain goats.

Natashalia Svetnikova is upper-class lady living in the Imperial Union of Russia, Novgorod and United Stans. She's highly educated and traveled far, and definitely sure that her home empire so much more powerful and beautiful than those marmalade-eating buggers on their tiny island. Likes red wine. And red clothes.

Corporal Mahchinovost of the Red Army of the Imperial Union of Russia, Novgorod and United Stans. His high-tech armor is designed to be shown in parades, conferences, marches and congresses. It features warm and impressive hat, heating-up longcoated armor and power boots. Naturally it's so expensive that it's impossible to arm an army with those things...

Steampunk Minifigure Barf: These are not going to end very soon.

 Here's one of these figbarfs things, this time with some newish pieces or recolors bought from LEGO's bricks&pieces.

 Miss Harriet Wonderboom is one of the ladies who use to attends these "high-class adventure activities". Golden bits in her adventure costume would raise dozen beggars to middle-class, but at least she learns some skills that might come handy id her family's big bearing-making company makes a bankruptcy.

 James L. Bangordon is the spokesman of unlucky miner's guild. The name of the guild is not very good though, as most of the incidents take place because bad planning, rotten supports and lack of occupational safety and health. Expect if you believe in things like luck and things like that.

 Rowena O. Onnet is a brave commoner with incredible skill of rollerblading on rough and patchy cobblestone streets. Her think leather bodice and skirt with a pair of boots, gloves and pads give her protection while leaving the joints free for mobility. Top-class goggles are obligatory on high speeds, of course.

 Baron Schaufen von Pavdrauger might have been dead for forty or fifty years, but folk don't seem to get irritated by that. Yep, his arm might suddenly fall of during a country fair, but he always buys lot of pies, pays the prizes for the cricket cup and is always polite to everyone. That his life, or whatever, after all.

Lady Mathilda Ainerdale is one of these fine ladies of steam, daughters of the Victorian era and its new possibilities. Or something dramatic like that. She likes to be dramatic and wears a well-made crimson overcoat with a top-class dress.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Visokki

 Today's (tonight's) Klaanon MOC is Visokki, one of the admins of Bio-Klaani. She is Vohtarak with powerful telepathic abilities, including strong mind-reading and probably even telekinesis powers. Despite being physically different from the other three (or two, as Ämkoo was a turncoat; the others are Tawa and Guardian) she's a trusted ally and friend.

This MOC is very simple, but it was not especially easy. I mean, she is just a Vohtarakt with black leg-ends, so the MOC was to be a Visorak revamp. I had tried to build Visokki few times before, the last try was in 2012, but they weren't very successful. But I did not have clear idea of a Visorak revamp until I came up with that leg idea yesterday. The legs of set Visorak always felt quite boring, as they were only basic canister humanoid legs with different feet. I wanted to make them creepier and more spider-like - we are talking about a species that destroyed many Rahi species. Some tentacles with sharp ends connected via boat-studs (one of my favorite pieces) did the job. The rest is just Visorak body with better armor and ball-joint-connected pincers; I left the upper legs armorless to make them more bug-like.

-Pate-keetongu

Old MOC revamp + rephotographing: Lady Liberty 3001

With Fili and Kili the amount of dwarves reached their "critical mass" and I had to rearrange my shelves. The dwarves formed a line on the top of it, and I moved MOCs displayed there to the lower shelves. This model, Lady Liberty 3000 3001 didn't fit there with her wings, though. I though should I sacrifice her to the gods of spare parts, but meh. I like this model quite a bit, but the color scheme makes it terrible to photograph. I took the challenge: Made some tweaks on the upper legs (inner side and back of the thighs were quite terrible), built a stand for some snazzy photos and used big black papers I happened to have as a backdrop. There was quite a thunderstorm near when I took the photos, but they came out quite well at all. Here's a set of seven and a couple of more in brickshelf, but those are not that good.

MOC: General Killjoy

 Here's Killjoy, General of war technology organization The Black Hand. He is one of the more important characters on Klaanon, and I have built him two times before, in 2010 and 2011. Killjoy is Vahki-like creature with powerful battle armor. He is member of Bio-Klaani, but his true nature seems to be shady to say at least. Killjoy is equipped with twin ion catanas (Finally got use for those odd Belville doors - Bought them from Panzy-boe at Model Expo in 2011) and missile launchers (six in both, but they say he can generate new ones with his elemental powers; Bionicle Magic). The right arm is cannon arm; The hand is supposed to go inside of the gun in shooting mode, but it is not, of course, possible in the MOC.

This was rather fast and enjoyable build. I began it yesterday evening and finished, photographed and edited today. I started with the arms, which are quite basic stuff, and then went to the bulky shoulders (Got some HF pieces, including the shoulder pads, when I bough two Brain Attack Breznikovas (or Breezs) for 2€ each during a vacation trip), threw togethed the torso and the legs and built the helmet. The model is somewhat based on this picture, but I didn't use it as a fundamental reference and went with the flow instead. The helmet design is pretty much taken from there though (and it looks a bit like Ant-Man's helmet).

The MOC combines Bionicle, HF and SYSTEM parts as most of my action figures do.The helmet uses only SYSTEM, but in the other areas HF and Bionicle blend in quite balanced way. I think HF parts work well on Killjoy's battle armor, and some smooth Bionicle parts like rahksi head with similar pattern are used with them. Kalmah's foot, which is probably my favourite chest armor piece, makes comeback here. It was used on the two previous Killjoy versions too.

The lower legs are probably my favourite part on this. The knee joint has ball joint with hole, and its axle goes through the red Pahrak-kal shields to add extra support. The boots have rocket boosters on them, which means they had to be very sturdy, so I went with bulky mecha-like design. The Piraka arm on the front allows mobility to the feet as it is connected via ball joint. Mechanical shells work as rocket booster machinery. In the previous version the jetpack using same pieces was on his back, but that wasn't faithful to Klaanon.

-Pate-keetongu

MOC: Fili

 Yezz, my summer job in north is finished and I'm back home and building business. I was planned to stay there until the end of the month, but there wasn't much to do (there was free time, but not very much, you know, activities, except reading or surfing on the web in reception). And before you call me job-alienating lazyguy, (which I am a bit probably still) my 11-month civil service job on Police department begins in September. Hooray.

Ah yes, the MOC!

Here's Fili, son of Frerin and Dis (who is Thorin Oakenshield's sister and only mentioned female dwarf in Middle-Earth). He is, of course, brother of Kili and one of the younger dwarves of the company. In the Hobbit films he is played by talented Kiwi actor Dean O'Gorman. Fili has lots of weapons, Including paired swords, four boot-attached throwing axes, two gauntlet-mounted knives and a war hammer, which is never seen in the film and neither in this MOC.

This was a fun build, and quite a fast too: around eight hours including the photographing and editing. That was partly due to LUGBULK pieces that I got on Tuesday (dark brown!) and three-month break after the last time I seriously MOCed (I bought five sets on clearances during my journeys, including Goblin  King Battle -52% though). I had thrown the head together many months earlier, but had to reassemble it because it broke: The design is far from sturdy, as the medium dark flesh hair and beard consists of 1x2 brick, Persian arches and three 1x2 tiles. Luckily those arches were perfect for Fili's flowing hair, even though they deemed some serious SNOT work that was not easy.

There was some concerns with the belts. It is hard to say what color they are on the film - something between greys and dark browns I guess, but I went with lighter options (dark tan and brown) to make it stand out better. The scabbard strap uses fisherman cord piece with headlights. It would have been very hard to make one with plates going diagonally over odd-shaped studded surface, so that was good alternate: Kili uses small tack links on the same purpose.

The arms are rather poseable with a ball joint on shoulder and a brick hinge on elbow. The sleeves have a fur wristbands. The boots are in my opinion two of my most succesful ones with throwing axes and all. They made Fili a bit taller than Kili, so I lenghtened Kili's boots my one studs. According to size charts Kili is a bit taller.

Now I have only Ori left with dwarves and then there's Bilbo and Gandalf to finish the project with. Ori will be tricky with his colors scheme: I'm going to mix dark purple and dark bley. It's too late to give up! Actually I put together most of Ori's head already, and I have Bilbo's hand too.. But before them, here's a group portrait of Thorin and his nephews. Enjoy ahoy!

-Pate-keetongu