Juts because: The Warriors of the Northern Wilderland

I just realized I hadn't taken any cool group shots of the "Northern Akamai Gang" of Klaanon (Korpraun, Muothka and Ursanga). So here's some.

-Eero

Super important Klaanon stuff: Solid Snowman

 Well, hello... This isn't really a new MOC nor old MOC revamp, as the MOC itself is pretty much same than the previous version (Ball joint on neck has been changed into a white one) but this has some important accessories; headband, scarf and shoulder bag, as requested by the character's creator. At least to ones who have read Klaanon (multi-author giant novel thing, in progress) these garments define the character.

The only interesting building technique used here is the strap of the shoulder bag. Dark brown 1x1 round bricks have been put on a LEGO string, which is simply squeezed between the plates on the bag. Simple, effective and 100% purist.

This post also features a pose with Snowie's friend Kepe. They are, as the TvTropes page suggests, "Non-action hetero sexual life partners" and such lovable characters.

-Eero

Old MOC Revamp: Matoro the Blacksnow

This seems to became a "Old MOC Revamp" month... But be no afraid, I have new project under construction too, and some of them are 95% finished. But until then, I have some old revisited Klaanon characters.

This is Matoro "The Blacksnow", who could said to be the main character of Klaanon. At the beginning of the story he was an eager hero looking for adventures. He has become "darker and edgier" since them, after fighting Makuta Abzumo at a falling cathedral sphere airship with a black heart using one of the shards of Nimda, a powerful artifact with massive mind powers. He also lost his right (i guess) hand when fighting the dreadful Marionette (Coming soon!), one of Avde's puppets.

On his left hand Matoro now has a six-hooked harpoon. Especially at the first half of the story Matoro's harpoon was an important plot element, causing many daring escapes and unexpected (well, not really) survivals. In his right hand he has a mind-sword generated using a shard of Nimda.

And yes, the creation. The old version is here. When I saw "Kopaka, Master of Ice" for the first time, I knew the mask would look great on Matoro. Of course the old Akaku is a true classic, but the round shape didn't look that good on Matoro, and his mask isn't Akaku but Kanohi Cencord, prototype mask of mind in the story anyway (with added telescopes). New Akaku has a lower brow which makes it look edgier, a fitting detail with Matoro's character development during the story.

I also bulked up the shoulders, re-designed the torso armor and made some tweaks on the limbs; Boat studs make excellent back armor to Ben10 limbs with T-bars, by the way. I also gave Matoro brick-built hand to allow more diverse posing.

-Eero

Old MOC Revamp: Samus Aran

Good morning and good May Day/First of May/Walpurgis night (morning)! Today is time for another post on the "old MOC revamp" series, this time on a bit bigger magnitude. 

I built Metroid heroine Samus Aran in her Zero Suit back on Christmas 2013. So it was built on a shelf or a desk for 16 months, gradually evolving, as most of my MOCs do. It's (her? Anyway..) first exhibit was Leiki LEGOilla 2014 on Imatra. The MOC was stored in a glass vitrine, and it had to lean on a wall with the taser gun to stay up. The upper torso was terribly designed on the inside, and the head was so loose that it kept exploding all the time; I gathered its pieces from the floor dozens of times. The upper arms were painful too, having extra joint below the shoulder due to use of HF shells. At least the legs and the lower torso were quite good.

I began with reworking the upper arms using 3x3x3 cones (wonderful pieces, ideal shape), though it took some time to get two in dark blue (now I have four five or six) and blue steering pseudo-ball joints, which were tricky to get too. The same design was used with rather good results on original Qwena and later on Alina and Kira. The shoulder friction isn't the best possible, but it looks so much better than Y.joints with black tyres, trust me. Boat studs (another lovely piece) give it some shape and sturdiness. 

The second thing to got under construction was, after a few months, the upper torso. The old version with HF chest plate and tyres around Bohrok sausage legs was not good. It was loose, connected to the lower torso wia half a friction pin (yep...) and was a bit of a mix of colors; Too much black, mostly. I reworked the whole section, making the neck connestion with a SYSTEM bricks and giving the shoulders some shape without odd colors connecting those Rahkshi heads with (gasp!) hidden rubber bands nudged between them and a 1x2 liftarm inside; Super sturdy. The back also had now better connection points for those pink power emblems and the shaping looked way more natural and flowing. I also recall building the base at that time to allow better and more importantly stabler posing. That version went to Leiki LEGOilla 2015 on February, but I don't have any photo evidence as the MOC was behind a glass and hard to photograph.Well, alright, it can be seen on a background here - That's me (left) presenting the dwarves to Matti Kortelainen.

So, back on February, I pondered whether I should photograph this one and post it revamped online. But I didn't. Probably because it it damn dark in Finland on February; and mostly because I still didn't like the head.

Then, on last Wednesday, I was at work, at the Police Department's garage's furniture storeroom, where I read/think/listen to music/doodle around the half of my working time, and I though that heck, I'd like build an another female character; Probably with a similar head than on Kira, as it's eyes turned out well. I doodled a bit and though that I could try to make eyebrows using black T-bars (which I have none so far, but a lot ordered from LUGBULK). Back at home I started building, but ended up using brown minifig hands as a eyebrows instead (T-bars were too big and robust). And then a though occured in my mind - the head would look perfect on Samus, with bright green eyes and all. I also managed to squeeze it from 11 plates to 10,5 plates in width; The small but critical difference that allowed me to give Samus 1 stud wide lips using dark red 1x1 round brick with hole; I knew those would be a good buy from Bricks&Pieces. The expression is a bit surprised due to the distance between the eyesbrows and the eyelashes; But if somebody thinks the batarang was better, I have to disagree.

I broke the original head by accidentally dropping it to the floor. It exploded.

The ponytail is pretty much the same, but the rest of the head is around 250% sturdier than the old one, the hair flows more naturally and the bananas made a lot better fringe than the random yellow bits used on the old one. The neck connection is also more trustworthy and doesn't have the odd dark bley bracket. On the whole, it turned out rather nice.

There are more photos at the end of this post. They turned out quite light (medium!) blue, because I took them against the setting sun; It was either rain on sunlight yesterday. But they don't look bad as Zero suit is lighter on shade than TLG's regular blue. I might take another set later with different light, but here's a pretty good mix of angles and poses too. None of them are supported by anything - the base allows some neat one-leg action posing.

-Eero

MOC: Younger Balin

 After a four-month break, here's another dwarf. Surprised? Didn't think so.

Balin is my favourite character in Hobbit movies, so I though he deserved another version. This one is the Erebor version from the flashback of the first film, An Unexpected Journey. Balin has the most beautiful coats in these so well-tailored films, and this one began a couple of months ago with fiddling with those cloack details. They came out rather nicely. This is the first time I used those old 1x16 net plates on a MOC (or at least MOC posted online). There were some fences at first, but those were quite perfect, showing the dark orange behind them, enhancing the rich color scheme. I think it is a nice example of wealth and glory of Erebor at its peak.

The torso construction otherwise is quite basic, using most of my dark red slopes again (keep in mind that regular Balin, Dori and Thráin are still in one piece). There are some obligatory SNOT and  offset techniques used but nothing too special.

The arms have quite nice range of motion using minifig legs on elbows and small ball joints on shoulders. I'm especially happy with the upper arm details using those ninja knives, whatever they are called. The gloves ended up being dark bley. I wasn't sure about the color, it could have been dark brown instead, but I wouldn't have had right pieces in that shade. The grey ones look quite good with the beard, though.

I'm happy with the head and the hair (both facial and ordinary). I'm not that happy with the beard and face of my older Balin MOC though, but haven't remade it yet because it's sort of the first thing I build for the whole Hobbit thing, as a bust form in 2012. The tail/robot arm beard is, sort of, the genesis of this thing. But heck, I tried a curved slope design with better nose and man it looks more natural. We will see. This one, though, has a lot winder hair with a bead on back. Well done, that dwarf.

 The boots were the last part to be build, as usual. They are built studs up though, instead of whole SNOT design used in pretty much all other dwarf boots except Ori's. The design is similar to older Balin's boots with curled-up toes. I have a bit similar leather boots I use at winter; My grandfather bought them years ago. Family heritage!

This, along with Thráin, is for another bigger project (but still smaller than the original; Don't expect 15 figures this time). It'll wait until I receive this year's LUGBULK pieces, though. Until then, there might be some other dwarves though. I like these fellows, as you probably already guessed.

- Eero

MOC: Ambrose Steet 23

 Here's a modular house. My first actual modular house, to tell the truth. There are no interior nor even floors, as this one was build for one purpose only: War  Finnish LUG Palikkatakomo RY's house building contest on our biggest annual exhibit, Model Expo, that took place last week.

We had separate voting for LUG members and the audience. I got the third place on both and got Ideas Birds set (which is fantastic!) and Creator red dragon (neat parts pack). This was my only MOC on collaborative works this year, as I had my The Hobbit figures, Mustrum, Purifier and Kira and I went there by train.

Building this was quite neat - I mostly tablescrapped some greebles and ideas and then stuck them together. I did not want any baroque supergreebled style, and tried to go with Jugend aesthetics, but it ended up looking neo-gothic. It's probably a bit due to the dramatic color scheme and mostly due to the tower; my Model Expo contest buildings usually end up with tower like that. The lower part of the roof of the tower is a trick by Derfel Cadarn, but I added a dice-based ball to it to make it interesting.

At the beginning the tower began from the street level, but I abandoned it because I didn't have enough 1x2xX tan bricks for it. There were going to be a balcony instead of it at a time, and once the black minifig statues were going to held a ball like Atlas figures, but I ended up with tower eventually to give the house a neat profile. There is some trickery done with trans-clear plates, turntable bases and minifig legs to make some interesting windows to it. I didn't have enough black windows so I went with a thing like this; it looks quite good but isn't very sturdy. Minifig legs are excellent SNOT pieces, by the way.

The first and second floor of the house are asymmetrical. I wanted to put a door on one side only, so it was natural to make different windows on the second floor too. There are some serious offsetting done to get stuff inside the arches; The door frame is my favourite one. The big round lantern is taken from Brasshill's Town Hall, and connected to Cafe Corner style cool round thing using skeleton legs I have a lot in tan.

I didn't want to put lot of going on to the pavement to keep the focus on architecture (which I am trying to get to study in the university). There are a couple of street lamps of my own design and a surprisingly accurate minifig of myself.


 -Eero

Thorin & Boys On Tour - Model Expo 2015

Showtime 10th to 12th of April, Model Expo at Messukeskus in Helsinki!

Finnish LUG Palikkatakomo Ry will be there, along with Finnish brick seller Lelukauppa Pii Poo. We are having a big modular castle and town collaborations and a 42-unit GBC build! And 13 dwarves, one (Two, actually...) wizard and one hobbit!

And more. So if some of you happens to be around, come and say hello!

-Eero