✨Neon And Its Pilot !✨

✨Bouldering wall !✨

I reeeally wanted to make one of these at some point, but never took time. Incidentally, I got commissioned — is it even a commission if it’s for a relative and I’m not paid ? — so there is is !

Closeups and details under the cut, of course !

Closeups :

So ! This was a lot of fun to make, with some really interesting techniques. The first thing is that overhang with an increasing angle at the top. A large part of it is just a big plate connected to the base by hinges, while the second part is connected to the first one, instead of the based, to make sure that when something break, everything break only attach one plate to the base, to provide a thin finition. The holds have nothing particular, except perhaps that some start 'in' the wall while some are on it, which is here to pretend there are micro holds — possibly the worst invention of the story of bouldering/j. The top layer of the wall is finished by 1*1 held horizontally by the outside the plates. Speaking of, the triangular plates holding these 1*1 are not connected to the rest of the outside plates at all. Instead, they’re connected directly to the overhang, which keeps the plate at that approximative angle.

But of course, the most important detail : the minifig hanging with its bare hands ! I knew from the start that I wanted it to be in that type of position, and the choice of purple holds came easily (it’s defining one of the hardest level for the bouldering center we usually go to). Of course, I wasn’t in possession of any purple piece a minifig could grab, because that would have been way to easy. So instead, I used magic science a trick, which you might have seen if you pay close attention to the hands of the fig. The 'trick' in question is that I managed to get my hands on a thin elastic thread, which is around the fig’s wrist in a loop, and then is stuck between the purple stud and the round grey tile — which, by the way, makes for the second worst type of holds in bouldering : rings — and since these pieces are on the second overhang, the rest of the thread is hidden, and not stuck between two plates, unlike what I did in my Carrion MOC, which tends to dealign pieces, which leads to broken MOCs (not the Carrion one because there’s too much tension for it to break), which I don’t want because this is meant to end up as a gift for someone I won’t be able to visit often to make maintenance, so it has to be sturdy (and it is !).

✨Christmas tree !✨

…Yes, it’s a very tall picture…So tall, in fact, that you can actually see the top of my shelf studio. I made this last year, and I think it’s about the time to showcase it, along with this year’s project, which I’ll post next week !

Fun fact : the top of the tree isn’t connected at all to the rest, it’s only held in place without any stud. I also couldn’t find a neat star for the top of the tree, so I opted for another shiny pointy thing instead-

✨Bile titan✨

Or the fact that I don’t have access to real legos anymore will not stop me from making mocs (more on that under the cut).

I’ve really enjoyed Helldivers and I’ve been meaning to make one of those for some time, now. And I think it turned out quite alright, all things considered. It’s a shame this happened he will never physically be on my shelf, but it’s better than nothing~

Anyway, details and rumbling under the cut, as always.

Here are more viewpoints :

Most of the parts here are articulated, although the head barely moved, and the second joint of each leg is fixed, because making it movable with this size would have been a hassle.

Though, it still has a lot of posability (even the small pincers move !).

The bottom is not really detailed, because it won’t be seen much, but I’ve still added a few things, including the protuberant bile sack underneath, because it gave me a great excuse to use an alien egg, which used to be an incredible piece.

Now though, let’s deal with what this isn’t : real.

It’s fully made with Bricklink’s Studio, which is a free computer software giving one access to pretty much all the bricks you can think of, without limitations on colour (this is great, because 99% of the pieces I use here do not exist in the colour scheme I used). It also comes with a part designer, to create custom prints and/or bricks. There aren’t any prints here, but I am working on something else which uses them.

The only down part is that I can’t use any illegal technic, which is a shame since I usually rely on those a lot (check my post about the Citadel and you’ll understand~). It does make sense, though, and custom rotations are allowed, so it’s not all bad.

Also, if you’ve read until there, congrats ! I do have one more thing to say, though. Given that I know have access to an infinite amount of bricks, I can take requests, if you ever have an idea you’d want to see realised (albeit note it might take a while !).

✨Trans pride flag !✨

Had some inspiration and a nice motivation (here)

(See previous work here)

Alt version below the cut :

Pastel version ! It looks a bit bland because I didn’t have enough pieces to make enough variations (this type of pink is exactly what I needed, but also happens to be very hard to find). It’s probably more fitting for the actual flag compared to the one above, which is very neon-y (and I tuned it down a bit, it could be much worse brighter than it is now). But the above version looks better, I admit, and it give a bit of peps in the middle of all my other works, too, because of the unique colors.

✨ Small lego diorama of some ARFs of the 91st ! ✨

This is of course from the Clone Wars — expect much more of these in the upcoming weeks, it’s one of my favourite themes :}

(Closeups, commentaries and complaints under the cut)

These trees are pretty experimental, I usually use classic leaves rather than plain plates, but these were interesting, and were a pretty fun challenge (I like making trees a lot, so there are usually some in most of my dioramas). This is supposedly based on Kashyyk, but most of the trees there are waaay too big for me; however I found some nice pieces for the roots (the large ones in the middle, which are not really visible, are using Lego Elves’ dragon horns; and there are also some old palm trees trunks, which are really awesome pieces to use.)

This is probably gonna be the only one for the 91st though, because I don’t have much more of these. The only other possibility of that would be Neyo’s execution of o66 (not fun~).

Also, the night effect on the closeups is due purely to one of my led lighting dying in my hands, which wasn’t exactly practical.

✨ Breach of containment ✨

This is the last I’ve been working on for the past few weeks, very, very inspired by the game Carrion (if you haven’t played it yet, you absolutely should !), which is made all the more special because I finally took time to use my lighting kit (seem below). Of course, closeups and commentaries below the cut

Left containment unit closeups :

Right containment unit closeups :

Top closeup :

Alt version (studio lights + in-built lights) :

This is one of the screenshots I’ve been working with (where the monster just breached containment) :

So, as I said previously, this piece is heavily inspired by Carrion. I tried to look up any previously made Lego thing related to the game, but all I could find were a few Reddit posts with (debatably) interesting takes on the monster. So, the good news is that this is most likely the most original piece I’ve made yet.

The original plan was to have only one container, and one monster, with left being the body inside and right being the outside part. However, placing Left in the middle of the transparent pieces made it mostly good on its own, so with some modifications, I made it work alone and expanded the outside part inward, and ended up with two of them.

Left is pretty okay from all angles, but Right is not necessarily as good from the back, and had a supplementary jaw on the side of the container which can’t be seen on the photos.

Getting back to comparing that to the game. I tried to stay close while adding my own little details. The wiring and cable system is from me, but the container is mostly inspired by the game, just like the electric box (middle) and the little informative display (under the electric box) which is…empty, yes.

Some details can’t be seen on the photos (or barely), which are mostly some filler sci-fi stuffs to make the wall less flat and less empty.

What also helped with breach the flatness of the wall is the switch from dark grey to light gray, using the awesome spring projectile launcher piece, which has this very nice shape which make the transition just a bit smoother.

So, let’s talk about whatever I’ve done with the lighting !

I’ve had this old lighting kit (originally designed for a car model) lying around for a long time, and finally got to use it ! It doesn’t look really good without my studio lights because my camera is not made for that (The effect in reality really gives escaping monstrosity a dark vibe which is not well depicted with my photos…). Another thing which is not noticeable with the photos is that the two red dots in the center are actually blinking lights (and somehow, they tend to desynchronise).

The choice of letting some of the wires out is debatable, but I think it adds to the vibe (and some of them would have been a pain to hide anyway). And sadly, the back is but a mess of wires, but I can’t actually do anything about that.

Speaking of the back, the whole thing is one dot large and completely flat, and the ceiling only hold without pillars because of the use of tension linking directly the baseplate and the roof through the use of technic bars; and probably because the ceiling itself is not that heavy. It is, in fact, only constitued of six old road pieces connected together and frames, which give the roof little weight and high sturdiness (and the shape on the side of the piece offers a nice sci-fi effect as a bonus).

The addition of tentacles in the vent (which hides the connection between road plates in the roof) is just another reminder of the game : you can’t be safe anywhere, if air flows~

So, uhm. I wanted to post something a bit different here today. Behold a short thing I did a while ago (I'm actually posting it because I found it while cleaning some files). I'll admit, the quality of both the image and whatever I was trying to tell is pretty low. But I think overall, it's still surprisingly decent, for what it's supposed to be.

I did a lot of these some time ago, but it's terribly time-consuming, so I've had to stop. Hopefully, next break, I'll have the occasion to do these again (now with better image quality, and even proper MOCs to use). I miss doing stop-motion a lot-

I sadly don't have much of that project left (images, bits of the background...), though strangely enough, I still have some of the characters. Though I know why the lighting is so bad : at that point, I only had a set of blue lights, which caused this blue filter all over it (it looked really nice, though. Without any camera...)

I won't point out all of the weird details, but I am still quite proud of that odd use of a hair piece as a broom. Some pieces certainly have some unexpected uses.

✨Combat mech and pilot ! ✨

Closeups and lore under the cut !

Side and back closeups :

Minfig closeup :

So, lore I said.

Welcome on Earth, in a nearish future. WW3 happened, but after that, everything is going absolutely fine ! Lot of tasks are automated, no one had to work anymore, and thus, humanity worldwide become a society of entertainment. Films, videos, games, you name it. But of course, games are not 'real' enough, so some streaming platforms organised life-sized fighting games with giant machines. That couldn’t go wrong, right ? Right, in fact, a world-wide tournament was made, with always much complete arenas, and billions of watchers.

So, about this mech — and its pilot, too. This one is part of the original cast of the mech battles, a beautiful Mark One. All of them were the same, originally, with only colours to distinguish them.

Its pilot, skilled as he was, won the first season. Survived the second. And the third. And so, eventually, this one became the last one of the Mark Ones. And it won again, awarding enough of a prize for the pilot to upgrade it. It was also renamed Relic by the crowd.

Fully reworked, for the next season, Relic has been updated with a plasma beam and a heavy rotator cannon, fuelled by a large tank located on its back — if any other competitors ever attain this place.

With this upgrade, the commands, too, have been updated, with controllers now having holo-projections, and a much faster update rate. One has to imagine that these mechs were originally controlled in large rooms (similar to Jaeger command centers), but have been rendered light enough to be added to a living room, for amateurs. The pilot, however, did not change his original headset and suit, which is full of old equipments and souvenirs.

That’s it for this one, expect one of Relic’s competitors next week : Quake !

It’s always better to read outside, with colourful flowers

✨Snowman !✨

Couldn’t miss this year’s Christmas-themed MOC, of course ! Although it certainly is way less 'christmasy' than the previous ones (here and here) and more of a general winter decoration, it fits well.

There’s not a lot of technical work here, the spheres are classic designs which I tweaked a little, the arms are quite simple, the scarf has nothing complicated either; the only interesting bit might be the hat, because I used a really old technic piece — can’t find its id on bricklink… — with some other gears and such.

Anyway, merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and good day to everyone else !

Also, sorry for the terrible pic quality, I don’t have any proper set up; and I know I have a few things sitting in my inbox, I’ll get to it I swear.