Pate-keetongu

When building, I don't think these things very much. I usually have an idea - though it may change a lot during the building - and then I just try to achieve it with bricks, or as with action figure stuff, odd-shaped plastic stuff with holes and axles. I take the parts that I have from well-sorted array of lockers, boxes and plastic bags and shape my ideas into physical models and sometimes of course bricklink the parts I need but don't own. Usually these are small TECHNIC bits in bright colors, as I have most of the Bionicle parts (Not HF parts though, but more of that later). I started serious MOCing in 2007. This black Keetongu is a good example of my early builds which I uploaded on brickshelf and posted on Finnish (ex-)Bionicle community Bio-Klaani (still active, though I the only guy building any more). Oh boy how proud of Metru armour on Vahki leg connection I was! And there's even a metru skull there! I can still remember that day. Back the time, 2007-2009, I did mostly comissions on that mentioned community. Those MOCs are still visible on my Brickshelf, I haven't deleted anything. I browse those now and then, and there is clearly a development of skills visible. I still think that MOCs like this self-MOC were on some sort of turnpoint on my MOCing "career". I don't make difference between SYSTEM, Bionicle and HF parts. As long as it's LEGO, I'm happy to use it. I usually label my action figures as "Bionicle" and not HF (Or slizer?). If I browse my action figure creations, they can be divided into to categories - "Misc." and "Klaanon". The latter is a project on the mentioned Finnish Bionicle Community, a Finnish Bionicle-Based giga-novel-thing with several writers. I think the average age of writers of it today is something like 19 (so many of us are doing military service) and the thing has numerous characters to build. It is, of course, a lot more interesting than the official Bionicle canon: We ditched out all the silly stuff and added truckloads of own things. It's a project hard to explain as it is in Finnish and so big that it's impossible to translate. But for example my Flickr set of Klaanon MOCs can give you a glimpse of it. For example, Keetongu there doesn't have lot do with character with same name on canon, as this one is a steampunk engineer who sometimes plays an accordion. You know, that sort of stuff. Something like Bionicle mashed up with Bible starring Monty Python in combination of Cornetto trilogy... but this, of course, is quite a far-fetched in a topic concerning change in building techniques. But for sure it has affected my MOCing and given me loads of inspiration on this ground of LEGO hobby often squinted by AFOLs. When it comes to purely Hero Factory themed MOCs, I have done a couple of set mods (I pretty much always mod sets if I happen to keep them built) and this one hero MOC; there were a bit of irony in that built to be honest. With Gambrodon that I built for Action Figure month here my goal was mainly just to build a cool enough beast, so there was quite a lot of Bionicle parts there, but still more HF than usually. I use the "new" ball joint system parts when they... Well, do their job better than some other pieces. It's not that special really. If a leg looks better with HF shell and bone than pin-connected Bionicle armor and ball socket thing. Same here (eheh eheh ehehe badum-tish) is a good example with HF-based arms and Bionicle legs, both completed with some SYSTEM bits. There is of course pieces on each system I use a lot: Slizer foot is probably my favourite piece in action figure builds overall, the shortest bone in black is the ace of HF system, and something like 90% of my female builds have a rahski (well, who can write that "word" anyway?) back and shin on their legs. One would say that it's not very original to use the same design many times (and it of course is a good argument, I'm not denying that), but it looks usually quite suitable and I like to think every MOC as an standalone piece of art. Hope that cleared something up. Probably it didn't and it's just a piece of odd arsty gibberish with lot of brackets, but hey, I'm having my final exam in English in two weeks and writing is never bad thing. EDIT: And whoo, I did about as long post as Aanchir! Unbelievable!

Got my prize yesterday, fantastic figs and quite nostalgic too, reminds me of my early life as a hard-core Original Trilogy fan... Well, my sci-fi-figbarfs have always needed some elephant guys! Thank you thank you thank you Copmike, but don't forget that Swebrick still owes us a visit...

This guy rocks so much, I love all of those eyes, he must have quite a good vision.

The rubber band technique usually breaks the sockets after a while, at least if the figure is played with. I used to do that with Pridak which had that odd ball joint torso.

I... Prefer set with mini-heroes but not designed for mini-heroes. I like to have those minifigs as they have some useful parts but I don't really need the contrainer/cockpit pieces. In other words, this year's bad guy sets are rather awesome. Well, bad guy sets are always better, at least on Hero Factory.

Yes, only about 4% of this creation is action figure stuff, but it's still a Bionicle thing. Avde is an odd character. Not much is known about it, but it seems to consist of two creatures, the small Matoran-esque The Crimson Man and the big black monster The Deep Laughter. Avde is after the powerful mind artefact called Nimda, but it is unkown why - He always says he works for an unnamed Employer. I wanted to achieve a look of a mental nightmare monster on this MOC. I used old and yellowed white bricks to create a depressing empty room as a backdrop to the monster. It also created a nice contrast with the back and red and allowed me to pose the black blobs in otherwise impossible ways. Photos on Flickr, more detailed story on Cyclopic Bricks. The character is based on Klaanon, Finnish collaborative Bionicle giga-novel thing.

Definitely better than the set mechs, I love the bulky feel there.

If I remember correctly, The Brick is (or was) TLC:s own, business-oriented internet journal. But I remember only reading a couple of them a few years ago. But I suppose it is a trustworthy source. (Actually, I was surprised with 5%. I would have guessed lower. There's lots of kids after all.)

This piece is also most excellent when building compact figures with good posability. The ball with axle hole also allows you to connect the shells or limbs better, but using more TECHNIC-y pieces like this draw the builds a bit further from the CCBS, but it is done in the TLC's sets too. I suggest to get loads of those, I think I have something like 150 and I'm always running short of them; I'm getting 300 more the next summer. If you are planning to use more TECHNIC/Bionicle stuff in the builds, I would also recommend the ol' good Slizer foot, as it has a smooth shape combatible with HF shells, a great array of connection points and it comes in nice variety in colors. They are quite cheap, too. EDIT: Thanks DraikNova, should be working now.

I've got this misprint blended dwarf beard: I've also got milky white Zamor sphere from HF set Meltdown. The old and somewhat-rare but not misprint pieces of my collection include some early 70s pieces that my father has when he was kid. I've also got the famous black sword from the Armory shop. Got that set with loads of other 80s LEGO on great flea market bargain few years back.

Here's the next dwarf on my project - Nori, the thief. Nori was an average dwarf to build expect for the head and its odd starfish hairdo. I specially like how the eyebrows came out. The beard braids use minifig legs as the array of brown joint pieces is rather limited. More on Cyclopic Bricks, photo on Flickr. Hope you enjoyed! I guess Fili will be next, but it might take while since I'm running out of dark brown pieces!

Heeey, don't be so harsh on Tarix! His mask (or helmet, anyway) had a beard connection point! A beard connection point! And I have sort of a guess that "humour" is the main point on this topic on the first place. Still intesting to see that there are people who can form well-written arguments on it. It's cool on its own way.

Hello fellow Eurobrickers! Here's Glóin, son of Gróin, brother of Óin and father of Gilmi, the newest addition to my Hobbit dwarves MOC line! The beard was the first part I built, as usual. I threw it together on the last summer if I remember correctly. Designing the torso invoved both some basic and some more complicated SNOT techniques. Glóin has some packs and bags on his belt as he's the money behind the operation. The arms and hands are posable. The shoulders have ball joints while the elbow joints work with T-bars. The boots are rather simple, but I'm very happy with the round shape. Sons of Gróin. See more on Cyclopic Bricks and photos on Flickr. Feedback would be pleasant.

Now I'm really confused whether these are DOS or TABA sets. There wasn't any throne room scenes with Smaug on DOS, though it would make more sense if it would be the forge mistaken as a throme room. The furnaces (and Bombur using the bellows), cooling systems, gold river and cable carts. That would have quite a nice array of play features and I guess that kids as a main marketing group like to have the updated dwarves (and I want them too, because I like those guys). I guess the fig would be Thorin, Bilbo and Balin + x of the hero dwarves. Therefore there wouldn't be need for Thorin in the (assumed) battle set. Dain seems like a good guess as a hero character to the Battle set. We haven't seen any promotional material about him so it's hard to estimate his importance in the last film, but I hope his role will be bigger than Beorn's (Because Dain is pretty much the badassest Tolkien character). I'm not sure if it would be a good choice to add Fili and Kili to the set to be killed - They didn't do Theoden's Boromir's death scenes neither. No foggiest idea what the Lake-Town set is about if it doesn't have Smaug, though. Might it be a DOS set like Erebor with Legolas, Bolg, Bain etc.? The reported would likely have spotted those characters, though... We'll see.

What I meant is that some areas on Witch Doctor, for example the hip area, seems to done with the minimum piece count possible, having, if I remember correctly, 1x4 liftarm only on the other side, and so on. It can be seen on quite a few other HF sets (and why not on other themes?) too. I don't own the set, but as an example the fact that Stormer XL's ice sword has only a one TECHNIC cam and couple of ugly TECHNIC axles sticking out has always annoyed me. (also, Witch Doctor's wrists were terrible.) But hey, I have only a couple of HF sets built (Aquagon and Frost Beast from EB contest, modded Breakout Breez and Viktor) so I really buy them only for parts. When I bought the mentioned Raw-Jaw I was positively surprised of its excellent design, but it didn't stop me from taking it apart after few days. I mean, they are just sets. Thousands of people have them anyway. A mere feedstock.

I have to go with Raw-Jaw. I mean, can you ask more than an elephant-gorilla-saber-toothed tiger? The design was quite a innovative and it had a nice variety of parts. Witch Doctor was an awesome parts pack with all the red ball joints etc. but the set design was somewhat lacking... I guess the set designers met the piece limit too early. The honourable mentions go to Doktor Viktor von Nebula (though the set lacked the key elements - hat, monocle and 'stache), Breakout Breez (See Lewi's post) and Core Hunter (that face).

The Prancing Pony. More lively scene, more interesting architecture. I was never a big fan of the movie design of Lothlórien.

I'd love to see this built with actual bricks, the cockpit is ingenious. And hey, the whole idea of space ninjas is just awesome.

The extra mustache makes this set even better, got to buy it. Thanks for the review!

The handles in those shields have sort of a gap so a bar fits there. Very nice vignette, I love the overall clean look created by the big, trans-clear windows here. The flags and flowers add a nice color splashes and the ceiling is just superb.

Why not? They add play value, they have heaps of new parts, they include more plastic. Of course they drive up the prices. I agree with Aanchir here, the weight is the real meter of value here. And the best way to send a message to TLC is just buy the sets or not - Complaining about the price rise makes no sense if you buy the sets anyway. TLC is a big company, I bet they have done research to set the price so that they get the maximal profit. I don't see these prizes being so bad, as having a buildable plastic warrior toy (or, in my case, a pile of plastic warrior toy parts) isn't really a basic need in life. The sets are mostly well designed and they look cool and they will undoubtly make many kids (and some AFOLs, of course) very happy, but I can live without them anyway (and throw my money into Bricklink).

Shop@home. They are not listed on the theme products page on most European countries, but if you go to the British product page on each set you can swich the country and see the prizes.

Uh-oh, Flyer Beast seems to be 18€ in Northern Europe. Not sure if I'll buy it or not... Hopefully this won't be another year without buying any action figure sets (thanks to the EB's contest prizes I still got some 2013 sets). Rocka's machine is a obvious no-go with eighteen Euro but Evo Mech's 30€ seems pretty reasonable - Too bad that set doesn't have very much interesting parts.

They look 8M to me. The great thing is that they come in a SYSTEM set, so they will be rather common in Bricklink, in similar way than the small red shells from the small Ninjago mech.

Ah, great news being amongst the bonus winners! Thanks to CopMike for organizing this awesome thing again, reminds me of, was it 2010, when I won some neat figs on a similar raffle here.