Pate-keetongu

Interesting topic. I feel I'm a bit of an anarchist when it comes to modular buildings. I don't use LEGO's standard, as those buildings seem too small. Too small to fit enough details, too small for good looking windows, and somehow tiny simply as models. I neither use baseplates, as they're slippery, flexible and expensive, and also because our LUG uses specific modular standard. Neither I use LDD or any computer program to design. I'm a second-year architecture student (though I haven't really posted any modulars during my studies; I've built several, but haven't been able to photograph them as they're in a museum. I'm currently having two under construction, too) and I have to use more than enough CAD programs with them school works, so doing that with hobby would be dull. And honestly, I've never really liked LDD's interface, I felt that turning bricks around takes so much more time than with real bricks, and you can't touch the thing, not easily see it from different angles... And I like fiddling around with my bricks. I quite often, but not always, begin with some detail bits. Not neccesarily actual "facade details", but they might be, and usually are, windows, doorways, roof designs, domes, arch systems, bay windows... Then I arrange them, and the building evolves around it. I sometimes make drawings, but these are mostly used to design the lay-out (width of the buildings and special angles it there are some, arraging bits with more heigh like corner towers and such, and the relation of roof types, etc.) I also might absent-mindely draw modular building plans during some boring critic or lecture at the university; my notebooks might have MOC sketches and schoolwork sketches side by side. But indeed most of the design work is done with real bricks at my work table at home, with trial and error. I also try to make planned building with bricks I have to not throw lot of money to Bricklink; LUGBULK and local brick vendor with all-you-can-fit in one-litre ziplock bag for 10 euro helps. Inspiration comes from various sources. My buildings are designed to fit 1895-1918 European style, Art Nouveau and Jugendstil. The big reason is that I simply like this particular era: It's somewhat free-form and even chaotic, especially in its northern Finnish forms. It has strong sense of place and history without channeling over-used influenced from classical Greece, Gothic Europe or Reneissance Italy, which are hardly essetial. In the same time it is romantic and feel-evoking, features that modern or International style building might (but not neccessary) lack. They're fantasy-like but not conservative, detailed but organic. Means I, as a brick-fiddler 110 years later, can try to capture the feel without being restricted by style-layouts and model systems, like in, let's say, 1880s Neo-Reneissance urban houses many LEGO's modular building might be based on. I've never copied exact building in minifig scale. I like to create. I neither, despite studying the subject in university and everything, bother that much with floor-to-floor heights or stuff like that. I have to do it at school, and in the future at work, so with bricks I play and do things the way they flow naturally. If I want to have 15 -metre floor-to-floor heigh, I can do it. I never do any interiors. Nothing against them, I enjoy seeing a good interior. But I don't have infinite part storage, so It's easier just to build the facade, some beams to connect it to cheaply-made back wall (Usually bricks but sometimes castle-panels and once even a baseplate with some ivy stuck to it). So my building are hollow and rather thin. It irritates me a bit but people hardly ever critize. In a bit layout, the first thing they see is facade, and if it's grand enough, it seems to satisfy them. And I don't need to spend all my money and Bricklink. I sometimes take inspiration from specific buildings, too. I'm having a WIP somewhat based on Hotel Evropa in Prague. I took the colour scheme, the big arch on the middle and some basics of the window layout, and designed the rest based on what parts I had in Bright Light Orange. I had mostly 1x2x3 slopes and 1x8 plates with railing, both from LEGO's LUG event support reward bags. It felt natural to use those slopes sideways to make a slight bay, so 60% of the facade is build sideways. This made it possible to make some thin vertical colour lines with plates. The result it quite pleasing. I think I can show it in a month or two when I get the rest of 64x96 stud city block done.

This is sort of revamp of my entry two years ago... But this time, the tree is appropriately white. Happy to see this annual tradition again, lots of great enties too.

I was asked to play Brikwars, so I built his mechanic dragon to make my dwarven army a bit stronger. The mechanical dragon features a maw flamethrower with a light brick and a tail-mounted machine gun. There are both western and easters dragon influences here. I wanted it to have short legs and no wings. More pictures on Cyclopic Bricks.

I like them overall, especially Makuta, who is well randomed but still had rather imposing figure. Work with Nui-Rama's fangs is pleasant, too - just rightly disturbing composition.

Excellent stuff, digging those colours, the photographing brings them up very nicely. Cool interiors, too. The growing array of music instrument parts seems to encourage people to build music stores, but heck, there can't be enough music stores.

Nice MOC, great movie. I like how you built the tooth. I'd probably use a bit lower angle on the photos to create better immersion with the creation.

These two are among the most beloved Discworld characters - Esmerelda "Granny" Weatherwax and Gytha "Nanny" Ogg. Granny has her pointy hat full of hatpins, big iron boots and bump-starting broom. The details of the cloak are somewhat inspired by Paul Kidby's art. Nanny has her wide grin, red boots and a banjo to accompany the dreaded Hedgehog song. These two were on a WIP stage for a year or so. Not the hardest build ever, but it was somewhat challenging to capture the essence of these characters in brick. They will be displayed in Worldcon in Helsinki next week, too. More photos and talk on Cyclopic Bricks, as always.

Thanks everyone, glad you like this! It took plenty of time, and some engineering work to get the bridge sturdy enough to hold up the figures... But it was worth it, of course.

Great build, excellent presentation. The power line really adds something to the photos. Well built.

The last samurai of the old rule is challenged by the warrior of The New Shogunate. This was built for a Finnish LUG contest with the theme "The new meets the old". I had wanted to build a samurai for some time now so this seemed like a good idea. The whole scene became a lot larger than I had intended - these are 30 cm (one foot) thall figures, so the environment needs to be big... More can be found on my blog Cyclopic Bricks.

Big thanks to you fellows! What an excellent nostalgia trip that was, seeing old creation from friends and myself, some that I was forgotten completely; Good memories. There's lot of medium sized CCBS MOCs, so it seems that te goal to make action figure building more easily approachable with the new system succeeded. But we of course knew that already.

The second creation on my "elemental personification": Kuohu of Water, goddess of streams, floods, raindrops and oceanic trenches. This began with the geometric patterns on the dress. The hardest part was the aqua-coloured hair, as I didn't have that much basic parts in that colour - fortunately those dragon wings made the bulk of it. I tried to fill the hat with water-esque parts (foam, steam and a bubble). The legs were another challenge, as the dress limits movement a lot. The shoes also took few tried, but I'm happy with the results. More on Cyclopic Bricks.

Goddess of skies, winds and weather. The creation was more "high fantasy" styled at first, but with those white boots and rainbow hair it became more glamorous and striking; but then again I think people should use more colours in their creations. Too much grey gets dull with time. More on Cyclopic Bricks.

Mistral Nereis, apparently a pirate gal, from Japanese game Shining Hearts. Never played it, don't know the character really, but the concept art piqued my interest. The multi-layered dress seemed like a challenge and oh boy it was, took me hours and hours to get it right... I also settled for a sitting pose as it couldn't bear the weight of the dress standing. Very geometric stuff overall, shaping the clothes for this one. More on my blog, Cyclopic Bricks.

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Not the Boy Wonder or Hood guy or little birdie or Sir Not-a-brave-as-Lancelot but a character from Fire Emblem game series and Super Smash Bros. Another MOC inspired by playing Smash Bros. The robes were somewhat challenging, as well as the head and Levin sword. Still quite happy with this! More on Cyclopic Bricks.

Nice work, simple yet effective construction, and the GNU gif is fantastic.

Neat work, liking the shaping and the details on the head.

Yee, victory is ours! Gotta build a manatee landing platform. And send PM to CopMike. And not to forget... Merry Christmas to everyone and thanks to Mike, TLG and Siegfried for organizing this fantastic annual event.

Excellent car, sleek and classy. Very good six-wide. Nice use of new-ish tooth pieces.

Threw together this little tale of a tundra hunter: This raffle is one of my favourite Christmas traditions!

These legendary dwarven warriors deal mighty blows with their rune-enhanced hammers. Based on an unit on open-source fantasy strategy game Battle for Wesnoth. I had built lot of red creations lately, and it was refreshing to work on fresher colors this time; I'm very happy with the combo of sand blue, sand green and pearl gold here. The MOC is based on the unit's on-game sprite, not the portrait, and I took some liberties anyway - full beard was replaced with a huge moustache, for example, as those new inverted baby bows worked to nicely there... More on Cyclopic Bricks.

Excellent shape on the hull and delightful colours.

Great modular, the arched window on the top floor is definitely my favorite part of the facade, the brown frames looks nice there. The warm colors overall look perfect here. The interior is great as well; the space is used very effectively.

The Red Lady of the Stream. A creation based in wonderful orient-esque pieces from Final Flight of Destiny's Bounty. More on Cyclopic Bricks.