Tomcat RIO

Oh exalted monarch Jarl Nibelung! Do we have need of beasts of burden and tundra beasts of war to travel in the frozen snowy North? Here are my prelimary designs for a woolly mammoth archer tower and wooly rhino knight. Also, a custom white tiger that could be fielded as a royal pet, or barbarian scout. I'm still refining the designs of the mammoth and rhino, and what they could be used for. Heavy(no pun intended) calvary, or beasts of burden to drag trebuchet, ballista or catapult carts. Also, I could use some tips on making nice saddles and detailed armour. Dug out my crownies and vikings to get the torsos, and my city soccer team for the green hands. Getting kind of late here in my part of Earth. So I'll have the standardised army done up by weekend, along with avatar fig, miscellanous units, regiments. We'll show the other guilds the North is not to be messed with. Winter is coming.

Tomcatrio reporting to pledge allegiance to the guild! Baroness La Flaga, once a she-elf princess of the West, fell in love with a human Baron from the North, a nobleman from King Jarl Nibelung's court, and thus broke a sacred law in her elf-clan. For that, she was sent to exile to the North, where she must repent, and also tasked with watching over the North Eastern Passage. Rumor has it a dark shadow arises in the East, immune to the cold, and spread fear and death to Men, Elf, Dwarf and Orc alike. She does not travel alone, for Elves of the many West clans have sent their own guards, veterans, and adventurous elves who do not wish to wait forever for a prophecy to bring peace to the land. She also has the might of her husband's army and coastal fortresses and ports to support her. With the lore and magical spells of the Elven kind, they have tamed many wild beasts of the cold, that will otherwise have eaten Norsemen, hapless orcs and dig out poor dwarves. They must put aside old feuds with the dwarves and the trolls, because a new and greater evil threatens all of the Northern Guild. I do apologise for the colour scheme of the chariot, had built it a while before more details came out for guild colours. Will edit with new pictures and correct colour flags once it is up and make it my avatar.

I totally love this! reminds me of those 'reptilian humanoid' conspiracy theories out there on youtube.. Reptile Aliens are amongst us!! great vignette, great feel of the lime and trans-clear parts vignette. Good luck with the contest!!

ooh was gonna wait for the guild lores and stories, but anywho, my choice is made. to the frozen Northern Chill!! Bringing my winter Elves to bear and building ice cities!

Tomcat RIO, signing up!

Good one! And what lies to the East of the map? Along the King's Road from the Crown lands.. Maybe it leads to another section with the Knight's of the Kingdom of Morcia(ooh jellybean candy colours) and the evil Lord Vladek..

Nicely done!!! my own bagpiper is a page down this same forum too! But yours is a waaay better version! I guess with so many AFOLs starting to make their own bagpipers TLG had to release 1 for series 7! Goodluck for the contest!

With 3 more weeks added to the contest, I've decided to further improve, and do some minor refinements and touchups on the minifig. As such, have taken down the flickr link for the moment while I sort out uploads. WIP, stay tuned.

wow some neat tricks, this has great potential! are those shoulder paldrouns made from the cone helmet cut in half? the ringmail is great work, how is the cloth cape giving trouble?

thanks alan and mark. -Luxor, I have edited the thumbnails for the back, as well as the vignette entry photo.

Well that ought to scare yer off the chair abit. Intro Introducing my entry for MCW contest category 1 Globetrotters. This figure is based on the Maori tribes, the indigenous peoples of New Zealand. They are a warlike people and best known for their elaborate face and body tattoos and war paints, as well as their songs and war dance called the "Haka". Inspired by a travel brochure "Visit New Zealand!" Well the front of it was a Maori tribe, kiwi birds, river rafting and bungee jumpers, and the back of the brochure was epic landscape scenes from Lord of the Rings. Lol! Cost Cost of making this figure was about $7, the Dastan minifig head and muscular chest from BL cost $2. A set of flesh legs and cheeseslopes from the spares box. Sculpey was from my knight project so it isnt counted. Lastly $1 for a wide brush, which I used to cut off the bristles for the skirting, and $4 for greenish black and flesh colour paint. The most difficult aspect of this project was painting the tattoos. I do not know how to operate the decal printer program and I'm bad with drawing with a mouse, so I went the old school brush and paint. This one was much more difficult and thinner than my knight's. A unique aspect of the project was using brush bristles for the grass skirt. I glued the hairs together, then taped over it to create a sash. The hair braid was sculpted with epoxy putty, taking note of the rather curled and dense hair locks. Thus it is distinctly different from the ones provided by Lego Islanders. The external link to more pictures can be found on my flickr Flickr account link On to the pictures, well since the front picture is already on top, I move to the sides. note the motifs on the arms, thighs and the Taihaha - the Maori double edged spear. Back Lastly the vignette, this one is for another of New Zealand's most representative figures, their All Blacks Rugby team, which just won the world cup by the way :) The All Blacks also had their legs slightly modified. They are shown doing a 'Haka' War Dance, which is a Maori custom before going to war. You can easily youtube it for clips. The Maori sometimes make appearances in traditional garb on the pitch, a good number of New Zealand's rugby players are also descended from Maori. Thanks for looking, hope you all will enjoy this entry! Comments and critiscm welcome!

非常好！ very nice custom, infact I just finished a GuanYu 2 months ago and it looks the exact same as yours, with a flesh head and grey halberd instead.. I used a painted green helmet with gold fringes though, his war helmet. Nice vignette and love the chinese temple roof too! Any plans to make the rest of the 3 brothers and other figs? Good luck for the contest!

nice hanbok! I think I might make 1 such fig down the road, with the exotic fancyful hair as well (I get to watch some korea drama serials on the TV, along with their pop bands.) Nice tatami mat as well!

this one looks great! amazing vignette, and great use of purist parts for the arm. Sure has the 'lego' feel to a zombies in space outbreak. Goodluck for the contest!

Righty ho! Will edit the thumbnails, weblinks later today. Thanks!

lol yup. juz saw the picture of the series7 this evening.. I am retiring this minifig and using it for other customizations. And getting a whole band of CMF bagpipers! lol.

This looks good! A very unique use of purist bricks. Good job. "Mr Bartender, some blue Bantha milk on the rocks please, and no, these are not my droids!"

great customs and some interesting techniques, such as matador leg. the knight templars look very nice I would certainly think of making some 1 day. And I can't believe you did Elvis the king!! win!

thanks! thank you! I think i understand why about the right arm, it seems a little bit too long and disproportionate to the left arm.. Otherwise it would not have sufficient length to 'curve' up. thank you! No probelm, my first thought after I finished this was, Warhammer Bretonnian Knights!! I agree too that overdetailing can 'kill' some appeal as some like the simpleness of plain torsos. I tend to like simpler is better too, just thought that I could try something new for this category. My next entry will be much simpler! I'm going gaudy eyed painting those little stripes and spots! Thank you! Really appreciate it from a purist, I thought I was gonna be on the recieving end of purist displeasure. Glad to know it is quite well recieved by a few at least!! :)

hehe thanks guys! Yup i will try and find a brown stem if it ever, on Bricklink. Or paint over the part, if I had no resort. Lol, would I have posted this a day later, it would have made it for MCW'11 contest Category 1, 'globe trotters' category, since bagpipers represent Scotland pretty well! Well hope this might inspire others to build a better version!

thanks Thrash. Sculpting the shoulder and painting them took up nearly a day! I agree that the legs look wierd, hence today I painted more details, and attempted to use optical illusions to lengthen the torso and shorten the legs.. But the minifig is still very tall..

quite a decent entry, with mainly purist parts, and your first attempt at non-purist custom. Some suggestions if I may, I would paint the green on the snake again to get it more evenly coated colour, or if you could paint scales in different hues of green... Perhaps some bright red or gold to highlight the eyes on the shield, or edges of the shield? the helmet also lends itself well to add on parts - horns, samurai crests, pirate/musketeer feathers etc.. And as 'Thrash' mentioned, a barding will do nicely! Maybe you can get a Kingdoms dragon knight and paint over the barding with a 'snake' as your heraldry using black and green as on your fimo?

Thanks for comments! No bar really, I didn't know what standards to expect as this is my 1st contest.. Agree that the legs and bottom look queer. Probably because of that square headlight brick, I've been eyeing it for some time. And agree that knights were meant to ride horses into battle, not fight on foot hahaha.. Middle Ages history and warfare was cumbersome for a knight, though he was protected somewhat from cheap infantry weapons. Are we allowed to change some minor details after we have submitted the entry? Would like to paint over the white brick in silver.

hehe yup yup. moulded from the Lego kitten and then flushed onto the armour.. I couldn't bear to cut off the plastic heads what with buying them at $1.50 apiece. this is a wip shot.. you can find more on the flickr link.

Hi all MCW and Eurobrick members I am very excited to particpate in my first MOC/customization contest online. Had a few ideas for bayonets at dawn, classic castle, but never got around to building, and I also missed the EB underwater theme "underwater version' build deadline too. Ah well. Time to get done on my 1st online entry ever!! Backstory: It is 1808. I am Commodore La Flaga, of the Bluecoat French Imperial Soldiers Fleet. Whilst digging up the attic in my seaside castle Chauteau, I chance upon an old family heirloom of a sword crested with a fish. And with it also a colourful painted tapestry of one of my forefathers. Baron Maude is my great-great-grandfather several times over, living at Castleon in the 12th century, during the age of knights and chivalry in Europe. In old French, spiced with old Teuton and german and Latin, was an account of this ancestor's jousting prowess, as well as a full coloured woodblock print of the visual spectacle of this multi-trophy winning champion. Baron Maude contributed greatly to the wealth of our family, and a proud tradition we still carry in our fighting armies and ships today with the Fleur De Lis as my family's herald.. Inspiration: I was greatly inspired by medieval knights since I am also a Castle fan. The bright colours and audacity, flamboyance of this custom figure is no doubt a mixture of inspiration from Dynasty warriors, and Warhammer's Bretonnian Knights. Indeed, the poise of 1 of the vignette is modelled after a charging pose of a jousting Airfix 1/32 Teuton Knight Templar. The painting of the custom was a nightmare. I used lots of tricks from my miniature modelling and tabletop gaming to achieve what I desired. A super fine brush tip worked slowly on spots, stripes, chainmail, crests, heraldry etc.. Cost and Materials: Approx $35-40 ? I had 8 bottles of paint for this project, namely blue, yellow, green, red, black and silver from Tamiya. The browns and gold was from my Citadel paint. Epoxy sculpy from the hardware store, a MF4 Ice skater's skirt, keychain from Lego Star wars keychain. The rest of the parts came from sets. The superfine brush tip I bought for this project cost $10! A complete work in progress can be found on my flickr set. flickr link gallery In addition, you can find the entire set of 4 different Vignettes, more closeups of the details of this custom minifig, and more angles of shots of the vignettes and horse. It will be worth a look and hopefully inspires you people with my use inventive or unheard of techniques.. check out the rubber band legs for exampl Without further ado, Here are the pictures. Front side Back Vignette 1 - At the joust That is all. Hope you guys enjoy my entry. If any moderator or the contest organizers feel I have breached some rules of entry, do let me know and tell me about changes that have to be made. I will then modify the figure or vignette accordingly. Thanks for looking! - Kevin (edit post script, now its time to start on the alien for category 2, stay tuned!)