Cait Sith
Final Fantasy is one of my favorite video game series, and with the release of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth (and my subsequent 160+ hour playthrough... yes, I beat Rulers of the Outer Worlds), I knew I wanted to build something to commemorate the experience. Prior to the remake series, I did not care about Cait Sith; however, Rebirth's rendition of the character completely changed my opinion. With this build, I attempted to capture the same character and charm portrayed in the game.
Like most builds, I began with the head to set the scale. In universe, Cait Sith is actually a plush robot, and his eyes are always closed. To replicate this detail, I used dark-bluish gray hot dogs. Because Cait's eyes overlap between the black and white portions of his face, the choice of dark-bluish gray was made to make them readable. For his nose, I needed a part that was smaller than a tile and more compact than a Barraki eye. I ended up using a antenna base with lever where the lever was taken out and placed in the opposite direction of the default assembly. It is then sandwiched by plates and held by friction. General shaping of the face uses the recent 3x3 corner curved slope. For the ears, I used Minifigure capes as cloth could conform to the shape. Also, the use of cloth allowed me to save some weight on the head, which was important in overall stability. Lastly, there are several instances in this model where things have been 'Lego-fied', with the crown being one of them.
From some of Cait Sith's artwork, I noticed the use of exaggerated action lines in his torso, which contributed to the character feeling more alive. I tried to recreate this in my torso design by building along a curved line of action. Once again, I used the 3x3 corner curved slopes; however, by placing them with opposite ends touching, a more organic, wrapping curvature is created. These are then meshed against a series of various wedge bricks. For filling out the sides of Cait's torso, I used a single Chima feather on either side. Since it was a softer plastic, I bent it slightly to conform with the shaping. Also, it provided a bit of texture since Cait's body in game is also soft. Finally, there is a very important piece in the back of the torso that contributes to the overall silhouette: a large figure CCBS torso shell. Without this part, the line of action is completely broken, and the character would have looked stiff. It also happens to function as a way to sandwich the red ribbon, which is from an official Lego ornament.The ribbon has a nice 2x4 brick printing on it, which is another instance of this model being 'Lego-fied'. Cait's cape is obviously one piece of cloth in game, but for this build, I had to separate it into two parts, with the ribbon as the tied portion, and a Praetorian Guard skirt as the actual cape. Those who own this piece know that the skirt splits into three segments where the middle segment is ever slightly longer. First, I shortened the middle segment by banding it with a Technic rubber band. Then, I combined the segments by sandwiching them with a pair of Lego train magnets. This was Lego purist brain at work...
A number of cloth elements were further used throughout the model. Various Minifigure capes were used for the cuffs of Cait's gloves as well as the end of his tail. Cait's legs were another challenge in building this MOC. He has digitigrade legs and getting the right proportions was tough. To assist in the proportions as well as to get an idea of how Cait moved, I went through the battle simulator in game and took screenshots. After that, it was a lot of back and forth between referencing and building. The thigh segment uses a Darth Maul shoulder armor and is combined with a textured 2x2 curved slope. Then, the leg tapers a bit through the use of a 3x3 Cone. For the last segment, there actually wasn't enough space to connect a CCBS shell, so it is held in by friction with a rubber liftarm. Lastly, Cait's shoes use a brown Miru. I was quite happy with this parts use, as it matched the shape of the shoes in game, and also gave me an opportunity to use some of my Bionicle mask recolors.
As for Cait's accessory, I initially wanted to include his Yellow Megaphone weapon. However, cones in yellow are far and few between for this scale. Instead, I decided to reference his Limit Break attack from the original Final Fantasy VII (or weapon ability from Rebirth) where he rolls a dice and an effect will occur based on what it lands on. The Lego dice fit perfectly for this.
I don't typically build humanoid characters as creatures are a lot more fun for me, but this build ended up being one of my favorites. I am very happy with how much personality and character I was able to capture with the build, and my hope is that even someone without any knowledge of FFVII can still understand the character just from the MOC. I learned quite a bit from designing this MOC, and I hope to use these lessons in perhaps my own original characters.
