Tobu
I had been meaning to make something for Brickscalibur this year, especially with the character/creature focused "Tails from the Meadow" category. Naturally, with the two and half month time-frame, I waited until a week before the deadline to actually start...
The prompt for this category was to build an anthropomorphic character. Initially, I thought about making some sort of reptilian warrior, but having just built Flameguard, I did not want to work with any sort of armor layering. I had a tablescrap lying around of an eye design using boatstuds as the pupil and rubber bands as the iris, so I decided to make a rabbit as the eye design seemed to fit this creature. Additionally, I had picked up the new flower bouquet and utilized the shaping of the new leaf mould for the ears.
With the head built, I brainstormed a few different paths to take with this character but ultimately ended up going with a feudal Japan theming rather than medieval Europe. I wanted to include some sort of carrot weapon, and the Carrotana was too funny to not include. With the theme decided, I continued on with building the torso. The choice of a lavender scarf was to help compliment the magenta as well as form a color triad with the accessories. However, with all these bright colors, and the base color of white for the rabbit, I needed some darker tones to balance them out. Dark blue felt like the best choice due to its synergy with the purple tones. The coat design was inspired by Japanese happi coats, albeit with less detail. I didn't want the torso to be completely dark blue though, so I decided to include an inner clothing layer, and used sand blue diamonds to help break up the dark blue. I found that this inner layer also gave the build some visual variety.
Seeing as this build was ending up on the lighter side, I decided to go for a dynamic pose, with the intention of rigging it to a Technic stand. The style of this model/presentation is akin to articulated video game figures and gunpla displays. To achieve the dynamic angling of the figure, I added a Technic rotation joint socket to the back of the figure, and the stand uses a Technic rotation disk with 2 joints. On the figure itself, I went with asymmetrical builds for the legs due to the need for different poses in each leg.
Continuing to follow the sort of video game figure display, I went for a simple base using the light orange Scala table. However, I also wanted some base detail that would further add to the motion of the character. I initially used green banana leaves, but these were a bit too thin. Thus, I went with the new magenta leaves again as they were the perfect shaping. Finally, the inclusion of the magenta leaves created a bit of imbalance in color, so I added in a dark green dish on top of the Scala table to create another triad.
Even though this was a quick build, it was quite a fun color and dynamics study. I'm really glad I got to finally start tapping into some of the parts I picked up from Denmark, especially as parts from themes like Scala really open up interesting color combinations when merged with modern elements. Hopefully, there will be more chances to use some of these elements later in the year!
