“Fine. I’ll do it myself.” – Thanos Atobe_Brick
@Atobe_Brick completing the Stud.io Community Building game colorized.
Alt Angles
Hello one and all to one of Santa’s greatest secrets finally being revealed! The person I received was Atobe_Brick and the first thing that came to my mind was finishing that game they were running years ago. In part because I helped contributed to it, and in part because Cordax had already built a peak Atobri MOC. We’ll get to more on that later, but for now, the community build!
It’s Alive!:
Turnaround:
Extras:
As stated before, this handsome fella is based upon, and already partial built, by a number of community members here. The project has laid dormant for several years, so finishing the job made sense to me.
I had considered building the rest of it in Stud.io, but due to time limitations, physical would be faster. Plus, this does leave open the option for others to resume the game if so desired. After all, this is only my interpretation of how the rest of the build would have gone. And given all the bendy tube elements, this isn’t likely how it would have gone digitally.
Part of the game was to also give this guy a name and a backstory as part of the collective contribution. But since the MOC portion was never completed, that portion was never started. I considered writing up my typical flavor text and trying to give this dude a name and story…but it didn’t feel quite right. Felt too much like trying to hog or steal all the glory in a weird way.
So, fellow peeps of the boards, feel free to throw out some names and story suggestions. Perhaps together, we can truly finish this gift.
As for the MOC itself, I tried to keep the base model as close to the digital version as possible. Minus some colors that don’t exist, it is ~95% accurate to where the model was when last touched. I don’t say a 100% since I ended up using some higher friction pins and/or black pins and axles rather than the grays of the original.
Atobe Bird:
As is customary for MOCists, getting a version of your Self-MOC made by someone else is usually a sign of high respect or praise. But I am terrified of making lesser versions of someone else and it’s why I have done so few. Originally, this gift was just going to be the finished version of the community build. As I said, Cordax’s BIRDOBUS MAXIMUS is already perfect and I couldn’t do better. But leaving it just as the community build, again, felt too much like trying to claim glory and so the project expanded.
I couldn’t beat the chad bird, but surely I could a chibi or smaller one, right? I also wanted to incorporate some of Racie02’s Atobri, the bricklayer version in there as well. Both as a challenge and due to, like Cordax, lacking the Vahi. Or in my case, the orange Vahi. I’ve got the gold one, but I honest like the orange one much more and still haven’t obtained on yet.
This ended up going full on small bird. At the time of the sign ups, the avatar Atobe was using had green floating eyes with the Vahi, so the bird gets green eyes. I was going to give it the big Mixel eyes like in Cordax’s version, but I couldn’t quite get that to work. I already was trying to implement the Pakari on top, like Racie02’s version, and that seemed to look too silly. Or I’m just really bad at cartoon proportions. But I was a lot happier with the smaller green eyes. The wings were going to be larger originally too, but the panels did not work as I was hoping.
Bug Friend:
This little bug was originally built as a minion or pet for the community build. Going a Black Phantom route, giving them their own Arachnix Drone. But it didn’t quite fit and seemed better to have it as a little pet for Atobe instead. Too cute for a man with head in jars and also helped balance the room better. Speaking of which!
The Room:
Rather than leaving Atobe finishing the community build in the void, I thought having a faux room would really bring the scene home. . . I forgot to consider how tall the average constraction MOC is and just how many Technic beams and panels I would need to build both a wall and floor. Yes, I decided building a floor was necessary.
Part of the challenge was that I didn’t want the wall to be pure black. I also didn’t want the floor to be that color either, but I have a lot of black parts and needed to compromise somewhere. The main reason I didn’t want the wall to be black was due to the flag.
If you haven’t seen The Flags Topic, Atobe made a flag for the moon and the design has stuck with me. Since I was building a room, it seemed like a good idea to have the flag hanging on the wall. Since its background is black, the wall needed to be a different color so it didn’t melt into the wall. It’s not a very accurate facsimile - the green and blue are too thick, it’s missing stars, etc. And if I was better at pixel art, I’m sure I could have done several plate stacks to get something closer while being in that size. But it would have to do.
The other things in the room are the tools/weapons from Racie02’s version. I didn’t have the blade in the same color, which I didn’t realize until far too late, so silver would do. And added a bust with the Vahi there to rep their normal avatar choice…But in gold, because that’s all I have it in.
The step stool was a late edition, since the little bird Atobe didn’t look quite right that short to the community build. So it was quickly put together to be higher up when working on it.
And I believe that’s everything. Hope you enjoyed it Atobe! Same to everyone else who participated this year!