It took me a while to get around to posting this, long enough that the initial pictures I took became outdated. It’s been a long road figuring out what i really wanted from my self-MOC, and as you’ll see, it lead to a dramatic turn in design at one point. Without further ado, here he is.
Outdated photos and notes
He has weapon storage on his back, which also helps hold his cloak in place. There is also five points of articulation on the arms (Not counting fingers) which gives him a wide range of motion.
History, and past self-MOCs
Before I even took pictures of my MOCs, I had built a self-MOC, which was a mess to put it simply. The joints were too weak, the build itself was completely oversized, and the textures and design was all over the place. At the time I had used a black and silver color scheme, which worked, but was a little boring to look at. I wish there was lasting evidence of this MOC, as it did help teach me a lot about how to MOC. One of the techniques I ended up using on my current self-MOC, as well as another build I am really happy with.
After some time, I downsized the build by a large margin. The first iteration was probably about 10 - 11 inches tall, with the second version being a more average 7 - 8 inches. Same color scheme, same head, but everything else changed. This one turned out much simpler, once again teaching me a few new tricks to MOCing which would make it onto later builds.
More time goes by, and I realize that my self-MOC was boring. No character, no story, no powers. Naturally I went down the beaten path and decided to make a toa. Here we get the first photographed self-MOC I made.
The two most interesting parts here, is the upper arm, and the body. Everything else is just a slightly dressed up inika build, and not really done in any special way. The color scheme was still a bit bland, and there was very little personality here, but it was a toa self-MOC, and became the blueprint for the next few designs.
Jump forward 12 months, and the next MOC had been born.
Definitely a more refined model, but still falling into the same pitfalls of it’s predecessor. Bland colors, basic shape, little personality. Overall, it’s visully a big upgrade, with general consistency and design coming together in greater ways. The upper arm design is a slight evolution of that on the previous self-MOC, and the upper leg design was something new to incorporate more metru pieces.
Another skip towards the new year, and you get where the toa era of my self-MOCs saw it’s last addition.
I downsized again, dealing with a shorter build, while allowing myself a lot more freedom. More color, a more interesting design, but still captures the essence of what i had begun with. Looking at it now, there are certinly some less than perfect portions, but it’s in a good place. This MOC still exists today, and I have plans for it.
Now it’s time to go back in time, and look towards the other line of MOCs that contributed to what we have today.
Back in January of 2021, I attempted to recreate my profile picture using Lego. To do this, I had to create a vahki model specifically to occupy the image. As you can imagine, it turned out almost all black, save for the orange head, and a couple orange studs on the chest.
I made some effort to make it look good outside the image, but I think that idea failed in the end. There’s odd shaping, awkward gaps, and overall it isn’t as vahki like as it should’ve been.
Eventually I did away with this MOC in late August 2021, building other monstrosities in the hopes of landing a design I was happy with.
As you can see, things are starting to resemble my current self-MOC, but this is horrid mess that I was never happy with from the start. Somehow amidst all of this though, a good leg design came into being, almost making into the finished product unaltered.
After that build got scrapped, I began to think about what i really wanted out of a self-MOC. I had boxed myself into a toa build, because it seemed like the natural choice for a self-MOC. Everybody did a toa, so that meant I had to as well, right? Nope, after some thinking, I realized toa builds are way oversaturated as self-MOCs, and there was no chance I’d settle for something I’m not entirely happy with.
Thus, Krelikan had to be made.
I spent years going through different designs for my self-MOC, it’s been a project ever since I got into MOCing about six years ago. I ended up taking a lot of inspiration from General Grievous since he’s my favorite fictional character. The ability to hunch, the additional joint on the legs, the entirety of the arm design, and the lovely cloak. I thought about trying to do four arms, but decided against it for two reasons.
A) Making two sets of arms that connect and are fully posable in both forms is incredibly difficult on this scale.
B) I already did it on a different MOC
