Happy March! Today was the first time I've seen slush and rain since winter set in here. Spring is on its way, by the looks of it!

I'll start off with this throwaway Toamod that I've had sitting around forever and finally took pictures of.

You like? Yeah, it's nothing special, but it looks cool anyway.

So in these past few days, I've pretty much just breathed, eaten, slept, MOCed, and taken pictures. The last one not so much... and not much of the second and third, either. It's my manic phase, and even though the smart thing to do would be to slow down and be reasonable, I've been just totally throwing myself into it. The results are worth it, I think, still. I've felt the first hint of a post-high crash now, but I'm still going strong.

I've made huge headway on some really cool MOCs, some that have been in progress and some that are totally new. There's a whole series of new Plant Life-elemental characters, including a really bizarre, tree-like totem figure; an improved Toa Nikila and Toa Nidhiki; a Titan version of Little Miss Krahka; the Bionicle Concert diorama edition of Tahu Mistika (following a similar aesthetic to Music Superstar Gali); a cute little Ce-Matoran (assistant to Cielnée in story); ... and, wonder of wonders, both of my Classic Titan Toa WIPs, Gali and Tahu.

I had to scrap everything I had for Gali's torso because I just wasn't happy with it. It was a similar construction to the Tufi Piyufi Titan, with lots of fiddly custom-ness and kinda cool sculpting, but I just didn't like it. Like the Tufi-MOC, it was a stiff, static chunk. I've now reworked it so that the waist bends realistically, and I'm much happier with the way it is now. (Besides, the old one was cursed with the loved-by-some-yet-reviled-by-many Nuvashoulderboobs. <.< )

Another thing that bugged me about the old Titan Toa WIPs was how small their heads were in proportion to the bodies. My plan had been to just slightly augment the original Kanohi masks, but quite honestly, the inevitable mismatch in size was merely comical, not "cool" or "stylized." It didn't occur to me to make completely custom heads for them, because that just seemed impossible to pull off... until now. Gali's Kaukau is already taking shape nicely, and I have the beginnings of Tahu's Hau as well. The custom faces will definitely add a whole new dimension to these MOCs when they're done.

One humorous item of note: Tahu's flame sword. My original concept for the blade took a whopping 37 pieces to build; the current one totals just 6. This not only saves parts and weight, but looks much better as well. Which is always my number-one consideration. I play around with a lot of fun and challenging techniques that never make it into my final creations because there just ends up being a simpler solution that looks better to me. I try hard not to use a particular part just for the sake of using it, or to fall in love with a particular technique-in-itself so much that I fail to consider what might work better. Every creation, to me, deserves to become what it wants to be.

Which brings up a rather rarefied, philosophical line of thought. I have felt, more and more, that my creations are almost alive somehow. Not actually alive, of course, in an objective sense (although I will confess that I don't believe in an objective reality), but they are alive in the same way that some ideas are alive, or stories. The kind of story that takes the author himself along for the ride. He may have some idea how it will turn out (or at least how he wants it to turn out), but in the authentic creative flow, the artist is really just a vessel for the work itself. He lovingly crafts it with all the skill he can muster, but in truth the creation has always existed outside time. His job is only to tease and coax and carry and drag it from the spirit realm of pure thought-which-is-all to the earthly realm of matter-which-began-as-thought.

I have sometimes remarked on the power of synchronicity. I find that the level of synchronicity - or serendipity, if you prefer - in my artistic pursuit has gone up over time. Or perhaps I am simply becoming more aware of it. Still, it is uncanny to observe how some MOCs come together almost by themselves, surprising me with a multiplicity of happy coincidences and lucky breaks. Sometimes I think of a part I would like to try and my eye jumps directly to it in the midst of thousands of others, defying any notion of linearity or causality. Or my eye falls upon a totally unrelated piece (seemingly unrelated) and it turns out to solve exactly the problem I was thinking of. And I cannot begin to count the number of times I've discovered a perfect use for a part that I thought I'd never use.

Hmm. I suppose I should have more pictures to post here. I'm going to at least try to get finished pics of the totem and a couple of the Greenery characters tomorrow. As for WIP pics, I feel I owe you guys a sneak behind-the-scenes peek at my Titans now that I've typed your eyes off about them. Look for those soon. I'll update and bump this entry with the WIP photos.

UPDATE: WIP pictures added in the spoiler tags!

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That's it for now! Have a wonderful day.

~BCii