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Showing results for tags 'alchemy'.
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Here's a rundown of what I built for the BioCup 2024. BioCup 2024 R0: Journey to Mars! Journey to Mars by Mohamed Marei, on Flickr "Seven years of astronaut school. Seven more years of travel... And here we are. RING RING RING .... Time to wake up." Built for the preliminary round of the BioCup. Theme: space. For this MOC, I combined the classic Lunar Buggy aesthetic with some modern concept art designs to yield this piece. The astronaut builds on top of a Technic Fig whose arms are swapped out for thicker-looking padded arms. The legs get a similar treatment with metal ingots in white. Merlin the deranged! by Mohamed Marei, on Flickr "Merlin's newfound fascination with alchemy has yielded an array of.... interesting experiments, to say the least." Built for BioCup 2024 R1 Theme: Energy Subtheme: Chemical Building something interesting for this round was a real challenge. I toyed around with various concepts until I stumbled upon my limited collection of light nougat bricks.. and then a face emerged. Slowly over the next few days, I built up Merlin and the rest of the scene, inspired by an alchemical twist on the traditional Dungeons and Dragons evil wizard trope. The whole time I was building, you could hear me sing "Necromancer" by Judas Priest. In fact, this ended up being the theme song of this build, and Merlin was built in the image of Rob Halford, legendary musician and Judas Priest frontman, who's also a native Brummie! The gargoyles at the back came last; they were more of an afterthought that panned out quite well I must admit. Sadly, this MOC didn't make it through the matchup I was in, but I took it to my display at Brick Festival Birmingham the following day (Saturday 22nd of June), where it received widespread critical acclaim.
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Alright everybody, stick on your conspiracy caps, because today we'll be over-analyzing a children's book! (More so than usual, I mean.) Now, in the novelization of Mask of Light, the Energized Protodermis pool in Makuta's lair is actually described as "mercury". Some may write that off as a creative liberty, but is it really just incorrect phrasing from a source of questionable canonicity? Almost certainly, but for the sake of argument, let's say it's not. We all know what Mercury is, right? Silver metal stuff that's liquid at room temperature, right? And what does energized protodermis look like? Of course, your next line is probably "So what? The author probably just used the word mercury since the two look so similar." Sure, but what if I told you that mercury and energized protodermis don't just look like the same thing...they ARE the same thing! Hold on there a second Mr. Judgy McNotCrazyPants! I think we all know actual mercury isn't the same thing as energized protodermis; for one thing, mercury doesn't have the ability to break things down like energized protodermis does, and it certainly isn't involved in mutation of any kind. Except for when it IS. Let me introduce you to a good friend I like to call "alchemy", which is formally defined as "the medieval forerunner of chemistry, based on the supposed transformation of matter" and informally defined as "old people pulling stuff out of their butts so they could make dat sweet sweet bling". Mercury is incredibly important in alchemy, and while I won't go into all the specifics for the sake of brevity, let me go over the ones important to this theory. Regular old mercury in alchemy does a lot, and is considered a very fundamental part of the field, but it doesn't have a lot to do with breaking things down and/or transforming them. However, there is a unique type of mercury in alchemy called "Philosophical Mercury", which, as you can probably guess from the name, is an important part of creating the infamous Philosopher's Stone. We won't be talking about the stone itself here, but rather, what exactly Philosophical Mercury has to do with it. In alchemy, Philosophical Mercury is essential to the process of transmutation, breaking objects down so they can be reconstituted into better materials. Energized protodermis either breaks down or mutates whatever falls into it. They two substances seem similar in function, sure, but not exactly the same if you're looking at them on the surface level. On the other hand, we're over-analyzing stuff right now, so let's go deeper. You can't "mutate" metal. Inhabitants of the MU are mostly made of metal. In spite of this, those that get mutated by energized protodermis end up with the inorganic parts "mutated" along with their organic ones. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense, right? Well, what if their inorganic bodies weren't being mutated, but rather, transmuted by the alchemical effects of the Philosphical Mercury? This would explain why energized protodermis affected their inorganic bodies alongside their organic parts. As for energized protodermis's dissolving effect on those not destined to transform, you could argue that the transmutation process is stopped halfway through a la Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist; without being reconstituted, the material comprising their bodies is simply broken down, seeming to "dissolve" away. Or it could just be that I'm digging way too deep into an off-hand descriptor from a children's book. Yeah, that's probably it. -
I got bored and built this cute little cottage for Fizzle and his apprentice. Upstairs:http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/zekk55/Wizardscottage/us1.jpghttp://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/zekk55/Wizardscottage/us2.jpgDownstairs;http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/zekk55/Wizardscottage/ds1.jpghttp://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/zekk55/Wizardscottage/ds2.jpg
