[MOC] Cute little swanling

[BEAVeR]

So my girlfriend and I (but mostly my girlfriend ) have this obsession with baby swans. We think they're just the cutest things ever! We used to go for walks specifically to see the local specimens and I believe we have hundreds of pictures of our beloved cygnets. We even have our own lingo to describe them: a baby swan is called a "swanling" and older specimens that still haven't left their parents are called "sweenagers".

A swanling MOC was therefore inevitable. Inspired by the recent Lego Art sets, I went with a 2D approach mixing smooth SNOT for the main elements with a softer studs-up mosaic for the background in order to get a nice contrast. This was my first time doing such a mosaic, but I had a lot of fun with it, especially because I could take it nice and loose which was quite relaxing after solving an intricate SNOT puzzle for weeks. It really felt like painting with bricks! Speaking of painting, recently I've also been very inspired by painting techniques, so I tried to play with colors in the shadows and highlights of the swanling to give it some vibrancy. This was a lot of fun to play around with, but also posed an interesting challenge because bricks had to be oriented in specific direction in order to come to the right color gradients.

[MOC] Cute little swanling by Bert Van Raemdonck, on Flickr

In the end, I realized I was going in a Beatrix Potter direction, so I leaned into it and made the scene a little bit more whimsical by giving our cute little swanling a little caterpillar buddy to play around with. I also tried to emphasize the playfulness of the swanling by exaggerating the proportions and pose a bit. I'm especially happy with how the eye came out, as it really makes the swan feel playful and alive! Thanks, pirate bicorne piece !

For those interested, you can file the stud.io file here

[Autumn]

That's really cute! It looks really good!

[FullBrickDev]

Masterful work with the colour gradients! Did you use light bluish grey and tan between the white and yellow/orange? The colours you used in between kind of look like light bluish grey and tan but less pronounced, so maybe they're some other colours I don't recognise.