Tag Archives: Mech

Get your octopus on

We all have LEGO rooms or at the very least a designated work-space to build our creations. One LEGO space I’d love to see is that of Mitsuru Nikaido. Sometimes it’s satisfying to have “a thing” and Mitsuru’s “thing” is white animal mechs with dark gray interspersed throughout. If Mitsuru is the type of builder who keeps most of his creations, I bet I’d be treated with a menagerie of intricate animal mechs peering at me from his shelves. This octopus is his newest and among my favorites thus far. Whether it be for a flared fender, hot-air balloon or, in this case, an octopus head, this tapered piece is a godsend. This wily cephalopod is certainly brimming with character. Be sure to check out some of his previously featured friends including a frog, a crocodile, and a locust and crane creature double-feature.

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Who’s a good boy?

It turns out Fabuland has a good boy in charge of fire safety. Markus Rollbühler presents Barty and his shiny red Fire Brigade Bulldog Mech. This is part of Markus’ ongoing campaign to build one mech a week for a year, which is what we call job security at the Brothers Brick. So long as he keeps cranking out quality builds, we’ll have something to write about. No blazing fire (and incidentally no rug either) is safe from Barty’s watchful patrol. Even if he does ruin your one-of-a-kind Persian Fine Serapi Handmade Wool Area Rug, how can you stay mad at Barty when he has a face like that? With him it’s either nice rugs or unwavering fire safety. Make your choice.

I am Northstar Titan. I come to do Northstar Titan stuff

What has Brothers Brick alumnus Nick Jensen been up to lately? At last check, he was cradling a fat-bottomed old lady in his arms. We’ve all been there, right? Now he has built Viper’s Northstar Titan from Titanfall 2. Viper is one of the bosses fought in the Titanfall 2 campaign and pilots this Northstar Titan, which has the ability to fly, hover and carry a Plasma Railgun. Transparent Technic beams give the illusion that this model is hovering while also offering it stability.

Marvelous medic mech

Mech Monday is often one of the best things about the start of another work week, and today is no exception. With this colorful mech by Markus Rollbühler, we see one of the most interesting parts uses I have seen in a while. Minifigure legs are used here to form the center of this medical mech’s charming face. And what better place for legs, than in a saddle? In this case, this saddle with stirrups from the LEGO Friends theme forms the rest of the mech’s head.

There are so many other great part uses worth mentioning, like the fenders from the Disney/Pixar Cars franchise used on the thighs. And how about those window screens, snapped to either side of the forearms? One more great detail to call out is the big hand part used for the heel.

Greebling from the ground up

If you’re not familiar with the term, greebles are small details that make a simple object appear more complex. In LEGO building, that term is often applied to all those little textural elements you see on LEGO mechs and spaceships. (Don’t forget that you can check out this and many other LEGO-related terms in the TBB glossary.) Redbirch takes the greebling concept one step further with Mechannibal – a mechanical monster that appears to be all greeble.

Redbirch started building with an idea for the feet — minifigure torsos with jet packs. The rest of the monster is built over a core Mixel-joint skeleton, resulting in great articulation. Each move requires a lot of fiddly adjustments, though, as the surface detailing has to be tweaked to close any newly visible gaps. All that effort is worth it, as Mechannibal looks great (and menacing) from every angle.

Now we just need some clever builder to do a similar creation, but with all those Friends accessories that keep piling up…

A balanced approach to drone construction

LEGO builder Markus Rollbühler returns to the Brothers Brick with WheelSpin, a mono-wheel utility drone. Part of the year-long Mech Monday project, WheelSpin is a self-balancing mono-wheel drone with multiple configuration options. The base of the mech is filled with great texturing, with greebles including Technic chain links, hammers, and space blasters. The lime green of the armor creates a nice contrast to the transparent blue of the eye sensor, blade shield, and the shock absorber at the base of the leg.

The industrial version shown here comes complete with a grabbing claw and saw blade — advertised as “perfect for any kind of industrial job.” Personally, I see it as greeter at Wal-Mart in a very dystopian future. Your mileage may vary.

Fortnite Mecha Team Leader, heck yeah!

Tackle the Fortnite article? Sure, I can do that! (clears throat) You were delighted when we featured the Loot Llama. You went completely ape-poopy when we showcased the Fortnite Battle Bus. Now prepare to totally lose your collective cookies at the sight of this Mecha Team Leader built by Kelvin Low. Fortnite is a series of three video games that has kept 125 million players up for more than a fortnight at a time with its awesome game play and graphics. It is a pop culture phenomenon that I am definitely savvy to, so don’t go getting it into your heads otherwise. I was totally thrilled when I finally saved the…um…Fortnite princess from the…uh…Fortnite monsters. And I like how the mech looks sort of like Voltron except with silly faces which, as you and I both know, is completely integral to the plot.

Kelvin’s model is accurate to the source material–and I am speaking from personal gameplay experience and definitely not research I did two minutes ago. Care to build one of your own? Follow Kelvin’s step-by-step instructional Youtube video if you’re into that kind of thing, which you probably are.

I’m a frog-mech. What are you?

If life was like the Frogger game, this frog-mech would likely run over you. Without a reference of scale, it is hard to tell if Mitsuru Nikaido intended for this to be a delicate little mech, or a kaiju behemoth capable of toppling over the mightiest of city towers. Just to be safe, I’m going to err on the side of assuming any encounter on the road would lead to a car being totaled. What is clear, however, is this mech is fully posable and the shaping is just perfect. The spool for an eye is an excellent touch.

It would seem that white animal mechs with gray, black and yellow accents are totally Mitsuru’s thing as there are several more like it in his photostream. Here are previous times we featured a crocodile, a dragonfly, a lemur and a crane and locust creature double-feature, along with another picture of the frog mech, just for good measure.

DUPLO riot police crosses a thin blue line

DUPLO is an excellent way to engage the minds of 2-5 year olds and to introduce them to “regular” LEGO, which they would likely play with once they get a little older. The larger pieces, simple construction, and cute scenarios are ideal for little hands and developing minds. But leave a youngin’ watching a certain…animal-named news station unsupervised for fifteen minutes, and they may raid the stash of smaller bricks to build adorable DUPLO riot gear to keep the adorable DUPLO zebras from playing with the adorable DUPLO giraffes. A builder who goes by the dubious name of Paddy Bricksplitter shows us the way with this DUPLO riot frame.

Plenty of LEGO System, Bionicle, and Duplo parts are mixed (you can do that, you know!) to construct this admittedly coherent mech suit armed with a high powered water cannon, tear gas launcher and a heavy duty shield. When your DUPLO denizens get too rowdy, you can bop them on their adorable DUPLO noggins with the baton. Justice is served, poopy-heads!

Friend or foe, I’d like to know

At first glance of this strangely serene scene by Thorsten Bonsch, it seems this pair of poorly armed passersby facing off against an insectlike robot have bitten off more than they can chew. While it is not clear whether the robot wants to help them disarm peacefully, or separate them from their arms literally, one thing is clear… There is more to this model than meets the eye; It was inspired by Tales from the Loop, a series of illustrations and short stories by Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag.

Thorsten captures the delicate but strong appearance of the multi-segmented limbs, as well as the large industrial elements of the robot’s body depicted in the inspirational source material.

Scouting forward into landscapes of unknown terrain

Fascinating builder Kobalt brings his latest LEGO creation to the table, and it seems to jump straight from the cover of a 1960s sci-fi novel. The slim, lightly curved legs of the Atomic Bug support a large bulbous body constructed predominantly in olive green. This speaks to me of treading over rubble in some alternate universe’s cold war. Red highlights and pinstripes adorn this strider, while the touches of yellow bring out some rather clean greebling towards the rear. This craft has been well looked after. A series of snug searchlights are found under the cockpit canopy as well as some nifty aerials, made from a couple of varied lengths of flex cable. I couldn’t personally think of a better part for those large transmitter-receivers.

On turning this craft around, we are presented with what I can only assume is a power source. Built primarily in white, it stands out nicely from the rest of the body. The white 4×4 multifaceted cylinder hemisphere as the cap on the end allows the continuity to be smoothly ended. This reminds me of a futuristic energy core containment system, presumably for its atomic fuel. From this reversed angle we can also see more of the yellow hints, peeking out from the top. The girder piece gives such a great industrial feel and though it’s almost all hidden, the glimpses you get from the varied angles is all it needs.

The six-legged paleontologist

This bright blue Tachikoma-like mech by Blair Archer is affectionately known as the S.P.I.D.E.R. despite it having two fewer legs than members of the arachnid family. However, it makes more sense when you learn that stands for Solar-Powered Interstellar Drone for Extraterrestrial Research, which explains the multitude of solar panels, which Blair cleverly co-opted from Anakin’s Jedi Starfighter. But as incredible as the mech is, I might be even more interested in the buried fossil. Look closely, and you’ll see that it’s LEGO too, made of a variety of Bionicle and Hero Factory pieces!

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