Mitsuru Nikaido has been busy creating quite a mechanical menagerie. The latest member of his mecha-petting zoo is a triceratops like you’ve never seen before. I normally find the triceratops to be an adorable, huggable creature. But Mitsuru’s trademark white armor-plating style makes him look like a machine ready for war. I imagine there’s not much the enemy could throw at this beast to slow it down. (But, I’ll be honest, I kinda still want to give him a hug.)
I’ve been following the progress of this build as it has slowly came together over the past few weeks, so it is very exciting to share the completed work with you all. Moko has built one of his largest and most expensive looking models to date, the build being based on the RMS-108 MARASAI from Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. There’s so much to look at, even smaller details become interesting, such as the inner panels of the arm shield and the wide design of the head. Just making sure that this model can support its own weight must have been half of the challenge of constructing this goliath.
Read on to see more views of this mech marvel!
Oh, Zoids. For those hip to this classic mecha series, it’s hard not to get excited when you see something like this pop up in your feed. When I see builders like Juan Fernando Vargas Correa celebrating the series with such massive LEGO models, I swell with nostalgia. I mean, Gundams get tons of love (as they should) but Zoids are rarely celebrated as much as they deserve. This model, which he calls a Brachiosaurus, is based on the Ultrasaurus. It’s giant body is designed to serve as a mobile command center with some serious armaments. Two massive, long-ranged Supercannons are mounted on its side along with a plethora of other weapons lining its shoulders, tail, and chest. Not only does it pack a punch but it can take one too. The builder’s color blocking and plating show off the massive amount of armor necessary for such a ginormous, lumbering beast to defend itself in battle.
This thing is truly large and would be a beast to build. Hopefully it has lots of little vehicles and tiny Zoids to go with it, just like the kits would. That launch pad on its back certainly would hint at it, right? Builder Juan Correa will surely continue to impress with his awesome recreations and re-imaginings of these beloved toys.
As we all patiently await the premiere of The Book of Boba Fett, builder Greg Dalink gives us a hint of what might have been for the intergalactic bounty hunter if the Outer Rim met Pacific Rim. There’s no need to worry about the Sarlacc Pit when you’re piloting a giant mech too big to fit inside. Mechs aren’t a common piece of tech in Star Wars, but Greg’s done an amazing job of creating one that feels like part of that universe. Not only does it faithfully resemble its pilot, but it’s covered in the perfect amount of greeble detail. And touches like the tattered cape give it that dirty and well-worn feel that so much of the best Star Wars production design has.
Sometimes you see a few interesting LEGO pieces want want to build something from them. We do it all the time. So do official LEGO designers like Chris Perron. While the old big basketball hoops may be the standout pieces on this mech titled L-00-P5, Chris based his build around the triangular vehicle tipper end.
The tipper end parts are at the top of the mech, and those allow the front and rear paneling to be attached at an angle. This gives this brightly coloured mech an aggressive feel that its armaments – a big gun and a small knife – enhance. But it is really the legs that drew me in. The orange and white colour scheme become scarce as the dark grey mechanical bits are exposed. Chris assembled the feet with subtle greebling which allow full articulation.
Check out more of Chris Perron’s! builds here.
Armed and ready for combat, this mech has a menacing stare with its single prominent eye. Created by Keith Espinoza, the build looks as though it can strike some dynamic poses with its articulated joints. The mech comes equipped with a rifle and jetpack, perfect for blasting off into the battle. Curved tube pieces form around the eye, creating a smooth robotic look around the head. There are also some sharp angles at the chest, which contrasts nicely against the rounded sections of armour on the mech.
If the mech needs a quick speed boost, it can hop onto a hover unit, most likely used for covering long distances. Seeing an army of these flying towards you would make for quite an intimidating scene!
Moko has created this fantastic mech in a tan colour scheme, perfectly suited for blending in with desert terrain. The build has a stocky appearance suggesting this machine is heavily armoured and can take a beating. Some of the most interesting details can be found in the design for the dust covers over the joints. At first glance, it doesn’t even look like any recognizable LEGO piece but they are actually made of the lower half of ninja mask pieces stacked on top of each other.
Equipped with a rifle, missile launcher, and a heavy cannon, the mech has the ability to do some serious damage on the battlefield.
There is also a video that demonstrates some of the building techniques which Moko has used to create this impressive machine. Another cool feature that can be seen in the video is the use of coffee cups as missile pods.
You can check out more of our articles on fascinating mech builds, here.
Nobu_tary has created this accurate interpretation of the original Gundam from Mobile Suit Gundam. You can tell Nobu has studied the classic design as the proportions and angles of the mech have been faithfully recreated. A white boomerang piece represents the famous “V fin”, while the dark space between the eyes is created a quarter circle tile. Around the middle section is where the cockpit would be located, which portrayed by window frames placed sideways. Even the beam rifle has the stocky proportions of its original counterpart. Let’s hope that the shield is sturdy enough, as it would often get sliced up in the anime.
When you design a mechanical marvel to do your heavy lifting, you might as well make it modular, so you can re-configure it to manage the heavy loads in whatever form they take. The Configurable Utility Bot Ecosystem, or CUBE, by Simon Liu is one of a squad of cube-shaped bots that have fully interchangeable legs, arms, and utility tools. The crane looks like it could handle almost any load.
In case you are hungry for more, here’s the mech from all sides. And if you look closely, you’ll see the pilot is not a mere human, but an adorable three-eyed alien. Who better to operate the claw?
Don’t miss the other CUBE bots from Simon Liu!
This fiery machine was built by Alex_mocs and uses a variation of unusual parts. To begin with, the head is represented by part of a midak skyblaster from the Bionicle theme. The main weapon of this robot is the flamethrower on one of its arms which appears to use a spring from a shock absorber piece. Tyres cover up some of the exposed sections of the joints, making the build feel all the more complete. What about the odd cloth piece around the neck? It is actually a sail piece of the Silent Mary ship from the Pirates of the Caribbean set.
From the video, you can see the model has a fuel tank on its back which is portrayed by the storage section of the midak skyblaster.
TBB alumn Simon Liu definitely knows the drill, as this nifty LEGO bot shows. In a striking yellow and dark blue industrial color scheme, this bot looks like what I always hoped LEGO’s various mining themes would be (first Rock Raiders in 1999, then Power Miners a decade later). It does sport that huge chrome drill that only ever came in a pair of Rock Raiders sets, and subsequently doesn’t get used in fan creations nearly as much as I’d like.
Oh, and did I mention the bot is modular? And that Simon has built more than one?
LEGO builder Titolian brings you the formidable LumberMech M-3000. In his own words, this mech is “the finest piece of logging equipment to ever come from the forestry mechsperts of Northern Canada, this behemoth comes equipped with every tool needed to level acres upon acres of natural beauty. Its innovative internal engine runs entirely on maple syrup, making it one of the first tools that actively destroys its own fuel source. We didn’t think that one through…” Thankfully this would be the first and only time anyone has thought up a short-sighted solution to a difficult problem in the history of the world so we should be in the clear, right? It’s easy to forgive clearcutting on such a colossal scale when it’s done in an awesome plaid shirt. I mean, look at it! I’m smitten! We’ve been charmed by this builder’s work before. Check out what I mean here.
