Inspired by the robotic mascot of MAKE Magazine, LEGO builder Omar Ovalle got down to some making of his own — resulting in a supercute retro-styled robot. The stripped-back colour scheme perfectly reflects the inspiration, with details added through judicious use of cut electrical tape. I love this thing’s chunky 50s-era blockiness. I want to see an army of these robots marching in synchronisation out of the airlock on a Soviet moonbase.
Italy’s extremely prolific Marco de Bon is ready to rumble! His latest creation pits two big bots against each other with an entire LEGO microscale city playing backdrop to their battle.
The black and gray bot is clearly the aggressor, roughing up the skyscrapers while the dark blue Midnight Ranger seems to be avoiding toppling any buildings, planting its feet carefully along the streets. There’s a great energy and enormity of scale on display.
LEGO mech suits generally come in one of two varieties — combat hulks clad in armour plating, or civilian-role rigs, stripped back to their mechanical bones. Andreas Lenander‘s Powerloader Exo Suit is a great example of the latter style — its frame festooned in greebles and mechanical-looking details. All-grey creations can lack impact, but the impressive depth of texture more than makes up for the lack of colour. There’s an obvious nod to Peter Reid’s classic Exo Suit design, but Andreas makes this version all his own with cogs broadening the shoulders, and a fearsome pair of toothed grippers for moving stuff around. Although this isn’t a military mech, you get the impression it wouldn’t do too badly if things turned nasty in the cargo bay.
I was lucky enough to see this model “in the brick” as Andreas and I installed models in the LEGO House Masterpiece Gallery. It looks even more impressive than in these photos, and if you make it to Billund this summer, I’d recommend you seek this out for a closer viewing.
Insects and arachnids are a constant source of inspiration for builders of LEGO mecha, and it is easy to understand why. Between the exoskeletons, the many-jointed limbs, and the way that many of them scuttle and scurry, there is something magical and also terrifying about them. This upright mecha by builder [VB] is inspired by one of the scarier arachnids I can think of, the whip spider.
Not only do the extremely long arms with menacing claws closely resemble its real-life inspiration, but the builder has included some actual whips as part of the mech’s hip section. I also love the use of printed fan tiles for eyes.
The bright colours, cartoony style of pieces and cute anthropomorphic animal characters of Fabuland make for a perfect nostalgic base to build on. And boy do LEGO fans build on it! Here at The Brothers Brick, we have featured over the years fabuland Star Wars, pirates, The Hobbit and even Black Fantasy and Apocalyptic Fabuland. Zilmrud brings another theme to the collection with his over-the-top futuristic military creations sporting the cute characters in completely inappropriate settings. What would Ole Kirk Kristiansen say!
The builder combines cute DUPLO and Fabuland elements with an excessive amount of weaponry, with civilians in the background cheering the armed Fabuland forces. There are many iconic pieces included in the build, like original fabuland doors, windows and even benches! Of course it can hardly be a Fabuland creation without the figures and the bulldog fireman in the tank actually looks like a strangely appropriate choice… The below photo of a bunny mech stealing eggs is especially timely. The style of this one is more tailored to the bunny Fabuland figure than the theme as a whole, but still captures both the feeling of the original theme and what we are used to in mecha. The “chicken’s” nest is particularly inspired, using a DUPLO cupcake cup containing small shrub pieces as the nest’s material.
I always wanted to make a mecha dragon, even as far back as 2012 when I fell in love with LEGO dragons. I always knew it would be gray and greebly, but it almost seemed like cheating. Light gray is the LEGO colour with most the available detail pieces, so it would make finding solutions to building problems easier than I would like them to be. Ironically, this is the most complicated dragon build I have made yet (of which there are 24 now, including some more open interpretations of what a “dragon” is). I working on building this one on and off for 2 months from late December to mid-February.
Click to read about the building process and see a few extra pictures
I am not a miner, but I imagine that it is not quite as fun and exciting as the 1990s Rock Raiders LEGO theme made it look. Nevertheless, I have fond memories of this action-packed adventure theme. My nostalgia was somewhat dormant for a long time, until I had the privilege to write about a Rock Raiders tunneling drone here on the Brothers Brick. The creation made me feel so good that I felt compelled had to make my own Rock Raiders-themed model. And here it is; the “Dolomite Destroyer” (named in the honour of the iconic 4940 Granite Grinder LEGO set).
I have experimented with proportions a bit for this model. Just a simple colour scheme would not cut it for a Rock Raiders build. It had to be bulky and rough. The whole thing started with a Throwbot/Slizer shoulder/hand piece as the mech’s arms and continued from there. The second central part was an Atlantis minifig helmet within the body. I finished the model off with a little crane because I think cranes look so cool and industrial. While this model was fun to build, I will be scrapping it to build another creation in this style later on.
This bulky mech by Zane Houston is called a brawler, and it could not match its name any better. From the large wheels built into the legs to massive shoulder and hip joints, this is one heavy mech. However, this is more than a simple brute of a model, as there are plenty of details worth mentioning. In particular, the mech has several pistons and other mechanisms that ground it in practical construction. Throughout the model, the builder has also added simple repeating details like cheese slopes in the thighs, and canisters in the forearms.
In addition to some fantastic angled structures that would look quite at home in any massive LEGO spaceship, the color blocking is also well-executed. However, I think my favorite detail would have to be the 2×2 round bricks with grooves tucked into several joints, playing off of the more noticeable gears.
We recently featured a tunneling drone, which was uploaded on the initiative of a year-long online mecha building project – Mech Monday. One of the builder’s sources of inspiration was Markus Rollbühler, who built this adorable drilling robot for the latest Mech Monday.
While not overly complicated, this little guy has a bright and well-blocked colour scheme. The robot also features some unique parts like the chrome silver Rock Raiders drill piece, which is used instead of legs. With its weird and wacky expression, this is a mech any miner would love to take to work.
Benny is a man and minifig of many talents and versatility, having captured the hearts of many around the world. With the help of LEGO fans, he has been to the Star Wars galaxy, and now he’s taken a leap into the Macross Saga with this unique three-in-one transformable model built by Wallace Chow. I’m impressed by the level of thought and effort it took to represent multiple forms in a single LEGO model, all while maintaining thematic consistency. Each form stands on its own as instantly recognizable.
March is nearly at an end, and that means the end of another fun month-long building challenge known as Marchikoma, where LEGO fans build tributes to the semi-autonomous spider bots from the Manga/anime franchise Ghost in the Shell. When I saw this entry by Oscar Cederwall (o0ger) I was blown away. Not only does the model capture the aesthetic of the source material in a unique but instantly recognizable way, there are some great part usages to call out.
The ice skates make perfect details on the feet, and the microphones used as the primary eyes are spot-on! Also, check out the hands made from Hero Factory minifig arms. But one of my favorite parts is used as the top of the head: it’s a Bionicle armor element that was used on the legs of the Star Wars constraction figure of the Range trooper from Solo: A Star Wars Story.
A LEGO model built predominantly from a single colour generally needs to be something special to grab the eye. This gleaming clockpunk-style spider beastie from Markus Rollbühler manages to do exactly that, using a variety of textured pearl gold parts to provide lots of delicious mechanical detailing in amongst the bling.
The eye in the mechanoid’s “face” is a brilliant parts choice, and I like the egg-sac feel of the teal balls held between the wheels of the abdomen. Katana for the lower limbs make this thing look like it’s tip-toeing around, but it’s the use of saxophones for knees which is the masterstroke here, adding touches of tiny texture to a nicely angled joint, and proving once again there’s no such thing as a single-use LEGO part!