Tag Archives: Mecha

We all love a good LEGO Gundam or Macross mecha, but LEGO builders everywhere are also creating excellent models of their own designs. Have a look at them here.

The functional plausibility of Kwi-Chang’s heavy robots

While we certainly feature plenty of LEGO mecha here on The Brothers Brick, I’ll admit that many of them fall into the old Gundam pattern of humanoid robots that look like a giant person wearing armor. Not so with this latest from Japanese mecha master Ryuhei Kawai (Kwi-Chang), who recently posted a new mecha called LHB-025 鬼頭刀 (apparently the name used in Taiwan for the mahi-mahi or dolphinfish). This mecha looks more like something that would be in a Neill Blomkamp film, with a vaguely arthropodal aspect — wings, flaps, and cylinders sticking out of the frame every which way. The predominant white color scheme with spots of red make the whole thing look plausibly functional in an industrial setting.

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Lean green army machine

I recently picked up Wolfenstein: The New Order in the Steam Winter Sale — partly because it was very cheap, and mostly because it promised cool alternate history robots. While the game didn’t win me over, the promise of robots was fulfilled and now I’m seeking more vaguely German machines. Djordje delivers with this “Höllenhund”. My favourite part use here must be the single armour part angled in such a way to create a dome helmet, and the red eyes peeking out below.

A gallery of the model is available on Brickshelf.

This four-armed mech is too good

kenny_yan‘s mechs are both superbly built and instantly recognizable, and this newest one looks to be the best yet. With four arms and an aggressive stance, this build pulls off a lot of complex angles as well as having great articulation thanks to the small Mixel joints. There’s not much more to say here other than to check the builder’s photostream to drink in all the detail; this one’s really worth the time.

Click to see more angles

LEGO Warhammer 40K Imperial Knight

Warhammer and Warhammer 40K are a lot like LEGO in terms of getting its hooks into you and draining away your time and money. Spare a thought then for people like funnystuffs who are involved in both hobbies. Luckily for us, it usually leads to creations like this – an Imperial Knight with a cockpit that fits a minifig as well as articulated joints.

Check out the original, solid model version to judge how close this comes.

Si-BORED Industries new drone creates a BUZZ of excitement

Now the festivities are over, the presents opened, and the New Year welcomed in, we can turn our focus to Droneuary. During the month of ~~January~~ Droneuary, there is a definite surge in the production of new drones within the LEGO community. These Wichtigtuer Beinenstick (lit. “busy-body beehive”) drones by our very own Simon Liu are busy with a hive task.

Simon’s winged, honey-logistic drones were developed in response to comments on the original Wichtigtuer drone, which launched a couple of days ago. The original pectacular drones came armed with an ingenious brick-built weapon, complete with ironsight. Clearly the winged drone had to drop some lower body weight to achieve the miracle of flight.

Titans of part usage

Builder Cole Blaq is fast perfecting the art of “blink and you won’t notice it’s LEGO”. For the past while he’s been creating a line of robots which he calls the ‘Titan Series” that make great use of constraction armour pieces (among many other things) to create models that really convey the feeling of cold metal.

The latest is the Titan FX.10:

My other favourites include the Titan FX.L:

And the TITAN DSX:

Check out the rest of the Titan Series on Flickr.

“Nemesis” heavy gunner frame

Rancorbait is definitely no stranger when it comes to mechs. We’ve featured the builder’s Gremlin mech in the past, and today’s entry is equally striking. It’s immediately clear who built this – Rancorbait’s styling is unmistakable. Also be sure to check out the alternate picture that uses some trickery to simulate gunfire.

Monochromatic mecha beast

Dane Erland proves below that you don’t have to use color to build a creation that catches the eye. This tip-toeing beast is named Ghoulspine and I imagine he slinks up to his prey silently but for the gentle sound of a cooling fan or two. Is that sleek tail used for balancing, swimming, or something else? I’m not sure, but it’s lovely nonetheless. Also, check out those ingenious shields sported by the Ghoulspine’s two handlers.

Yes father, I will become a Bat... a Bat-Robot-Mech-Thing

Gregory St doesn’t post Flickr images often, but this Batman mech caught my eye. I think it does well at being chunky and slightly menacing, but still fun and comic-book like. I could see this leaping off the page of a classic-era Batman comic, rather than stalking the gloomy streets of the po-faced movie version of Gotham. This is what Batman should be about – a sense of menace and impending violence, accompanied by a faint whiff of camp ridiculousness…

Looking back through their Flickr stream, I’ve enjoyed seeing how the builder has posted different designs all based on the same mech frame. It’s interesting to see how color choices and changes in little details can create a totally different feel from the same base structure. In particular, I liked their interpretation of Lord Business from the LEGO Movie a while back…

I’d like to see more of these builds. Maybe some other comic book heroes?

SD Gundam Superior Dragon by Moko

For my stocking this Christmas, my wife included two adorable little SD Gundam figures she picked up at Uwajimaya here in Seattle. They were all the rage back in Japan in the 80’s, and I have fond memories of playing in the schoolyard dirt with adorably chibi versions of Guntank, Dom, Zaku, and of course the titular Gundam RX-78-2. There are about as many variations on Mobile Suits in the Gundam canon as there are stars in the galaxy, and Moko has built the “SUPERIOR DRAGON” character from the Gaiden storyline.

Notably, Moko has used nothing but stock chrome-gold parts for his build — mostly the rare 1×2 gold-chrome tiles that only came in three City sets back in 2003. Rather shockingly, I think I see several chrome-gold C-3PO arms for Gundam’s fingers! The dual lances can combine with part of the shield to form a bow, and the wings spread out like many of the stock toys and plastic model kits.

Moko says on his blog (where you can see more photos) that he’d been putting off building this because he thought getting the shape right with the very limited parts selection would be too hard. But he also says he wanted to end 2015 with flair, and I think he’s certainly done so!

Poultry-inspired space theme is clucking eggs-cellent

Between designing new Ideas sets, turning your favourite dudes into cubes, and helping make movies, Angus MacLane has been working on his very own classic space theme. So what sensible topic did he use as inspiration for his ‘tron? Well chickens, of course! The theme is called “BokBokTron” and Angus has created quite a few awesome models already:

BokBokTron Box

BokBokTron Thigh Fighter (…ten points for the pun, Angus)

BokBokTron Meggatron (…does not transform into giant chicken gun, unfortunately)

And Angus isn’t the only one building to the BokBokTron theme. Chris Maddison was recently inspired to have a go too…

BokBokTron CHX Nugget

We’re hoping to see more chicken creations from other builders soon. After all, isn’t it just a cracking good idea?

Double whammy dreadnought

Conveying raw strength with stance and proportion is something the recent Hulkbuster set did really well, but this “dreadnaughtwhammer” by chubbybots blows it right out of the water. It’s got so much going on, so I won’t zero in on all of it, but I have to point out the use of the brown barrel pieces on the arm as a great way to break up the shapes as well as proving some color variance.

Be sure to check out the builder’s photostream to see the progression of this model.