I’m loving This new scene by Zane Houston. Frankly, as soon as I spotted a mecha gorilla in a thumbnail, I was sold. Then, I saw a diorama of it ape-handling a truck, and I got excited. When I zoomed in and saw that the mecha was piloted by a chimp? Well, I for one, welcome our new ape masters.
Devid VII brings to life one of Japans highest-rated anime series of all time with his outstanding micro-scale rendition of Mazinger Z (Tranzor Z in America). Mazin Go! Mazin Go! Mazingaa Z!
Anyone interested in mecha and unfamiliar with Zi zy‘s work should remedy that now by going carefully through his photostream. He is one of the original, and still best, masters of the small mecha. His latest offerings are no exception, ranging from ‘standard’ mecha like below, through to transformers in the same scale. Hot stuff.
Perhaps I have missed them, but I am surprised that we have not seen more creations made for the Space Marine Collectible Minifigure.
But Peter Morris (peterlmorris) has done it in spades with his Rapid Reaction Force. The SM-41 Mauler mech is a more heavily armed variant of his previous Futuron Strategic Pursuer Mk II. Not only does the mech add some firepower to his squad, but he also outfitted the figs with some extra pew-pew. I also must give props to LEGO for giving us so many unique sci-fi heads over the years…as a result there is a lot of added personality in Peter’s squad, and that is very cool!
…call in this guy. This mech by flickr user Bockaderunner sports some terrific heavy weapons, and looks great to boot. The posing of the mech is awesome, and gives it a much more dynamic presence than a simple at-attention pose.
Another of the sets I bought last week is the smallest of the 2013 Ninjago sets. This is the last wave of Ninjago sets before Legends of Chima takes its place as the go-to theme for battling minifig games, and I’ll be sad to see it go.
Now, I didn’t follow the mythos of Ninjago, or watch the show, so I can’t tell you a lot of backstory about the theme beyond the very broad strokes, but it’s sure included some sweet sets, and 70500 Kai’s Fire Mech
The set contains a small mech and two minifigures, and feels like a bargain with 102 pieces and a USD $9.99 MSRP. The mech is basically the little sibling of the previous wave’s Samurai Mech, which is my favorite set of 2012. The mech is built with ball joints, which allow it quite a lot of pose-ability. Add to that the full-fingered left-hand, and this is probably Lego’s best mech of this size.
The gold highlights are terrific, especially since so many of them are weapons, which are always useful. This is also the cheapest set thus far to include the new inverted 2×2 tiles. All of the printed parts except for the minifigs are stickers, which I didn’t apply, even though they do look very nice. The only new piece here is the fire mech’s sword, which is transparent yellow infused with transparent neon orange, for quite a cool effect. Here are photos of the inventory pages, for those who are interested.
The minifigs look great. Kai has a snazzy black and red outfit, which is just generic enough to be useful for other themes.
The bad guy has a fantastic grimacing visage reminiscent of the masks samurai wore to look fearsome, and a red quiver and hat, both of which are new in that color to this wave of sets. Both minifigs have back printing.
My verdict: this set is a winner. If you’re a fan of Ninjago, mechs, or good Lego deals, you should pick this one up. I enjoyed it so much, I’ve already bought two.
My local toy store is stocking up on the first wave of 2013 sets, so I’ll be reviewing several in the near future as I get time. Today, though, I’ll start with one of the new Star Wars sets, the 75002 AT-RT.
With 222 pieces, it’s actually quite a steal with an MSRP of USD $19.99, and even more so for being a Star Wars set, which notoriously are more pricey than their non-licensed counterparts.
It includes an AT-RT walker, which 
is basically the Clone-Wars equivalent of the AT-ST “chicken walker,” for those who, like me, don’t follow the Clone Wars cartoon series. In order for it to have something to shoot at, a Droideka and battle droid are included. The box contains three bags, one each for the droideka and figs, the legs, and the cockpit. The construction was extremely straight-forward. If you’ve built a two legged LEGO walker before, you’ve basically built this set. The faceting around the cockpit is pretty cool though, and the blue color-scheme does look fantastic here. And a word about the blue pieces: in the past few years, LEGO has been having issues with their plastic, and some shades seeming more transparent and slightly off-color (blue being one), and thus looking cheaper. I happily noted, though, that the blue pieces in this set look terrific, even to someone as picky as I. There’s a small sticker sheet included, as the only printed pieces are the minifigs. I decided not to apply the stickers, especially since two of them
go on rough-surfaced slopes, which is a terrible idea. Those pieces should always be printed.
The Droideka is some huge version I’m not familiar with, though it is pretty awesome, having what basically amounts to an artillery piece in the middle. I’m not sure how big it’s supposed to be in scale, but it towers over the minifigs.
The minifigs in this set are pretty standard if you’re a Star Wars collector, consisting of Yoda, a 501st Legion clone trooper, and some variant 
battle droid. I believe the clone trooper is a new design, with yet another new helmet style. (I think. I lost track a long time ago.) The battle droid has a single red dot of printing on the torso, which to me seemed like a pretty insignificant result for LEGO to go through all the extra work of sending the piece through a printer.
I didn’t encounter any unfamiliar or new pieces while building it, though there are some useful pieces. It did have an unusually large amount of spare pieces. However, if you’ve got any of the previous iterations the Star Wars walkers, and you’re not a Star Wars collector, I’d recommend giving this set a pass. I’ve got nothing particularly negative to say about it, but it’s really not a terribly interesting set. It is one of the few Star Wars sets with a high piece-to-price ratio, though, so it would be a good one to nab on a sale when it’s even cheaper.
Ironsniper is one of the builders whose creations beckon viewers to examine their intricate details. This mecha adds to that with a coating of light aqua armor, making it stand above the crowd.
Flickr user OliveSeon has built some of the most impressive large town dioramas I’ve seen. There are lots of people building cityscapes using official sets mixed in with their own creations and landscaping, but rarely are the official sets so well integrated. Additionally, he’s packed them both chock full of terrific details of his own, like a giant gazebo, full depth swimming pool and surf pool, a large factory, and lots of other fantastic stuff.
Here’s the first:
But just building a placid town wasn’t cool enough. No, on his second diorama, OliveSeon has gone for full-out apocalyptic anarchy, old-school style, with Godzilla battling a Gundam across the seaside city, turning what was already a stunning diorama into pure awesomeness. The flame effects are particularly awesome, and very reminiscent of their on-screen special effects counterparts.
Be sure to check out both of OliveSeon’s other dioramas as well, each of which are worthy of their own posts: though untitled, I believe they are Disneyland and San Francisco. A thorough perusal of all the photos will be rewarded, as there are brilliant details to be discovered in every picture.
Jack McKeen (madLEGOman) has built quite a spectacular mecha for the FBTB Mecha Madness Contest. This gargantuan machine of Victor Freeze’s would come in very handy while battling Batman…I also think it would work well for freezing mammoths! And what icy mecha would be complete without the ability to hurl pissed off polar bears??
There are a lot of superb entries to this contest, so please be sure to head over to contest threads to vote:
