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 brick-built world of Pandora

Avatar movie poster While I enjoyed the discussion about Avatar on the post featuring Harvey Cu’s Bionicle Thanator beast, I can’t say that it really convinced me to go see the movie. Nevertheless, we plunked down $15.50 each yesterday to go see the move in IMAX 3D, and I’ll grudgingly admit that it was well worth it — not for the story, which had the audience laughing in several places, but for the sheer spectacle.

Naturally, a major blockbuster movie like this wouldn’t be complete without the LEGO fan community cranking out creations inspired by the film. Here’s our round-up.

Imagine Rigney (imagine’s brickzone) gets us started with a great vertically oriented diorama complete with a Na’vi flying an Ikran, AMP suit on the ground, and Aerospatiale SA-2 Samson hovering in the air:

Harrison (corran101) uses the new Woody legs from the Toy Story sets for the 12-foot-tall Na’vi in the background of his vignette:

JasBrick (Flickr) takes a rather different approach with this pair of highly customized figs. The Na’vi minifig is actually an old Jack Stone figure!

Finally, Colonel Quaritch stomps around in his AMP suit in this vignette by MasterChief 1:

For more LEGO Avatar, there’s already a Flickr group, of course. (As much as I enjoyed the movie and like the LEGO creations I’ve featured here, here’s hoping Avatar isn’t the next Halo…)

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Livin’ in the desert can be tough.

Aaron Dayman‘s entry to this month’s Battle Bugs challenge is cute and deadly all in one sandy-terrain package.

David needs a bigger sling to take down this Goliath

Bill (kidthor) is at it again with another awesome mech called Goliath. Among the clever parts usages in this creation, my favorites are the use of Cordak darts in the missle pack and these curved bricks to flank the cockpit, creating a great shape transition.

Fatbot rolls out

He’s really just stocky, you know…

(L.D.M. built it. Blame him.)

GrayMud Security E.M.U. Mecha

Builder Tsan-Nien added me as a contact yesterday, and I couldn’t get over his latest creation. This is a great mecha, I really enjoy the mechanical exo-skeleton feel.

It has some style similarities to to a Matrix APU, or some smaller exo-suits we’ve seen before, but it also has a lot of cool, unique features. I especially like the fan/vent/cylinder things on the sides, and the gorilla-like proportions.

The Archangel Michael crushes evil with big stompy feet

This new mecha from Mark Neumann (SnowLeopard) represents Mark’s return to LEGO after a fairly lengthy period away from his bricks. Welcome back, Mark!

Though it’s been nice to see Mark at events like BrickCon and SEALUG meetings (thanks for the ride home last month!), it’s also great to see a new LEGO creation from him. Click the pic to see Mark’s description and backstory.

Dragon Unit Zero One [Updated]

I believe that the best builders are always trying out new techniques and new styles. For my latest creation, I tried to really push myself to do something new, and ended up well outside of my comfort zone.

I’ve never really worked with orange before building this mecha. I’d also never used multiple ball joints to create a spine in a mecha before this attempt. In addition, this was an attempt at a style of mecha, based on existing art, that I’d never attempted before.

I haven’t made up my mind yet as to whether this was really a successful build, but I do know that it’s done. I’m really curious as to what people will think of it.

[Edit] I got some great suggestions to improve the Dragon Unit from a variety of sources. Thanks to an ample dosage of peer pressure from Andrew Lee, here’s the MK II version.

Kaptain Kazoodle and the Travelling Circus of Doom!

Nathan Proudlove says his latest steampunk creation was inspired by Dark Cloud 2, a Christina Aguilera song, and the steam spider by Crabfu Steamworks.

In contrast to a lot of steampunk creations of the past, Nathan includes big splotches of color. The big flywheel gives it the classic steampunk touch, but the turquoise boiler and accents take this beyond the world of brown and gray.

Doors make good legs too

Alex Thyroid has managed to come through with a great execution on an idea that I’m sure has been eating a lot of mecha builders up. I know I’ve wanted to use these airplane doors as mecha legs for awhile, but never managed to put brick to brick and make one happen.

Let’s face it, you have to buy a lot of airplane sets to get enough doors to do anything with. Then once you have them, you have to deal with the crappy connection points these things offer. Kudos to this builder for a job well done, and one more for using half of a minifig trike in the same creation.

Busy bee

I’ve been a busy bee and had no time to do a decent job of blogging. So here are the pictures I have in my bloglist. One is old, two are new.

It’s got style, you know what I’m saying?

Bley Walker IV, by Alex Thyroid, has a great aesthetic. This isn’t the sort of shape you see every day for mecha. It doesn’t use a lot of flashy techniques, and there are a few rough transitions mixed in, but none of that matters. It’s just so different, and cool looking. I especially like the shape of the head, great use of technic pieces.

If you check out some of the other photos, you’ll see that the back opens. Don’t we all love play features?

One Charming Mecha

Maybe it’s because this new mecha by H3llb0ye reminds me of the aliens from the opening of The Fifth Element. Maybe it’s because it’s posed something like a gorilla. Perhaps its how expressive the poses seem to be.

Whatever the reasons, I’m a big fan of this mecha.