I had started building this guy sometime late 2015 as my last reFrame for Mech Wars 2015 but never really got around to finishing it until recently. It started out as a red mech that had trans-neon green parts embedded within design. The key design piece I had for this was the shoulder assembly, combining the bionicle leg guard with an opening with an airplane tail piece in transparent green from the 76025 Green Lantern vs. Sinestro set (I had purchased a few loose Green Lantern ship only from a local reseller a long time ago).
Here’s the original build back in July and notice how it was supposed to be a chunkier / chubbier build, focusing on heavy legs and huge but narrow shoulders. I had some feedback from a fellow LEGO mech builder named ZephyrChaos (great mech builder btw) to go chicken legs instead. This meant I also had to revise the shoulder design to suit the new leg shaping I had imagined. I left this guy on the work table for roughly 5 months, tinkering with it every now and then but was never quite happy with any progress. With the ITGE Macau exhibit fast approaching though, I knew I had to finish building this guy so I’d have something new to display over there.
I scrapped the red color scheme in favor of the Blacktron signature color scheme (black, some white, and trans neon green accents) knowing it’d work well with the current embedded neon green. I also changed the eye to be a little more intimidating, finished the shoulder design to be wider, and started on the thighs. I actually ran out of time as I had travel preparations to handle and ended up with a satisfactory look on the legs and an improvised weapon for the time being.
Come 2016 and having time to improve the build, I wanted to change the legs to a more suitable design and give the Mediator a more imposing weapon using the same bionicle blade pieces. I decided to retain the center white color striping on the legs but give it a sleeker and more detailed design. As for the weapon, I figured a heavy guy like this swinging a mean looking polearm could easily cut through an enemy reFrame 😛
I’m also experimenting with a new layout to package my builds for 2016 for posting online. Thought the old layout was a little too dull and didn’t really give a strong initial impact. I wanted a design that had featured both views of the build and giving it a more box-art kind of feel (looking at it now, it reminds me of the Real Grade Gundam box art layout).
That’s it for now and feel free to check out the Flickr album for this guy 😀
For those interested in LEGO mech building, I put out an eBook over at Amazon Kindle a while back called Mech Wars Instructional Primer. If you’re looking for a resource that could help you start or even improve your mech building skills, you might find this eBook useful 🙂
Interestinng thoughts