AL-HDAMCR H’Da

Piloted by Salaman’s Fury’s young mistress, the H’Da is a one-of-a-kind reFrame featuring a very rare reverse joint leg configuration. This enables it to have increased mobility and is coupled with the pilot’s deadly use of the KARIGATA-SPG1 spear, quickly moving into close combat and accurately piercing key points in enemy reFrames.

AL-HDAMCR H’Da
AL-HDAMCR H’Da
AL-HDAMCR H’Da


Build notes:

I’ve had the head design for this for a while now and had planned a dragon-esque design to go with it. Ever since I’ve been wanting to add a dark green addition to the AL faction and after doing the PALASO, I had more confidence in building a reverse joint leg build. For this mech, I decided to go with a more feminine look, with the body proportions reflecting a more lady aesthetic (small shoulders, big thighs, thin calves, high heels). The spear was a fun thing to build, toying around with that new Ninjago weapon piece, allowing me to clip on and insert quite a few things for a spear head.

The reFrame’s name comes from the Hida Salamander and the spear’s name comes from the Karigata Yari, both coming from Japan. Really wanted to give this that oriental feel to it.


WIP process:

Various Mech Head Studies
The head is actually a recolored version of an old design I had from a head building exercise months ago. Having this really gave me an idea of the look I wanted for with this build and saved a lot of time as the head design usually takes the longest in my builds.

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Body shaping achieved with handle bars, a droid body, some headlight modified plates, tiles, etc.

Next I started toying around with a medium body frame and wanted to put a circular piece as a chest plate. Ended up with a gold 2×2 dish that was plated off with a 2×2 Dark Green tile to give it a nice golden rim design. I didn’t follow the previous Ascendant Lord torso design and instead modified it for this build as I needed something sleeker.

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At this point I was slightly concerned with the lack of hints of gold with the legs but this was addressed in the final phase of the build.

Next came the legs and when I first designed the head for this, I knew back then that I wanted to use these bionicle knee guard pieces (same piece I used for the Mediator) for the legs as shaping pieces for the thigh. Somewhere along the build tho, I decided to use them as knee guards for the reverse joint knees as putting them on the thighs became too bulky. The feet are just a modified configuration of a previous foot build (same one I’ve used for my previous Ascendant Lords Rin and Ran)

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Lack of gold again for the arms. As of this point, I’m also using the older version of the waist/pelvis area which after initial feedback, felt lacking (thanks Bert! :D)

For the arms, decided to just use mixel ball joints for both shoulders and elbows and just pad the upper arm to look like a shoulder and the lower arm connects to a SNOT assembly, allowing me to fully plate the sides and underside. Hints of gold were added thanks to a suggestion by my LEGO buddies ;P (thanks Jet!)

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Nothing too big for the back thrusters but wanted them at an angle to help with vertical thrust. There’s also that clip by the back of the waist in case I needed to clip the spear on there.

The backpack was a simple build and reminds me of a Sazabi-type of booster configuration (or at least it’s backpack funnels). Didn’t feel the need to go crazy on the back as it wouldn’t make sense for such a thin legged build.

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Loved how the axe heads coupled with the Ninjago Sai really gave this unique look. There’s also a shuriken in there to fill a small bar gap from the sword piece.

The spear was easier done than expected. The key component here was the new Ninjago piece, allowing for 7 connections (1 stud, 3 bar holes, 3 bars to clip on) so that let me get this awesome shape for the blade. The shaft is just a technic axle connected to a bar and closed off with more gold pieces. Again nothing too fancy as the spear had to look lightweight but sturdy.

Other WIP images:


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:)

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