ARMaTech
Classification: Mid Range
Armaments:
(4) FF-HVCPISTILS
(2) HC-BIAHVCSM
A special reFrame made exclusively for General Mayhem’s use. Don’t let the candy-colored paint job fool you as this machine obliterates anything it comes into contact with. Targets are slowly blasted to pieces by the unique FF-HVCPISTILS weapons. No one has been able to explain or survive long enough to expose how they work. Rumor has it that General Mayhem controls these purely by will.
BUILD NOTES
Another build for Brick Mecha Division‘s The LEGO Movie 2 challenge where we build mecha for the various LEGO Movie characters.
Actually been itching to build a mecha for this character ever since I saw the trailers for the movie. I thought it was a really cool character and loved the helmet. What made it more interesting was that it used a Friend’s minifig mold.
After seeing the sets that had Mayhem’s colors (white, magenta/colar, and azure/turquoise), I knew I just had to make a mech build in these colors so I actually ordered both the 70828 Pop-Up Party Bus and the 70830 Sweet Mayhem’s Systar Starship for parts and the minifigure. I was actually pleasantly surprised with the Pop-Up Party Bus and the amount of Coral / Salmon and Turquoise parts and while I didn’t utilize both colors for this build, I’ll be collecting more of those for future builds.
For this build, I knew I wanted to make it feminine to fit the character but also make it deadly. I wanted to follow visual motifs that were present in the Systar Starship such as replicating Mayhem’s side antennae on her helmet and the vibrant color striping.
The first actual step for the build though required me to fit a General Mayhem pilot into the reFrame V3. As the original Sweet Mayhem had a Friend’s body, I settled on transferring just the helmet unto a white minifig body and legs and added some shoulder pads to the fig.
There were attempts to make a robo-Mayhem as the Friend’s head mold actually fits into a bar diameter but I couldn’t get the lower body right so I scrapped that idea 😛
WIP Process
I. Head and Chest Build
As mentioned in the build notes, I had designed the head to follow the same visual motifs from the Systar Starship, replicating the side ears / antennae found on Mayhem’s helmet and adding a colored stripe in the middle. I had actually considered using Azure for the middle stripe but since I had no azure 1×2 inverted curved slope, I opted for Magenta as there was exactly one from the Pop-Up Party Bus (whew!). This was used for the back part of the middle striping to get a similar shape as the back of the middle stripe in the Systar Starship.
One thing I wanted to do but decided not to pursue due to functional reasons was add a transparent middle chest piece that was similar to what was on the Systar spaceship. I badly wanted to insert a 1×1 or even 2×2 transparent circular piece in the chest but it made the cockpit door’s structure weak.
I mocked up the shoulders at this point in the picture.
II. Arms and Legs
Unlike most of my builds, I didn’t build the waist / pelvis area first as I needed to get the arm and leg proportion first, especially considering I was going for a more feminine silhouette on this build.
One thing I knew I wanted to do for the arms was create a drooping shoulder design. I didn’t want to create the shoulders too high/tall/wide as that would give the impression of a wider shoulder width, creating a more masculine upper torso shaping. The arms were designed to look like it was wearing a long-sleeved robe.
I also decided that the thighs would have to be big and narrowing down to the ankle and then a high heeled foot design. I was actually thinking of the mechs from G no Reconguista (specifically the Mack Knife), a little bit of the proportions of the Zone of Enders Orbital Frames, and a bit of Powerdolls for the leg proportions.
I had been toying around with the idea of using the vehicle mudguard as I have it in both Magenta and Azure but opted to use the Azure one for this build. The way I attached them unto the knee joint was a pleasant discovery and I expect to be using that for a future build along with some new 1x1x1 brackets (I’m using the minifigure bracket with stud for this one for now).
I was happy with the foot design as this is an entirely new heeled foot design and is a bit more compact than my previous staple heeled foot design but has better ankle placement and stability.
III. Waist and Weapons
After successfully making the arms and legs, I moved on to creating the waist design. I didn’t want to make anything too big or protruding for gender design reasons.
The hard part here was doing the magenta striping for such a small build area. As I’ve done in the head, body, arms, and legs so far, the magenta striping would have to be white on the outside stripe, magenta for the middle and since there’s really not a lot of magenta yet, this became quite restricting. The trick was to focus on aesthetics for the front and reinforcing that with the rear waist assembly since it would be covered by the back armor skirting (see next picture).
IV. Back Details
Nothing fancy for the backpack here but it was challenging continuing the azure striping from the reFrame V3 body build. I just wanted to cleany cover the back while adding some functional back boosters. I intentionally avoided a more complicated backpack as I wanted to keep this build light and making anything complex for the back tends to shift the weight considerably.
The back skirting was originally just the two big windscreen pieces on the back of both thighs. They’re actually connected by that new Plate, Modified 2 x 3 Inverted with 4 Studs and Handle on Bottom – Closed Ends (Rocker Plate) piece to the back of the thigh, allowing a good range of movement when the legs move. Added some details underneath these as I don’t like just seeing an empty windscreen underside. The middle hinged skirting was added later and had the right placement of studs to repeat the same magenta striping motif from the front side.
VII. Finishing Touches
I actually didn’t decide on the funnels weapons until my good friend and fellow BMD admin Chubbybots told me to go with it haha! Originally, the funnels were supposed to be tipped with unicorn horns (OR transparent light pink 1×1 cones but I only had two of those so booooo!).
Opted to go with the magenta cones as a compromise and attached them on trans-clear pieces for the action shot.
Extra Build Report
While posting the WIP photos of the build over at Twitter, I got a pleasant retweet from the Executive Producer of both LEGO Movies, Mr. Matthew Ashton about my build. The fun part about it was that he tagged Ms. Stephanie Beatriz who voiced Sweet Mayhem in the movie (and is also freaaaking ROSA from Brooklyn NINE NINE!).
While I didn’t get a reply from her, I’m happy enough to know that Mr. Ashton was happy with my build 😀 Also got some awesome feedback with people regarding the colorful mech build and it really brings me joy hearing people’s feedback on special builds like this.
I’ll also be bringing this build to my March 16 event happening at a local mall so if you’re based in Metro Manila, Philippines, stay tuned over at my Facebook or Twitter for announcements on that 🙂
reFRAME v3 Instruction Manual
The reFrame System is a modular brick skeleton aimed to help both new and veternan brick mech builders create their own designs in a consistent size with modular capabilities. It was originally designed to be a basis for all my mechs in the Mech Wars universe. Having gone through a number of upgrades, the V3 reFrame can now house a minifigure pilot in the chest without sacrificing aesthetic or articulation.
If you liked this article then you can help me out create more LEGO mech content by clicking the PayPal donate button below. Your monetary contribution, no matter how big or small, will definitely help me a lot in sustaining this passion 
Elegant build! Truly beautiful head and chest builds! The bright color pallet attracts a lot of attention! Truly amazing!
Thank you for the comment 🙂