Thomas_Jenkins_bricks
Droid Tri-Fighter
I set myself the challenge of making a completely brick built tri-fighter. There are parts that exist that can be used to provide some extra details, but I like the challenge of replicating the effect in bricks.
I’ve always had a soft spot for this model- I was always quite impressed with the 2005 version that used the click hinges to create the semi-circular ‘wings’ which seemed quite unconventional back then. LEGO traditionally includes a buzz droid minifig with their version, so in that spirit, I asked MisterShramp if he could design a buzz droid to accompany my design. And he really stepped up to the challenge!
I originally thought about using bionicle shoulder armour parts to create the central sphere, but I settled on this design after experimenting with a number of other spherical parts.
The next challenge was to find suitable parts to recreate the semi-circular wings. I went through a number of different ideas- but many of the parts I could find didn’t have the right radius to match the original design. In the end I used bricks with studs on 4 sides with a rigid hose through the middle. The curved tiles help maintain the shape.
After tackling those two challenges, all the other details were pretty intuitive, and the build is surprisingly sturdy too.
The colour scheme also went through a few revisions. Each illustration/ concept art/ scale model I could find had some variation of blue and grey. In the end I went for this pretty subtle pattern. Any thing busier tended to draw attention to the (unavoidable) gaps in the construction of the semi-circles.
Check out MisterShramp's flickr
and instagram if you haven't already- he's got a bunch of really interesting ideas and instructions for his builds too!
Droid Tri-Fighter
I set myself the challenge of making a completely brick built tri-fighter. There are parts that exist that can be used to provide some extra details, but I like the challenge of replicating the effect in bricks.
I’ve always had a soft spot for this model- I was always quite impressed with the 2005 version that used the click hinges to create the semi-circular ‘wings’ which seemed quite unconventional back then. LEGO traditionally includes a buzz droid minifig with their version, so in that spirit, I asked MisterShramp if he could design a buzz droid to accompany my design. And he really stepped up to the challenge!
I originally thought about using bionicle shoulder armour parts to create the central sphere, but I settled on this design after experimenting with a number of other spherical parts.
The next challenge was to find suitable parts to recreate the semi-circular wings. I went through a number of different ideas- but many of the parts I could find didn’t have the right radius to match the original design. In the end I used bricks with studs on 4 sides with a rigid hose through the middle. The curved tiles help maintain the shape.
After tackling those two challenges, all the other details were pretty intuitive, and the build is surprisingly sturdy too.
The colour scheme also went through a few revisions. Each illustration/ concept art/ scale model I could find had some variation of blue and grey. In the end I went for this pretty subtle pattern. Any thing busier tended to draw attention to the (unavoidable) gaps in the construction of the semi-circles.
Check out MisterShramp's flickr
and instagram if you haven't already- he's got a bunch of really interesting ideas and instructions for his builds too!