Happy New Year!
I hope everyone enjoys the holiday.
Just a teaser, here is a shot of the reworked mini frame that was posted to the Mechaton Flickr group by Malcolm.
Ironsniper posts a breakdown.
Ironsniper has put up a sweet little hard suit, and easy instructions in a six step format.
Step one-
Step two-
Step three-
Step four-
Step five-
Step six-
Here it is in a different color.
and with slightly longer legs-
Lots of potential here.
WT-04F Hi-Leg torso breakdown.
Soren sent me the breakdown shot for the Glaug style torso of the Hi-Leg frame. You may notice that he has continued to tinker with it. It differs from the original photo in two areas, the arms and hands, and the new black 1×1 plate behind the eye.
I get the feeling that this new rule book is going to be killer.
Break it down, part four.
Recently Soren posted this Photo to the Flikr Mechaton group.
Part of the caption read, “The secretness advances! Now with 120% more blatant Macrossery.” For those who don’t know, Macross is a series of science fiction mecha anime, directed by Shōji Kawamori of Studio Nue in 1982. Macross is considered by many fans to have produced some of the best mecha designs of all time. It certainly is the source of several of my personal favorites. This next pic is the Zentraedi officers pod, can you see the resemblance?
Here is the breakdown shot Soren sent me.
“Wait a minute,” you say, ” not all the parts are there, and some that are have changed!” Why yes they have, but there is a reason for that. This frame breakdown is for this following photo.
“Hey, that’s not a Zentraedi officers pod,” you gasp “it’s a regular Zentraedi battle pod!”
Yes, and just like The Zentraedi battle pod, this frame is proving to be very versatile, and will surely prove able to fill many rolls.
I can just see my Zentraedi force marching across the table now.
P.S. just one more Macross tie-in. Look back at the Conscript in the first photo in the post, and then look at this pic of Zentraedi female power armor.
Break it down, part three.
I mentioned in my last post that before the current project Soren had a few mech frames in common use. One of them, the Guncrab is a multi-ped, or multiple legged mech frame.
Soren's Guncrab
Multi-peds are a minority in Mechaton as well as the mecha genre as a whole, but they are definitely mainstays of both, and have been from the beginning.
Soren wisely understood that of the five frames he was making for the new rule book, at least one had to be a multi-ped, and from that understanding arose the Scrambler.
Here is the breakdown shot Soren sent me.
You can see from the first two shots that a variety of armament will be as simple as changing the central head. This frame is a great way to fill out a combined arms unit.
That is beyond stompy!
Break it down, part two.
Before working on the new Mechaton rule-set with Joshua, Soren already had two frames in popular use, as well as a frame upgrade. The frames are the Conscript and the Guncrab. The upgrade is the MgN-303EX, a modification of the MgN-303 frame by Malcolm Craig.
Soren has given the venerable Conscript a very slight reskin, and expanded the backpack. The original version looked like this….
Conscript
The new version Soren posted on Flikr under the name St-02D Commissar, looks like this.
Now here are the two breakdown shots that Soren sent me.
Just scratches that stompy itch, don’t it?
Break it down!
As you know from my last post Joshua A.C. Newman is working on a new version of Mechaton. He says he is working with “Vincent Baker, his son Sebastian, and Lego superstar Soren Roberts.” Joshua has asked Soren to create several new frames for this version. As to how many, Soren says “I want to do as many as Joshua can be talked into, but there will be at *least* five.” To build anticipation of the coming release, Soren has sent me breakdown shots of four of the five frames. Today we will look at the frame that graces the cover of the prototype rule-set, the Chub.
This is the breakdown Soren sent me.
It looks great in teams.
It can handle a wide selection of armaments.
It looks great reskined.
The Chub has already made a public convention appearance at Metatopia.
The Chub has truly made a place for itself in the war-torn world of Mechaton.
Mobile Frame Zero: Rapid Attack
Joshua A.C. Newman has just announced that Mechaton will have a tenth anniversary update. Looks awesome, and the cover puts the chub frame by Soren firmly in the official frames category. I can’t wait!
Transformers Challenge!
With the third installment of the Transformers franchise out, and all its accompanying hype, I have decided to set myself a challenge. I have decided to try to build Optimus Prime in Mechaton scale. Now before all of you start screaming “Hypocrite” at me, let me say this. I know I have said many times in the past that there is no “one true Mechaton scale” and I have gone out of my way to illustrate that point and list as many different scales as I could. That point does not change the fact that every game of Mechaton I have ever played, and every Mechaton model I ever built was in the classic micro-fig scale of five plates equals six feet. So my personal Mechaton scale is without a doubt Micro-fig scale.
Another reason for this scale choice is that it is a challenge, and I think in Vincent’s favorite scale micro-fig plus, or seven plates equals six feet, building Optimus Prime would be too easy. One of the oldest Mechaton props I have is a semi tanker I built in 2003, it is in some of the oldest Mechaton pics I have. This semi cab is three studs wide so my Optimus will have to be to scale with this model. In Vincent’s chosen scale the cab would be about four and a half studs wide, making the model much larger and easier to build.
The next reason for my scale choice is that I want the challenge to be possible. I can see no way of building Optimus Prime to my requirements in two-plate scale where a car is one stud wide and two studs long, it just won’t work.
So what are my requirements? The first is that it looks like Optimus Prime. Second the parts of his body must be the appropriate colors. Third, and this is the big one, it must transform. Forth, the transformed version must look like a truck. Oh, and one quick addition to the third requirement, the transformation is not achieved by disassembling and reassembling the parts.
I am using this character model template from the first TV show as my guide. The only problem with the template is that it has no wheels on its legs. The wheels on the legs are part of what makes the truck form look like a truck, so I am using some other art for additional reference, but the template is still my color guide.
I have used TV show templates as a guide to building a mecha model one other time, but that model ended up being eight inches tall. While I did build two micro-fig scale versions of that same mech, and they came out very well, they did not transform.
By the way, there is that pesky truck I was talking about in that last pic.
This is a personal challenge to myself, but if anyone else feels the need to build Optimus or any of the transformers, (in any Mechaton scale) I will post them.
Well I’m off to make a couple of bricklink orders.
Keep it stompy!
