MOC: Days of Bricks Past

[Captain Nemo]

After a year of building, my X-Men Layout was completed and displayed at Brickworld Chicago 2015 this past weekend, and was a rousing success!

Days of Bricks Past

The layout covered the bulk of my display table, and featured three large scale, fully lit, brick-built Sentinels--the X-Men crew, the X-Jet, and a ruined city landscape. FYI in the background you can spot builds by our very own ZCerberus.

This layout has been a long process, and I'm really happy that I'm finally able to show off all the work I put into it!

The Sentinels

Easily the most memorable portion of my layout, the Sentinels added a splash of rare dark purple and magenta color to an otherwise destitute landscape. Although only three Sentinels were used on the layout, I actually constructed five in total. The remaining two were slightly unique, and were given as gifts to friends. A third was sold at the Brickworld Chicago 2015 charity auction.

Each of the Sentinels featured immense detailing and electronic work. Interestingly, if you were to extract all of the wiring from just one Sentinel, and lay it end to end, it would stretch over seven feet! The Sentinels, each numbered, feature four lights on their feet, two on their hands, one on their chest, and two for their eyes. They also all reach 36 bricks in height, 14 inches, and thus are very capable of squishing any mutants they come across!

*From the Left, the second Sentinel features unique arm bands (that of three frogs hopping), and Sentinel five is Dr. Who themed, with a TARDIS heart and Screwdriver right hand.

Sentinel Design

Sentinel number one was designed first, and built over the course of a year (June 2014- June 2015). It was an immensely stressful and difficult build to complete. I meticulously designed every portion of the robot, rebuilding sections dozens of times to get the perfect look. Initially, I intended to use ball joints throughout, to allow the maximum amount of articulation, but I later switched to various forms of click joints to increase stability. A significant issue was the LifeLites battery pack, which located in the Sentinel's spine, that caused constant balance issues. Other dificulties were grip, as the Sentinels have trouble standing on smooth surfaces without starting to slide around.

* Early Designs

Other notable changes include the attempted use of large dark purple cylinder pieces. I had initially intended to use these parts for the Sentinel's shins and forearms, and so I actually acquired a large amount of them (some forty or something)--but soon after I found these both too troublesome (their connection points being tremendously weak) and ugly (because the purple seemed a different shade when compared to the purple of flatter less curved bricks of the same color). These early images above show some of the changes that occurred. The first image depicts my first attempt at the Sentinel boot, only days after Brickworld Chicago 2014. It was a far more detailed design that I'm happy was changed!

Other alterations included the use of tubing, which initially held a more significant role, as I had (for some reason) designed it was perhaps a good idea to use it to sure up the ankles and essentially hold up the entire Sentinel...Anyways this was phased out, and the metallic tubing was later only used decoratively, in addition to housing and protecting the wiring of the robot. Another change the was heart design, which went from a small trans clear ball design to that of the Galaxy Squad trans-pink pods--incidentally one of my favorite pieces.

Features:

Each Sentinel was fully equipped with lights to show off their most dramatic of powers. This included flight, in which each Sentinel contained four red LED lights in their feet, to give the impression of engines. Ironically however, this lighting affect was almost moot in person, as the lighting here is not very viable when the Sentinels are simply standing, and not being held up.

More noticeable however is the lighting in the eyes and hands, which act as searchlights to spot out mutant threats.

Additional Views:

The Sentinels were all clad in dark purple, magenta, and dark pink--and were designed as essentially large versions of the official Lego Sentinel--which while I do in fact love, is of course...not so accurate in size.

The X-Men:

In all actuality, the Sentinels are only half of the layout itself. The other important portion was that of the mutant X-Men, banded together not only to save the world, but their own lives as well. The layout included ten X-Men characters, all created by myself, with the majority of them being purist minifigures.

*Left: Nightcrawler, Rogue, Iceman, Professor X, Magneto, Gambit, Wolverine, Bishop, Storm, Kitty Pryde

In addition to the X-Men, I also included their famous X-Jet. My own version, this jet featured a light up cockpit and engines.

Mutant Powers:

Storm

An advantage of building in the X-Men theme was that it allowed me to show off multiple power sets, all of which created sunning visuals. The most notable was that of Storm, who created a massive tornado and summoned lighting to defend herself against a Sentinel.

The tornado featured Power Functions to spin, and was light by blue LED lights. This was my first time using Power Functions, and I was very impressed with the results. A video of the tornado in action can be found here.

To show the lightning affect, I developed a new technique, by which I chained individual lightning pieces by weaving them together with a Lego trans-clear fiber optic cable.

Storm herself is mostly official, but she utilizes a different white hair piece, that found on Quicksilver--and a custom arm, by Crazy Bricks, to allow for the sideways angled attack.

Wolverine

Perhaps the most simple of powers, I depicted Wolverine simply, and characteristically, jumping into the fray. His hair piece is custom, and is made by Christo for a Ra's al Ghul minifigure. The dark blue torso, which is used also on Professor X and Gambit, is new and from the Jurassic World line.

Nightcrawler:

One of my favorite mutants and power sets, Nightcrawler's teleportation power was depicted through the use of trans-pink flowers. He is a combination of various pieces, from Ronan's head to Ant-Man's body. His blue tail is a rare custom piece by BrickWarriors.

Magneto & Professor X:

The mutant Magneto, here shown working with the X-Men, uses his powers to move metal to protect himself and Professor X from a Sentinel attack.

On Site Images:

Admittedly, I didn't take too many pictures of my own layout on site at Brickworld Chicago...woops. Although there are already many good photos of it circulating around, to which I now show you some of:

* Photo by Hinckley

* Picture by Victor Fernandez

*Photo by Bill Toenjes

*Photo by Pete Strege

Additionally, here is another photo I took--that of the Award my Sentinel won. The Sentinel was voted "Best Mech" of Brickworld 2015--an award I'm extremely excited it won.

Enjoy!

~Nemo

[Graham Gidman]

Quite an impressive layout! That tornado is absolutely incredible. Wish I could of been there to see it in person.

[iamwhoiam]

AWESOME! I love the MOCs for each of the X-Men! If you plan on continuing this you should do one for Lucas Bishop and Kitty Pryde! Keep up the great work!

Edited June 24, 2015 by iamwhoiam

[deraven]

Everything about that is just wonderful. Especially great posing on the Sentinels.

...Oh how I wish that Nightcrawler was an official minifig!

[Godtshep]

Terrific figures and beautiful models. Well done!

[kevkipo]

Stunning, just stunning. will stay in my mind forever

[Colossus]

Truly a phenomenal set! From the purist minifigs that look custom to those towering Sentinels, everything looks amazing! I could use more pics of that X-Jet, though.

[allhenyia]

I wish that Nightcrawler was an official minifig!

[dr_spock]

Congratulations! Excellent work.

[Gerechtigkeitsliga]

What the hell.....i love it. The Sentinels are realy perfect in size and colour.

[Ultron]

Those sentinels are amazing but my favorite part has to be your techniques used with storm's powers. I never would've thought to use a power function like that. So awesome.

[Steph 104th]

This is absolutely awesome, this is up to the superb standard of all your mocs Captain. The sentinels are so well constructed and I wish I had that many X-Men

[Legocity2713]

Oh man, I love it. You can tell tons of work and planning went into it. The posing of all the figs is very well done and it all just blended perfectly together.

Any chance we could see the buildings you were planning, maybe in a build for Brickworld next year? I would have loved to seen the "Avocados at Law," and judging from the pic of the building on your Flickr, each structure would have been awesome.

Anyway, epic job altogether and the attention to detail in the build was astounding. (Especially the numbers by the legs of the Sentinels "02" and so on.) For some reason I was so captivated by that subtle detail, the fact that there was a number on the mech.

FInally, congratulations on the Best Mech(a) Award, very well deserved. Couldn't think of a better person, or a better build to have won it. :thumbup:

Edited June 24, 2015 by Legocity2713

[Werlu Ulcur]

Fantastic! I can't say what I liked more, the Sentinels (probably) the minifigs or the Blackbird!

Nice to see a well scaled Sentinel to minifig - Lego's version is close to ridiculous.

[Davids19]

This is too good for words! I love the X-Men and this shows how great they really are! Please, please, please, make more MOC's! Great job! ~Davids19

[Si-MOCs]

Yeah... this was so cool. Even if it wasn't batman

[Elephant Knight]

Totally awesome. I recently built a line up of X-men figs, (Though mine are all based on the comic versions) and have been contemplating on building a Sentinal. This has given me more desire to do so. Really like all the purist figs.

Eknight

[Jared]

Wow. Absolutely wow. It has been a VERY long time since I've read a post at least three times thoroughly over. The whole thing, from going through the design process to the final outcome was absolutely incredible, and I loved reading about every single little detail. I also had two lovely little guys to accompany me during my reading. ;) You are amazing Tim. I literally have no other words. So much so that I say actions speak louder than words, and I want to start on our Batman collab as soon as possible. I can only dream of coming close to this in terms of level of detail, but I will try my best!

[The Real Walkers]

A really superb layout!! One question: where's Bishop? I've looked through all the pictures, zoomed in, but can't see him :( But, overall, simply exquisite work!

[Krikkit]

I didn't see this the first time through.

Bloody Brilliant!

[BBBeavarr]

I know this was posted a little while ago, but I bookmarked it so now that I made my account I can say that this moc is BRILLIANT, and absolutely blew my mind. I'm absolutely astonished at how vividly you captured Nightcrawler's teleporting effect. The use of pink flowers is genius! My jaw quite literally dropped when I saw Storm's tornado and lightning bolt. The SNOT techniques on this entire structure are absolutely insane.

This is easily one of the best MOCs I've ever seen. Also - the Sentinel faces remind me of bullfrogs. Huge, adorable bullfrogs.

[sunhuntin]

this is incredible!! i love, love, love storm! well done

[LegoPercyJ]

Wow! This is one of the greatest MOC's I've seen! Great Job!

[Khorne]

Amazin MOC . Like your other MOCs, your eye for detail is equally, if not more, stunning here. Those Sentinels are a genuine work of art! It would've been really cool if you'd had the possibility of making one fly in your diorama. Still, the entire set-up is quite impressive.

The use of those pink flowers for Nightcrawler's teleportation residue is also really cool! I could totally imagine the faint "poof" sound effect when I saw those pictures . Stunning job, really stunning job .