[Alt-Build Contest] NEXO KNIGHTS 70327 The King's Mech => Ice Planet 2002!

[6180HydroSearchSub]

An alt-build of 70327 The King's Mech for the Eurobricks Alt-Build Contest, small category.

Speaking as somebody who loves mechs, does anybody else sometimes take a look around LEGO's product offerings and think, maybe we could dial it back on the mechs just a little bit?

So as a fun challenge, I thought it would be interesting to try and turn a mech set into something that wasn't--the challenge being that mechs are generally designed with appendages that move (i.e., plenty of joints) but without many standard pieces (like bricks and plates). As a bit of extra fun, I decided to experiment on a mech set out of my dark ages, 70327 The King's Mech, and this is what I came up with:

ICE PLANET 2002 is back! Clocking in at 281 pieces, or approximately 75% of the original set's pieces (not counting the Ice Planet 2002 minifigure included just for visualization), this ship is intended to be an homage to classic Ice Planet 2002 sets like 6834 Celestial Sled and 6879 Blizzard Baron. When looking at the original NEXO KNIGHTS set, the first thing that jumped out at me (after the colors) was the giant sword piece which clearly needed to become a center ski just like the vintage sets had.

The next elements of the alt-build to come together were the side skis, as the vintage sets always had three skis. That's where some of the first mech parts came in, to create some angled support struts as opposed to simply mounting them underneath. I thought it made sense in-universe if the support struts were capable of variable geometry, acting like suspension while skimming the icy terrain of Krysto. (I would also be lying if I wasn't at least a little influenced by the silhouette of a Klingon Bird-of-Prey, which definitely permeated the build going forward.)

The next idea I had was to use the NEXO mech's mask as some approximation of the radar dish that both vintage sets had. However, for the new alt-build I imagined it would function more like some sort of cowling or shroud for the laser drill--serving double duty as both a display for the operator and as protection from any icy shards that came flying their way!

I was quite pleased with how the engine pods turned out, between the fairly consistent color blocking and the shaping achieved despite the limited parts palette. The hardest thing was in figuring out all the SNOT geometry needed to make them work. The next few gifs peel back some of the outer pieces to show what's going on underneath. For example, the entire front of the engine pod including the "pontoon" is held on by one 1x2 jumper plate, and getting the two sloped curves to actually mirror one another was a bit tricky too; it took a lot of trial and error to figure out that the stack from back to front was: jumper plate, up bracket, clip plate, ball joint plate, plate (round plates), down bracket.

The backside of the engine pod was just as tricky: a balance between figuring out how to transition from SNOT to studs on top while making a relatively strong connection while getting the wedge to line up with the front of the pod. The final solution resulted in the 2x2 plate with technic pins sticking up just a little into the hollow of the 4x4 pointy wedge, while the bottom of the 4x4 wedge plate had to sit slightly below the top face of the SNOT plates. The below gif shows both this and a pretty good angle of the ship's "reactor", the stack of trans neon orange wedges alternating with technic plates.

I'll take a moment here to admit that, based on the parts limitation, this model might be a bit fragile in real life. Some of it is due to a shortage of critical parts (I would have killed for more regular plates and jumper plates!), but also due to the intrinsic challenge in figuring out how to make pieces from a model designed to move instead not move. For example, I mentioned the alternating technic plates in the "reactor" earlier since I ended up sticking a technic pin through them in an effort to ensure the back platform wouldn't just be hanging off a single digital stud. Similarly, I tried "locking" the ball joint connection that connects the front and back halves of the ship with a technic axle into a 1x2 technic brick. The below gif shows this as well as how the center ski attaches to the craft:

The cockpit actually ended up being the last major part of the ship that was built and to be honest I ended up being pleasantly surprised that it looks as cohesive as it does given the remaining parts I had to work with. My favorite design element in the cockpit are the controls, built from just a few robot elements, that was inspired by the classic space control piece found in 6879 Blizzard Baron.

If you're still here, thank you for reading this far! I've really enjoyed both building for this contest as well as seeing all the other entries! I will leave you with two more ortho views of the ship from the side and top:

Edited January 27 by 6180HydroSearchSub
Typographical errors.

[SpacePolice89]

This looks fantastic. I like how you managed to capture the Ice Planet look with pieces from a modern set.

[6180HydroSearchSub]

3 hours ago, SpacePolice89 said:

This looks fantastic. I like how you managed to capture the Ice Planet look with pieces from a modern set.

Thanks, @SpacePolice89--what a compliment from such a noted space enthusiast on this forum!

After building this I would definitely love a Ice Planet 2002 revival in the Icons line! (Although I would be lying if I said I didn't prefer something more in line with 10497 's aesthetic rather than the new Renegade's...)

[SpacePolice89]

1 hour ago, 6180HydroSearchSub said:

Thanks, @SpacePolice89--what a compliment from such a noted space enthusiast on this forum!

After building this I would definitely love a Ice Planet 2002 revival in the Icons line! (Although I would be lying if I said I didn't prefer something more in line with 10497 's aesthetic rather than the new Renegade's...)

New Ice Planet 2002 sets would be a dream coming true but they would need to reintroduce trans neon orange for that.

[6180HydroSearchSub]

5 minutes ago, SpacePolice89 said:

New Ice Planet 2002 sets would be a dream coming true but they would need to reintroduce trans neon orange for that.

That clearly just means they need to bring back Aquasharks as well to get more value out of the color!

[SpacePolice89]

3 hours ago, 6180HydroSearchSub said:

That clearly just means they need to bring back Aquasharks as well to get more value out of the color!

Yes, I agree 100%. They should also bring back trans neon green so that we can have all the Aquazone and Space subthemes.

[aFrInaTi0n]

Wonderful vessel - gives me vibes of the old childhood days. I would also love for them bringing some of the old themes.. trans neon green esp. would be a nice thing for a project I still have in mind :D

[tmtomh]

Wow, this is bananas, in the best way - Ingenious building techniques to achieve such a great result!

[6180HydroSearchSub]

Thanks, @aFrInaTi0n! Very curious about what you have in mind for trans neon green!

@tmtomh, you are too kind, and "bananas" is right! I could not even tell you the number of times I had to completely redesign sections of the ship after realizing I didn't have enough parts to mirror it for the other side!