The Brass Automaton (a steampunk style prototype of the Iron Giant) MOC

[Murdoch17]

Long before the Iron Giant began hurtling towards Rockwell, there was a prototype model, which landed on Earth close to 64 years earlier than the Iron Giant's 1957 landing. They were very similar robots, made by an Ancient race of beings that wanted to gather as much information about the Universe as possible. They first created this prototype model which was made mostly of brass, copper, and iron, but was powered by a highly advanced Fusion reactor that was powered by metals the robot consumed, usually uninhabited asteroids floating through space. Unlike the Iron Giant, this prototype was not able to re-assemble itself as it had a error in it's programming.

In the year 1893, the then un-named Brass Automaton landed in the Pacific Ocean near the long-forgotten Dino Island. It created a tsunami and unhinged the island from the Earth's crust and as such the land began to slowly sink. The robot was first sighted by nearby Australian military sailors, who upon seeing the giant being arise from the water, tried to describe the being the best way they could through their wireless telegraph: they named it the Brass Automaton. Johnny Thunder and his Adventurers crew would later go looking for this great metal being after saving as many dinosaurs as possible from the sinking primeval island in 1923, but never saw it, as it was hiding in South American coastline to gather information on the dominant beings of Earth, also known as Humans.

After staying relatively hidden in various secluded ocean floor places around the globe for around thirty years, the Brass Automaton was finished reading the minds off people for information on humans as a species: Our past, our present as of 1924, our origin (as it was then known), and our many languages, along with defenses, politics, and technology. After gathering all that intelligence, the Brass Automaton headed to the North Pole along the sea floor to transmit the required information to it's home planet using a faster-than-light sub-dimensional beacon. (Basically, a fancy radio) That is just about when a major solar storm hit the Earth, with the radiation hitting the atmosphere of the Earth and scrambling the outgoing signal into nonsense.

Now the garbled signal was received by the home base, and as a precaution, the Iron Giant version of the Brass Automaton was dispatched as fast as possible to earth. (That would take it nearly 35 years for it to get there at all possible speed, which would require it to refuel once arriving on Earth, which is why the Iron Giant was at the power plant at the beginning of the movie, whereupon it's memory was scrambled by the high-voltage electricity.)

After sending the garbled message and being struck by a passing icebreaker-ship on his trip southwards, the Brass Automaton was temporarily incapacitated. It was then discovered washed ashore at the southern tip of Greenland by Dr. Harold Wormwood and brought back in pieces to his stately laboratory / mansion in  Legorado, Colorado, where he ran test after test on the alien visitor. By 1926, the mad scientist-type Doctor Wormwood had the resembled robot nearly reassembled, and was preparing to restart it when a Lord Sam Sinister came upon rumors of the robot and wanted it for his own nefarious desires, with Johnny Thunder close on his heels...

This steampunk version of the Brass Automaton a recolored and modified version of Build Better Bricks' Iron Giant with the head of my previous @hachiroku version of the model (seen above) of the same robot's head added on... I consider it a mashup of the two models. I made it into steampunk colors (black, brown and dark gray) with an exhaust steam pipe at the back of the neck, and yes, that is a monocle / targeting computer over the right eye for use with the gun arm (it was included in the Build Better Bricks instructions) that I'm still considering trying to use.

You also may have noticed, the model is incomplete in places - some things just don't lineup properly in LDD like they do in real life. When fully assembled IRL, it should look much better though.

Here is the Brass Automaton's laser gun... probably not going to build this, but I MIGHT place it on a tank or something.

This is what I've found so far for this model.... 100 parts down, about 650 left to go.

Comments Questions, Complaints are welcome!

Edited March 19, 2021 by Murdoch17

[Murdoch17]

slight bump:

The Brass Automaton now features a staff as seen in the first post, and with it comes refined pictures and a comparison to one of my BIONICLE figures. As this model is a steampunk figure, but is going to feature Johnny Thunder and friends, I figured it would be best to leave it in this sub-forum as it has certain elements of the Action Figure, Science Fiction, and Action & Adventure sub-forums.

[beverly888]

Especially appreciate the use of colour in this build.

Beverly

[Murdoch17]

20 hours ago, beverly888 said:

Especially appreciate the use of colour in this build.

Beverly

Thanks @beverly888! I am working on adding the robot into my Adventurers setup, as seen in the screenshot below:

[Murdoch17]

(slight) BUMP:

First post updated with new pictures and revised text.

[Digger of Bricks]

4 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

First post updated with new pictures and revised text.

Ooooh, I like that new head much better!  

[Murdoch17]

B-I-G bump for 2021

Updated the first post with a new model, a mashup of @hachiroku's model and Build Better Bricks' version, albeit in steampunk format.

Parts are currently being found for this version, and are mostly being scrounged from the Neo-Classic Space version I made a few years back that didn't stay together.

So stay tuned, there is more to come!

Edited March 18, 2021 by Murdoch17