[MOC] R-9W Wise Man From R-Type Final

[Geihlen]

Greetings all, this is a project I'm really excited to finally have built and to get to share here. It's actually the reasoned I joined the forum in the first place. This series (R-Type) and by extension this build have a lot of meaning for me and so I kind of want to ramble about a few things. Feel free to ignore all of that and scroll by it to get to the pictures at the end of my post. For those who have no idea what this is I have put together a small gallery on imgur of reference images that I used while working on this.

R-Type as a game series is a pretty big deal for me. My exposure to it began around 1991/92 with the release of Super R-Type for the SNES. It was the first game I ever rented from a store for my new console and it was one of, if not the first, thing I ever saved up my own money to help pay for. It was also a game that inspired 6-ish year old me to create some of my earliest Lego builds  (of which a render exists on my flickr). It is a series that has stayed near and dear to me for nearly 30 years and creating something in Lego that did the ships in those games justice is an idea that's never left my head.

The subject of this build is, as the title suggests, the Wise Man. It was introduced in the 2003/04 PS2 game, R-Type Final which featured over 100 ships for players to unlock and use. This one very quickly became one of my favorites, which is a big reason why I decided to build it. This project represents a great deal of firsts for me. It was my first time using Stud.io, or any digital software, to make any kind of Lego creation. It's my first MOC in a great many years, it's the first time I've ever tried to photograph any of my builds, it's the first time I've ever tried to design something this large or to go to the lengths I did in an attempt to make it accurate, it's my first time designing a stand for a build, and it's my first time sharing anything creative that I've done with a wider audience. There's probably more, but you get the idea, to me this is a special model.

I had three major goals when I started this project:

-Actually something that could be built.

-Studless.

-Accurate to the source material.

The first goal I obviously accomplished since these are pictures of the real thing.

The studless/nearly studless goal was simply because I'd never attempted this with my own builds, and I think I did okay here. I'm not much of an expert when it comes to SNOT or any other techniques one might use to achieve a studless build. I'm fairly certain there are more elegant ways to do...a lot of this, but I think the result here isn't too terrible.

Accuracy though, I can't even tell you all how much I agonized over this one. The cockpit was kind ofthe genesis for this model. Those of you who might know R-Type know that the canopy of many of the fighters is a very specific shape, and one that doesn't lend itself to Lego very well imo. The Wise Man has a canopy that can more or less be recreated in Lego, but the rest is a different story. Even the color of the ship isn't consistent. High resolution renders exist for it in black, gray, gray and dark blue, in the original game it was black AND gray, in Final 2 it appears more of a dark blue/black in the actual game. The canopy typically is blue, but occasionally purple. And that's to say nothing of all the sensors and antenna sticking out or some of the oddball shapes the body of this ships has.

I started this model in Stud.io in early May, shortly after the release of R-Type Final 2 and in those early days of the process I spent dozens and dozens of hours with the game open, staring at the ship trying to replicate all it's complexities in brick form. The initial design process took around 8 weeks with me spending nearly all my free time on it. Though this included scrapping a design that was roughly 70% done and starting almost entirely from scratch. Even after all that time, I still kept picking at the digital model and then at the real one trying to make it better. I started the build in real bricks sometime in July but hit a wall when I got to the point that it needed a stand and I hadn't designed one. So it sat on my coffee table on a stack of bricks few months until I finally came up with the stand you see in the photos. I didn't finish the initial build until just after Christmas, and I've spent the last month fiddling trying to get it to a point where I don't look at it and think "you really need to change that". I'll also take a moment to shout out Will at Ultimate Collector Stickers who worked with me and did the sticker for the plaque. While I don't think this even remotely qualifies as UCS, I think it adds a nice little flourish to the display.

Anyways, I've rambled way too much, so here's some pictures which I hope you like. I uploaded a bunch to my Flickr for those who might want to see more or some older renders. Thanks for taking a look!

 

 

Edited January 30, 2022 by Geihlen

[Feuer Zug]

Great looking build. Looks accurate to the source material. Where did the purple cylinder pieces originate from? They really complete the look.

[Kage Goomba]

When can we expect the "Accessories" ? :)

 

Looks great!

[Geihlen]

5 hours ago, Feuer Zug said:

Great looking build. Looks accurate to the source material. Where did the purple cylinder pieces originate from? They really complete the look.

Thank you! The cylinder parts are apparently from set 41375-1 a Friends set released in 2019. While I tried to use parts that I had on hand, I wound up purpose buying many of them for the build. The purple cylinders were parts I got off Bricklink.

4 hours ago, Kage Goomba said:

When can we expect the "Accessories" ? :)

 

Looks great!

You mean like the Force Pod and the Bits? I've thought about doing them but we'll see if I try and design them. They'd all probably have to be brick/plate built to get the size, shape, and color as right as I could. The Force on this particular ship poses an interesting challenge as it only 3 rods coming off the main pod, so mounting them accurately could prove difficult. Also, the ship itself is already 16ish inches long, and a properly scaled Force would be about the same. The ship currently is sitting on my coffee table and I'm not sure I have the space for all the accessories if I built them lol. And thanks =)

Edited February 1, 2022 by Geihlen

[Kage Goomba]

2 minutes ago, Geihlen said:

Thank you! The cylinder parts are apparently from set 41375-1 a Friends set released in 2019. While I tried to use parts that I had on hand, I wound up purpose buying many of them for the build. The purple cylinders were parts I got off Bricklink.

You mean like the Force Pod and the Bits? I've thought about doing them but we'll see if I try and design them. They'd all probably have to be brick/plate built to get the size, shape, and color as right as I could. The Force on this particular ship poses an interesting challenge as it only 3 rods coming off the main pod, so mounting them accurately could prove difficult. Also, the ship itself is already 16ish inches long, and a properly scaled Force would be about the same. The ship currently is sitting on my coffee table and I'm not sure I have the space for all the accessories if I built them lol. And thanks =)

Authenticity is the bonus ;) just figured it would be cool.

[Geihlen]

Just now, Kage Goomba said:

Authenticity is the bonus ;) just figured it would be cool.

True and I spent like...8 months on this alone, so I'm crazy enough to try lol. I'll have to research some sphere building techniques, I know of a few resources to help with that which can at least get me started.