Fright Knights: Traitor Transport Mods

[Mr Maniac]

And I'm back, with another installment of my Fright Knights Rehabilitation Project!

Last week I posted some mods I made to Witch's Windship, a set that's been pretty...divisive, to put it kindly, among the online LEGO community. This week, I decided I'd show off one of the few Fright Knights sets that seemed to be a little more accessible for fans of Castle. Take a look below at my mods for Traitor Transport!*

*Didn't get around to building that cave (and the used model I bought didn't come with one), but Traitor Transport sounds better than Prison Transport, so just roll with it.

For those interested, here's a nice profile shot of the whole prison carriage arrangement (we'll circle back to Basil on his horse later). Unlike Witch's Windship, this set proved to be a tad thornier for me to modify, largely because I really liked the contrast between the red roof and the gray that made up the walls of the actual prisoner module. Add in LEGO's solution for creating a locking cage, and I was a tad stumped regarding how I could update it while still maintaining the look of the whole thing.

Needless to say this was a Rubicon moment for me of sorts, as this was when I definitively chose to use more modern colors and pieces in all of my Fright Knights builds, and I think the results speak for themselves, especially with how nicely the dark brown and reddish-brown contrast with the bright red on the roof.

Moving on, you'll see my solution to maintaining a lockable cage, even after filling in the roof. While my initial designs called for that 1x6 tile with the wood grain sticker to be placed in a manner similar to the 1x6 printed tile used in front of the doors on the Temple of Mount Everest set, I found it slid around too much for my liking. So those SNOT bricks in reddish-brown came to my rescue. Simply pull the tile off, and...

...you can pull the door down, just like in the original model! Needless to say I was quite pleased at how well this worked, making for a very snug fit while still remaining extremely secure. And fortunately that modified plate at the top of the door is still pretty easy for me to grab and pull.

Throwing in a front-facing angle of the detachable cage module because I thought it'd give people a better view of how it looks from the front. Overall I think it looks a little stronger now from all angles, whereas the initial model only looked good to me in profile. Now at least it looks a little more regal with that (wrought-iron, let's say) bat at the very top instead of the front. And as you might be able to tell, I made sure all gaps were covered on this bad boy, with a small 1x4x1 fence in black occupying the small gap between the roof and the dark-brown log bricks.

And here's one more angle of the cage module in profile, mostly so I can talk quickly about some of the other mods. While I get that some people found the bat or dragon wings on this prisoner carriage a little ostentatious, for me they make the model (along with that great roof design). My only problem with them was their placement. Moving the two wings from the top of the roof to the front created a nice sense of balance, and hey, now I can suggest this module flies.

As for the lanterns, they fit in with the zaniness and general oddball nature of the Fright Knights. Seeing how the original set had two trans-yellow cones anyway, it was a cinch to turn them into lanterns. Similarly, swapping out the flaming torches in the rear with red lanterns made sense to me, and now we've got medieval headlights and taillights!

As for the flags, those were originally supposed to be the larger Fright Knight kite shields that popped up in a number of sets, but seeing how the carriage driver already had a shield to go with the halberds, the flags made more sense, fitting in with the regal-seeming prisoner carriage. Yes indeed, nothing but the best for the Fright Knights' latest victim, er, prisoner.

As for the wagon this ornate cage sits on, that was a very easy fix. Pulling out all the light grey parts and replacing them with black was simple enough, though that front needed work. Adding in two 3x3 wedge plates seemed to help, and throwing a chair in makes for a much comfier ride for this carriage driver. But I wanted to maintain some of the original design elements for this model, which is why I incorporated those curved red bricks. Doing all that gave me a nice little space for storing a prisoner's items so all told that was a happy accident that rounded things off nicely.

A few notes on the harness for the dragon. Most of this was already done for me in the base model, including the turntables with finger hinges, but swapping out light grey plates for black tiles and plates make it look far sleeker. And much like my mods for Witch's Windship, adding in a 2x2 black 45-degree slope finishes off the harness nicely. Finally, I did in fact swap out the trans-neon-orange wings on the dragon for trans-red, making it easier for me to distinguish between the two. And besides, trans-red wings on a black dragon still looks pretty boss, right?

Last but not least is the Night Lord himself! Yes, much like Willa, Basil is back to put the 'evil' in 'medieval!' Like most of the Fright Knight minifigures I've collected, I didn't change too much here. The two things I really liked adding included an updated bat scepter (modeled largely off of the one in @Oky's wonderful Time Twister MOC), and giving Basil the Sword of Gryffindor, which honestly fits him much better than the chrome broadsword, with those blood-red gemstones in the pommel and hilt.

As for his steed, the addition of a batarang to the horse's champron was always planned, although not on this part. I initially wanted to use the old champron that was introduced through the Dragon Masters, only to discover it wouldn't work with the newer horses. Oh well. I've come to love how ridiculous the horse looks with the red clip and batarang on it, but it was definitely an acquired taste. At least now the red champron and batarang give the horse barding for the Fright Knights a more unique look, instead of merely copying the Dragon Masters.

 

So there you go. Two down, three (or four?) more to go. Given the way things went with this project, this will be the last set that still resembles the original model. Everything else from here on out will be more of an MOC, and I cannot wait to show you all of them (though we may have to wait a little while on Night Lord's Castle. That's been giving me trouble lately). For those interested, here's a link to more photos in my Bricksafe folder.

So in closing, I'll leave you with one of Basil's favorite past-times, as indicated on some of the box art for Traitor Transport: Prisoner versus Dragon! (Or as the dragon might call it, canned food). Thanks for reading!

 

Edited June 27, 2022 by Mr Maniac

[Triceron]

Very cool!  I never thought of using a batarang for the Horse helmets, I gotta try that out

[SerenityInFire]

Where is the Bat Lord's sword from?

[Triceron]

1 hour ago, SerenityInFire said:

Where is the Bat Lord's sword from?

Harry Potter CMF, one of the goblin dudes.  It's the Sword of Griffindor.

[SirBlake]

Big improvement on this one. 

[MAB]

Great! The roof is the perfect shape for this.

[MontyMatte]

3 hours ago, MAB said:

Great! The roof is the perfect shape for this.

@Mr Maniac As MAB said: I also love the roof :)

[Mr Maniac]

Thanks everyone for the kind words!

On 6/27/2022 at 7:25 PM, Triceron said:

Very cool!  I never thought of using a batarang for the Horse helmets, I gotta try that out

Yeah, like most of my tweaks, this was another happy accident. Playing around with the throne that came with that LEGO Movie 2 set Battle-Ready Batman and Metalbeard gave me the batarangs. I already had the throne partially disassembled and, well, one thing led to another.

On 6/27/2022 at 9:14 PM, SerenityInFire said:

Where is the Bat Lord's sword from?

Triceron beat me to it, but yeah, some of the more recent Harry Potter stuff has that sword in spades. I think it's also available in the new Dumbledore's Office set too, and through PAB, given how often I've seen it used in various MOCs on this forum, like some of the mods people have made to the 3-in-1 castle.

On 6/28/2022 at 12:02 AM, SirBlake said:

Big improvement on this one.

Oh yeah, this was one of things where very little changed for me between concept and execution. Outside of rearranging the locking mechanism for the cage, everything else fell right into place, which is always nice.

On 6/28/2022 at 3:43 AM, MAB said:

Great! The roof is the perfect shape for this.

Thanks @MAB! I'm certainly with you there! I love the use of those red inverted arch pieces to make a roof, which meant it was inevitable I'd want to use them as much as possible. I was a tad worried of course about being able to fit a minifigure with a helmet and plume inside, but as the photos show, I needn't have worried.

On 6/28/2022 at 7:19 AM, MontyMatte said:

As MAB said: I also love the roof :)

Thank you! I actually spent a lot of time Googling 'Fright Knight MOCs,' and always ended up of gravitating towards the stuff that uses those inverted arch pieces as much as possible (usually for Night Lord's Castle builds, of course). I think @Aanchir deserves credit for pointing out how that is one of the crucial design elements of Fright Knight sets (that and more traditional arches of course, to capture that Gothic atmosphere). Glad you like it!

Edited June 30, 2022 by Mr Maniac

[Triceron]

30 minutes ago, Mr Maniac said:

Thanks everyone for the kind words!

Yeah, like most of my tweaks, this was another happy accident. Playing around with the throne that came with that LEGO Movie 2 set Battle-Ready Batman and Metalbeard gave me the batarangs. I already had the throne partially disassembled and, well, one thing led to another.

That set is very awesome!  I was lucky to snag one when it was on clearance at Walmart.  I initially had no real plans for that set, but I got it just because it was cheap.  Once I built it, I realized it had some really good parts to it.  I used the wings as part of a throne for the Batlord.

 

[Mr Maniac]

Whoa! That photo is too cool for school! I'd be curious to know how those monstrous bat wings are attached to Draco the dragon, but even if you don't have another angle, this is still a (wickedly) good build. Those large bat wings definitely fit Basil's aesthetic. Funnily enough I was originally thinking of using the pair that comes with the throne to make a medieval-type glider similar to some of those promotional Shell sets LEGO put out that year. I may still come back to that (along with a launch platform that fits on the Traitor Transport wagon), but I haven't figured out a design I like yet. 

(And I really enjoy the new face you added to that old Fright Knight torso on the horse. Such a great update of the original head! Out of curiosity where'd you pull it from?)

Edited June 30, 2022 by Mr Maniac

[Triceron]

14 hours ago, Mr Maniac said:

(And I really enjoy the new face you added to that old Fright Knight torso on the horse. Such a great update of the original head! Out of curiosity where'd you pull it from?)

To be honest, I can't really remember.  I buy a lot of 2nd hand stuff off Facebook Marketplace, so it could possibly be a random head in a collection of heads that I got that looked like it would fit on that dude better.  Looking at it right now, I can't put a finger on what exactly that head is from.  I'll have to do some digging.

-edit-  Found it.  It was actually from a set I bought!  It's one of the random mooks from the Ninjago Movie Green Dragon Mech set

Edited June 30, 2022 by Triceron

[Mr Maniac]

Very cool! That Ninjago movie was good for a lot of stuff, it seems. I actually used another head associated with the sets from that movie for a horseback knight for this faction. Some great variety there.

[MontyMatte]

On 6/30/2022 at 4:52 AM, Mr Maniac said:

Thank you! I actually spent a lot of time Googling 'Fright Knight MOCs,' and always ended up of gravitating towards the stuff that uses those inverted arch pieces as much as possible (usually for Night Lord's Castle builds, of course). I think @Aanchir deserves credit for pointing out how that is one of the crucial design elements of Fright Knight sets (that and more traditional arches of course, to capture that Gothic atmosphere). Glad you like it!

What an effort. But it was worth it. It's great that people here support each other so well. I can only tell you... keep it up :)