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I have a long term project of “refreshing” all of the UCS sets, so that any unique or rare parts are replaced with modern and readily available alternatives. I initially dismissed 7194 as impossible due to the use of sand green bricks for Yoda’s skin. Many parts were virtually unique to the set, and the much sought-after 3450 Statue of Liberty (the only other major sand green parts pack) had driven the prices of even used bricks to an insane high. I tried changing the skin to Olive Green but the limited parts selection and the lack of snot bricks made this impossible. I was about to give up entirely, when I saw the beautiful 70612 Ninjago Movie Green Ninja Mech Dragon. Featuring sand green 2x2, 2x3 and 2x6 plates, and with other 1x4, 1x3 and 1x2 plates available from various sets released in the last couple of years, I thought I might just be able to pull this off. I did. The original set was released in 2002 and contained 1075 parts. Unusually for a UCS set, there was no formal "ultimate collector series" name on the box, and no plaque to accompany the model. My update preserves the look of the original and weighs in at 1202 pieces. The head has been completely redesigned - it is visually identical to the original, but it uses a completely different selection of pieces drawn from the current palette of sand green parts. A few rare sand green parts have unfortunately had to be left in: 1x1 plates haven’t been seen in sand green since 2004, but I got the number down from 33 to 11, 2x2 corner plates, last seen in 2011, I got the number down from 78 to 4. The remaining ones serve a structural purpose and cannot be removed. I also had to leave in the 2x2 plates with rails to preserve Yoda’s ridged noise and mouth. These were last seen in the 2014 set 10241 Maersk Line Triple-E, which is a collectible set but the part is at least relatively easy to get. The body is largely unchanged, except that the dark orange bricks have been replaced with more readily available bricks (mainly 1x2 and 1x6). To allow these changes, the model introduces a few extra structural parts (shown here in bright yellow). These are not visible from the outside and any available colour can be used; my preference is for dark bluish grey. It should also be noted that the old greys used in this set have been updated to the modern bluish greys, and the old brown used for Yoda’s walking stick has been changed to the modern reddish brown. You can view this model on mecabricks, and download the LDD file from bricksafe. I haven't made an instruction manual since these brick built sculptures don't seem to be very popular amongst the fans, but Ill put one together if there's enough interest. Disclaimer: This is a digital MOC/MOD of the 7194, and has not been tested in real life with real bricks. While every effort has been made to ensure that the bricks would interlock securely, this may not always be the case and the final assembly may turn out to be very fragile.
