In February of this year, on my server, I and a friend of mine had a competition to see who could make all of the Iron Man armors the fastest, while still being recognizable and cool, while also still using the official Iron Man Brickhead as a base design. I won, completed the 50 Brickheadz in the span of three days (though to be honest my friend probably beat me in the quality section.). Anyway, the completion of the Iron Legion is one of my proudest achievements as a Brickheader, so I wanted to share the fruits of my labor to you, the viewing public of the TTV Message Boards. Enjoy.
First off, of course, was the three original suits, the Mark I, II, and III. The Mark I was an interesting challenge, because of how different and bulky it is. After the contest, I borrowed the face design that my friend used for his because it was way better than my original face. Mark II and III are just reskins of each other, but I find their simplicity charming.
Next is the Marks IV, V, VI, and VII. Again, aside from a few design differences, these four are mostly just reskins but to be fair that’s what they are in the films anyways. Of this batch, I really like the V turned out. Helps that the V is one of my favorites anyways.
Next, the Marks VIII, IX, X, and XI. VIII is literally just the VII with gold shoulder pads, and I must make a mental note to give him a darker shade of gold. IX uses a design on the top of his head shown to me by BSO1’s Swert, which works well enough. X is just there, and the XI is where we finally start to get some design diversions.
Now we finally get into the juicy stuff, with XII, XIII, and XIV. Yeah, yeah, they’re all resigns (aside from XIII’s arc reactor) but at least they look different. I quite like the look of XIII in any case.
NOW it gets fun, with XV (Sneaky), XVI (Nightclub), XVII (Heartbreaker), and XVIII (Casanova). Sneaky and Heartbreaker especially are where the designs started to get unique. I love how these two turned out, and Casanova ain’t bad either. Is it just me, or is it funny that the names Heartbreaker and Casanova are next to each in the lineup? No? Just me? Okay.
Next we got XIX (Tiger), XX (Python), and XXI (Midas). Tiger and Python are best out of this set, in my opinion. But, why is Tiger the one named Tiger? There’s a suit that would make much better use out of the name Tiger, but we’ll get to that.
Here we got XXII (Hot Rod), XXIII (Shades), XXXIV (Tank), and XXV (Striker/Thumper). The biggest innovations here is Shades and Thumper, with Hot Rod being a reskin of XIII and Tank being a reskin of Heartbreaker. Thumper’s cool. The thumping arms turned out great.
Now there’s XXVI (Gamma), XXVII (Disco), and XXVIII (Jack). Nothing incredibly special here, but at least they’re pretty. Now why isn’t Jack named Tiger? The color scheme works so much better than the actual Tiger. Just swap the names and you’ll be set. Ah, well, rant over.
Even more innovations! XXIX (Fiddler), XXX (Blue Steel), XXXI (Piston), and XXXII (Romeo). Piston and Romeo are just reskins (Romeo being identical to Casanova, just in a different metallic shade) but Fiddler’s cool and I love how Blue Steel looks. He’s so kewl.
Next up we got XXXIII (Silver Centurion), XXXIV (Southpaw), and XXXV (Red Snapper). In this set, I love how the Centurion and Snapper look. Snapper especially. He’s such a wittle thicc boi.
Now here’s XXXVI (Peacemaker), XXXVII (Hammerhead), XXXVIII (Igor), and XXXIX (Gemini). Peacemaker’s cool, Hammerhead is thicc, Igor turned out meh but also thicc, and Gemini is iconic so I think that worked.
Next is XL (Shotgun) and XLI (Bones). With that we come to the (technical) end of the Iron Legion, you know, after Tony blew 'em up. Mostly just reskins, but they look cool. Fun fact, I didn’t know the copper-ish color existed on LDD until this project, and discovered it while working on Bones. It looks pretty swell.
Winding down now. We got the Mark XLII of Iron Man 3 fame, and the two first armors sent against Ultron, XLIII and XLIV (Veronica). Man, I adore the Mark 42 armor, and it came out marvelous in my opinion. Gosh I love it so much. And yeah, Veronica was my biggest innovation with this project. I feel it turned out quite good, considering the style.
Now the XLV (seen at the end of Ultron), the XLVI (from Civil War), and the XLVII (from Homecoming). Not much special about these guys…except that the XLVI was the armor that Lego made for the official Iron Man Brickhead. Yeah…and the XLVII looks like he’s wearing shiny pants. Yep.
Finally we come to the last armors, each to be featured in Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War: the XLVIII, XLIX, and the L. Let me tell you, it was no small feat to try and find reference material for these guys, especially the XLIX and the L. But boy, was it worth it. They look so good.
Lastly, here’s a group picture with the whole Legion together.
And with that, this topic comes to a close. The Iron Man armors were an awesome challenge, and were incredibly fun to make. If any of you guys has an interest in Brickheadz and Marvel and are thinking of making custom Brickheadz, start here. It’s a great challenge with many varied techniques that can be used.
I leave you all with this quote from Tony Stark and his loyal AI, JARVIS:
"J.A.R.V.I.S., hey."
“All wrapped up here, sir. Will there be anything else?”
"You know what to do."
“The Clean Slate Protocol, sir?”
"Screw it, it’s Christmas. Yes, yes."
