Once upon a time, around Nine years ago, I was a burgeoning fan of Ninjago, an avid reader of Brickipedia, and hadn’t yet made my way to Mocpages. I was in the store, probably Books a Million, where I was flipping through a Ninjago Brickmaster book when I laid my eyes on my first mech:
Not exactly the most inspired build, but was inspiration to me. I mean come on! It was a Giant Robot, what could be cooler than that! I didn’t end up buying the book since I was a child at the time, but my interest in Giant Robots was Peaked. Fast forwarding a few years, after a couple of dodgy attempts to make one with parts from the Toy Story Pizza Planet Truck, I was looking through Youtube to find some cool lego reviews and mocs, I stumbled across this video by Artifex Creation:
Now, this blew my tiny Ninja obsessed mind, I had no idea that Lego mechs could be that big. Keep in mind that most of my time on Mocpages at the time was concerned with bionicle, and at the only mechs released for the theme where the Samurai X mech, the Fangpyre mech, the first Fire mech, and the previously mentioned Skulkin Mech. Unfortunately I lacked any real parts to build something substantial, so I sat on my hands for a bit. But all that Changed once I got my filthy mits on Superman V. Power Armor Lex:
I wanna say that was late 2013/early 2014 since I was really looking forward to the upcoming rebooted season. I mean Come on, they were fighting Robots! So I tried my hand at building some sort of Nindroid Lighting Mech with the parts I had. The only problem? I didn’t have any Nindroids, so I ended up making some amalgamation of Final Battle Jay and the Series 8 Evil Robot. He had stolen Jay’s powers and color scheme. Cut me some slack guys. Fortunetly, I was about to get some of those sweet Ninja robots with my first Ninjago mech: The Destructoid:
This Thing had it all: Choping blades! A Disk Shooter! A Sawblade! Tank tracks! And a sword! This thing was awesome, and it was another in a long line of Ninjago Purchases. Fast Forwarding to 2017, I fully caught up with the show, and excited for the movie, and moreso the sets. We had gotten some pretty goods mech in the past, but it seemed that with the film came a renaissance of Ninjago set designs. Bigger, Bolder builds that sought to do more than what came before it, and that was where my problem began: The Garma Mecha Man.
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the set, it serves its purpose as an affordable imitation of the onscreen build at an smaller scale. It’s well built and fun to mess around with, if a bit chunky. No, the problem came when you compared it to some of the other sets in the wave:
(Picture taken from the Brickset Review)
The Garma Mecha Man isn’t exactly the most imposing build. In the film, it seemed like it could go toe to toe with all six ninja vehicles at once. The Set looks like it could hardly go up against one, so I set out to build one that could.
Not my best work, I’ll admit. This early design was plagued with poor shaping, weak knees, and a waste that was only held on by four studs, though it could fit a figure inside. It was a rough start, and disassembled soon after, but it was a stepping stone for bigger and better things: Garmagedon:
Constructed with the parts of The Nindroid Mechdragon, The Destructoid, The Garma Mecha Man, the Iron Doom, the Oni Titan, The Water Strider, and whatever odds and ends I had laying around, and with the Four Golden Weapons plugged into its chest, the mech was almost on the verge of perfection. The only Problems? My attempt at torso articulation left no room for a cockpit, made the build very unstable, and provided very little movement. A rework was in order before I could hope on showing it off, and to help celebrate the ten year anniversary of Ninjago, I got off my butt and decided to get to work.
And that brings us to today. Countless reworks, and two extra arms, I’d like to finally show you guys the finished Shogun Titan
I know I’ve talked a lot in this post, but I hope that my work speaks for itself.
