The Hawkflight Archives, Vol 02: The Master Builder Academy Years (2011-2012)

[Hawkflight]

In a previous topic, I’ve included pictures of the first several batches of BIO-MOCs I made, starting from the oldest ones I have in 2009. I was also building things out of system during this time - and those system MOCs were generally better.

This first batch of MOCs were (mostly) all built using pieces from the Master Builder Academy: Space Designer set, which re-engaged my interest in MOCing from a time when I really didn’t take pictures of my MOCs. With the perspective of adulthood, this was a perfect starting point - I imagine every kid with access to LEGO has built a spaceship. There are very few rules when it comes to building futuristic spacecraft, so it’s a good starting point for kids while quite literally building the foundations of professional design techniques.

This was the first MOC I uploaded to the Master Builder Academy’s gallery - titled “Bug Hunt”. The coloration of the ship is a bit odd. The “Level 1” Master Builder Academy sets used lime green as a primary color, purple as a secondary, and forest green as a tertiary, along with a bunch of primarily white pieces for structure. The forest green clip for the cockpit was a given for this MOC, but I’m wondering why I included the purple slopes as well.

I definitely didn’t have a good looking cockpit on the previous ship, so for the next one I decided I would use the cockpit design used in the sets. I still didn’t really know what to do with the purple bits.

Microbuild spaceship. Nothing special, but this does have some thick, stubby wings.

These were the “Space Racers” - one human piloted, one robot. The macaroni pieces would flip out and act as wings - maybe in my mind they generated something a bit more aerodynamic.

I guess I wanted a bit of a change of pace, so I brought out some Mars Mission parts and created a flying saucer type MOC. I remember people on the gallery quite liking this one.

I’m a bit bewildered by this one. It doesn’t seem to have anything going for it - the cockpit is weird, there’s a bunch of exposed bricks in the back, and it also doesn’t have good wings.

The Master Builder Academy instruction booklets were great. They had instructions about how certain techniques were being used in the build process, they had interviews with LEGO designers and fans, and the first one also came with brick paper. I think this was the only model I made that used brick paper - it was meant to be a a hybrid water/space vehicle.

No greens on this one, thank you. Except the cockpit handle. I’m still not sure why I decided that macaroni pieces could imply wings for steering.

Now we get into some interesting territory. This was meant to be a hand held weapon - and it looks like I pulled in some tiles from other themes to give it that look. The handle also wasn’t comfortable, so I found something to soften it and rubber banded it to my wrist.

Here we have a valiant attempt - building a bipedal MOC using only hinge plates. While still using two of those hinge plates on the front, and not for ankles so it can properly stand in motion. That is an unusual cockpit design; I’m imagining the silver bits generated some sort of force field.

Not much impressive about this one, aside from some interesting color blocking. At least it has wings.

I’ll leave you with this one for today - IIRC this was the last one I built before a short break. It looks like a section of it is rotated on one of the TECHNIC pins that came with the set, and the landing gear was meant to fold in and out during takeoff/landing.

Hope you enjoy these old MOCs, and join me next time, where more than likely I will have more spaceship MOCs!

[TheMOCingbird]

Man, these really take me back to all the little space ships I would always build out of a new set after I inevitably took it apart. I really like that last one.

[Rukah]

These remind me of old spaceships I used to build. Anyways my favorite one is the saucer.

[Rhyla416]

ooo very cool - awakens my nostalgia!

[Eilrach]

really cool seeing your early builds

[Hawkflight]

Installment 2: More spaceships

I don’t know how much thought was given to aerodynamics on this one. All efforts went into allowing the back bit to disconnect from the front bit via TECHNIC.

I believe this one was called “Medipod”, and had the pilot on one side and some medicine in the other pod. The center bit would carry wounded soldiers and the two green cylinders created a force field.

This was the only MOC I created in a theoretical mini-theme involving spaceships versus aliens. The aliens would most notably not use any lime green.

Despite being in the space folder, this was more of a plane - I was playing a WWI dogfighting game at the time and wanted to build something in that style. So, space biplane.

Micro sized ship.

Once again misusing bendy bricks as a reasonable source of aerodynamics.

The last spaceship built just using the parts from the MBA Space Designer set. This was a mod to one of the official models, meant so that the laser cannons on it could actually point forward.

There are a few more space builds in this folder, but those come later, and I’m interesting in maintaining how these builds changed over time (and parts available), so stay tuned…

[Rukah]

ah, there’s more. I like the first and fourth ones

[Monopoly]

I really like the angled nose on that sixth one.

[Hawkflight]

Installment 3, otherwise known as, “Stalling for time because I bought the MBA subscription service specifically for the mecha kit”

Here we have a handful of spaceships. The three on the front could all connect to the thingy on the back.

We have a pair of tanks, and an attempt at forced perspective with the sizes

Little space hangar

Micro city, with micro cars and micro city buildings with micro windows

A swimming pool with a very out of order diving board, and a massive giant thing that shoots water into the pool, and deck chairs

a guitar

And the only microbuild style thing I think I was invested in. This was a turn based strategy game played between four players with a LEGO dice block.

Did you have fun? Not me. I was never big into microbuilds. I was just waiting to build the mechs.

I built a lot of mechs.

Join me next time, maybe.

[Rukah]

ah these look pretty nice. My favorites are the micro city and the game

[Hawkflight]

In today’s installment - the beginning of my love of mechs , and the beginning of the saga that got me a friend I met in person for the first time last fall.

But first:

I should not that at this time of my life, a significant portion of my LEGO bricks were sorted out by the theme (at least in themes I collected a significant amounf of); and I did my best not to mix the bricks that were sorted as such. This extended to my MBA sets; initially; for the two month period of the microbuilds I showed previously; the “Kit 1” and “Kit 2” bricks were not combined. This changed, when I built one thing combining those pieces while waiting on the mecha kit to arrive. Although, looking at it now, it’s still pretty heavy on the Kit 1 parts.

Speaking of separate pieces, and introducing my love of mechs ; I found a few pictures of mecha I built back in 2011, before the spaceships:

I believe the Alpha Team Blizzard Blaster was the first mecha set I owned; thus my collection of sand blue click ball joints. And no ball joints, thus the weird feet.

It looks like this Masr Mission mecha didn’t fare any better in the foot department, on top of having a bit of color scheme confusion thanks to the alien panel pieces.

Over a year later, with Kit 3 now in my hands, it was time to build mechs, to fulfill my love of mechs. This first one inherited the weird choice of sideways feet from the previous ones, it seems, while also featuring shoulder joints despite the arms just consisting of more cannons. At least that means one could aim them.

WHAT WAS UP WITH ME AND WEIRD ANKLES anyway, this one was meant to be an aquatic adventurer of sort. I would like to note that; unlike the majority of modern mecha sets, he has knees. (I also am blanking on whether that solitary red plate was actually a part of the set; or if I was missing a piece I needed for this model.)

As some of you know, I have a few pet peeves for LEGO models - among them; incoherent builds, and overpowered characters. I believe these may have been formulated in May of 2012 by a certain user who posted a handful of incoherent; overpowered robot characters. I decided for whatever to put him in his place and have this model be the hero to his villains. And so, with the combination of all three kits; and a free afternoon thanks to getting grounded, I created the “Fire of Eternus” - now with elbows, reasonable feet, and interchangable weapons to take on different enemies.

The targeted user took notice, and challenged me to a fight for better star ratings on our next MOCs. So I souped up my hero MOC, at least in my own mind. “Fire of Eternus X” had better photography, slightly more coherent shins, and more white and trans red. I won the competition, possibly forming the origin story towards my smug attitude towards critique I displayed early in the boards history; while also setting the stage for what was probably the first collaborative story in the Master Builder Academy galleries…

Also in the mecha folder from this time - one of a few exercises in not having a plan. Most of my mecha I usually planned the key features out in advance - with this one, I had no plan, just went for whatever struck my fancy.

Join me next time, maybe, for mecha with more coherent color schemes!

[Rukah]

Nice. I’d say the 5th and 6th ones are the best

[Zero]

Wow this really takes me back. Loved the master builder academy series.

[Eilrach]

@Hawkflight

LEGO dice block.

ah memories, I loved those old LEGO Games, do you remember how your game worked?

really enjoyed seeing those mechs

[Hawkflight]

@Eilrach

ah memories, I loved those old LEGO Games, do you remember how your game worked?

Nothing outside the description I already gave, unfortunately.

Anyway, in today’s installment - my first attempts at a cohesive team with a story.

To follow up from last time (which would have been around the end of May), I beat another user in a competition. After that, we decided to try our hands at making a baddie team together, and getting other users to build the good guys to oppose us. My creations were the “Dark Line”, a band of malevolent robots.

The story begins with “Dark One”, and introduces a baseline color scheme of black and grey (which, I don’t know if it’s trying to prevent myself from being a hypocrite or not, but it looks less boring to me than black and silver).

I also must have still had an inclination to play the good guy, because I also made this mech “Mace Hero”, combining some other MBA parts with an at this point somewhat disfigured Crystal King. This mech actually defeated Dark One in combat, which excitingly enough, I have a picture of:

I don’t think it was intentional, but Dark One’s cylindrical eyes look like they convey shock at being defeated thus.

The Dark Line came back with Dark Two, with a few features Dark One didn’t have - slightly longer legs, a gun attached to his arm rather than held by a hand, and a bit more white for pieces I didn’t have in his color scheme.

Dark Two proceeded to decimate Mace Hero on this suspiciously leather-colored planet…

And became “Dark Mace”, taking on the Mace Hero’s lime green as an additional color. Which actually makes his color scheme more generic somehow.

The black and grey color scheme was to be continued - and terminated - with “Dark Ice”. From here on the Dark Line designs got a bit weirder.

Starting with “Dark Wasp”, who sported a lot more lime, possibly by virtue of being too big to complete with just black and grey. He also stretched the idea of looking like a wasp quite a bit.

Then came these infantry robots, more or less abandoning the standard color scheme…

And “Dark Centurion”, my first attempt at combining System and Constraction.

Eventually, the Dark Line created its most powerful robot yet, “Silver Fury”. Something of a misnomer, considering it has more white than silver. Silver Fury’s “Doom Cannon” allowed it to strip the natural resources of planets, becoming a tide turner for the Dark Line… until it developed a conscience, and turned against them.

(He was also a “swishable” mecha, as seen here.)

Silver Fury managed to destroy the Dark Line’s forces…

But was himself crushed by their last resort.

Pulling some more pieces from my Mars Mission drawer, the Cosmic Devastator was a mishmash of weaponry and functionality meant to overpower Silver Fury and all who opposed the Dark Line. Which, incidentally, it failed at. Another user on the boards decided to restart the sense of competition that preceded this series, and was a much more focused builder than me - seeing this mecha destroyed by an eleventh hour hero.

I managed to keep in touch with that user even after the Master Builder Academy shut down. It turns out that he lives not far from where I work now, and I’ve been able to visit him a few times.

Join me next time, maybe, for a few more later mecha, plus a few spaceships I built around this time.

[Rukah]

These don’t look too bad actually

I like the last one

[Hawkflight]

Welcome to today’s continued resurrection of old MOCs for posterity!

Continuing the theme of my love of mechs

I busted out the Alpha Team: Mission Deep Freeze parts again, and looking at it now, sand blue and dark red look great together, but it isn’t really a color scheme I’d expect on a mecha. Maybe for some sort of dinosaur it would be cool.

This fellow seems like a boring design by comparison.

If you recall the Mace Hero from the last update - here’s another model mixing together Crystal King remnants with MBA parts. I believe the drill bits came from the Power Miners’ drill in that set.

speaking of crystal king

I believe this was meant as a mod for one of the Kit 3 official models, the Plasma Mech. I don’t remember what the changes were and currently can’t be bothered to look it up.

We have some more space stuff - this one was taken with a considerably worse camera.

Aerodynamics of this one are questionable, but at least there’s something resembling wings.

Unlike this one, though I suppose this one resembles a rocket juuuuust enough to save it. Though I’m wondering what the white cylinders were meant to be. Hopefully not cannons, as they’d just shoot the cockpit.

I think this one was made with a friend of mine who also had Kit 1. It appears that the minifigure’s friend has been captured by the robot with the baseball cap and his henchmen, and he must now race against the leg robot to save him.

Here’s a small spacecraft built primarily with Kit 2 pieces.

This was made in early July, right before I got Kit 4 - I think I had the idea of making one more big MOC, using all the pieces and techniques from the “first level” of Master Builder Academy - as Kit 4 started “level 2”. I don’t know if the sets had the right pieces to support the scale I liked to build at - if I were building this nowadays, I’d want to use a lot more studs-not-on-top bits to cover the exposed plates in his thighs and elbows. He also has an attempt at building an axe, without any good pieces to use as blades.

And, since my first creation with Kit 3 was a mech with gun placements instead of forearms, I decided to revisit the concept with… two mechs with gun placements instead of forearms, I probably should have committed more with the color schemes - I could have used purple and forest green over lime green on one of themes.

Join me next time, maybe, to see if the introduction of a new theme enough to overcome my love of mechs.

[Willess12]

@Hawkflight

speaking of crystal king

Crystal king with Glatorian hands looks so goofy.

[Rukah]

Cool. I like the 5th one

[Eilrach]

really enjoying seeing the progression of your building techniques!