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!