I’ve been meaning to build a racer mecha for a while now, but when it was announced that the collaborative event in the Mecha theme at Bricks Cascade 2017 would be a race, I had to make it happen.
I didn’t start with much of a plan. I knew that I wanted to have wheeled feet, a humanoid frame, and I needed a visible pilot (event requirement). In my mind’s eye, the feet would have inline wheels, a bit like roller blades. Once I started playing with elements though, I found myself with feet that looked like old-school roller skates.
These feet informed the rest of my design. I worked up from the feet, building a pair of legs with a good amount of articulation. At this point I was thinking I might go for a bright yellow color scheme.
As the rest of the frame came together, I realized that I had a bit of a derby mecha on my hands. The big torso was necessitated by the fact that I wanted to use a bubble canopy for the pilot. This made the shoulders fairly wide and gave the frame a broad chest. I was picturing the wheels at the end of the long arms being useful for staying stable in a crouch or while making sharp turns.
When it came to skinning the frame, I tried for muscular legs and a deep chest. Since I had already built the pilot, I gave the mecha a darker color scheme with a few stripes of red. Some of the yellow stuck around to, but just as occasional pops of color.
I am very pleased with the finished model. It was a quick build as I had a number of other models that I was trying to get done for the convention, but I like it more every time I look at it.
You can check out more pictures over on my Flickr account.
Keep building and enjoy!