Blacktron MOC: The Mantis

Over Christmas I was given a present.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Short review:
It was pretty good; I'd liken it to a Tomb Raider/From Software amalgamation
The combat at the highest difficulty was very satisfying
But eventually I wore down because progress was arduous and so I switched the difficulty down to the normal mode and the combat lost its luster at the easier setting, but I got to enjoy the story which I liked quite a lot.  I liked fighting Imperials and hated fighting spiders.
There's a nice looking spaceship in it called the mantis that inspired me to try some stuff with these Vintage 1980's/early 90's Lego sets.

I've added more broken down Lego models to my MOC supply so the 260 originals are sharing space with some more of their friends.

Here are some close up shots of the engine and inner hinge system I employed.  The yellow engine is a Bricklinked piece I picked up loose and first appeared in Timecruisers where it is an exclusive color, I never acquired the theme as a kid and mostly remember admiring it in catalogs.  I picked up the yellow engines specifically for Blacktron MOCing. 

The Blacktron logo had to go somewhere so it went on the engine.  This engine is version 2, during the initial build I slapped something together and hated it so much this MOC was almost never photographed.  But on the third take I specifically rebuilt the engine based on the general outline of my first design, and I'm pretty happy with it.

The wing was the first part of the design and it, along with its frame has survived the modifications mostly intact.  I did add the camera cannons to it when I removed them from the gap behind the cabin's side windows in favor of Renegade's 2x2 striped tiles.  I also added the 8H antenna during the MOC's second incarnation.  I'd broken down another MOC and so it became available.

Here is a closeup of the classic era hinges that push the engine out.  These are the 2x4 over 2x8 variants, and the hinge base terminates into a 1x6 technic brick the engine is pinned onto in the engine's second version... Initially I built the first engine directly onto the hinges.  The printed stripe slope passes between the gap in the frame, and so the design gap is not stylistic invention.  It's there of necessity.

Here's a closeup for the wing.  The tile is removed as with the handlebar plate in Renegade, but in this case it's to let the wing fall.

The technical limitations of the era are no match for a determined swing wing builder!

In back I've got some of the odd shape pieces doing the job of pressing against these inverted slopes so the engine can't swing down past the frame when the wing is locked.  I had a more tightly fitted design that accidentally put stress on the parts so I had to redesign it to hold properly.

Version one of this ship was a solid body and very miserable to build, because I was building on a design with a fragile flopping wing, and an engine that often swung out and upset my balanced grip.

Version 2 started when I broke 50 percent of the ship down into parts and opened up the rear frame to make a technic mount point.  At that point I simply matched the shaping of a new seperated cabin design to stick to it and focused on building a piloted cabin with a large lower window section that would sit between mandibles. 

The first canopy design was Battrax canopy over Renegade canopy as with Space Police 2 stackover method.  But I thought the design should be more sophisticated, so I busted out the trans yellow panels from Cosmic Fleet Voyager and hinged them.  Here's a top down view.

The Lower windshield had a wide open space so I set up an instrument panel so the pilot could look down.  This was a great opportunity for me to use a handful of Classic Space transparencies for the first time so I went to town building a delightful cockpit.

The trans green 1x1 plates are a Blactron element taken from Invader and I wanted to imitate the sort of interior night mode look I inferred from the original design.  Behind the pilot I had some unused open space, so I set in a removeable box.  Initially it was black, but also in Invader fashion, I replaced it with gray to give myself a better photography situation.

You'll notice I use a bit of grey here and there... there is gray in the Blacktron color scheme in trace amounts, and here I took inspiration from the engine in Nautica theme's Dark Shark, which I had as a kid and still have... minus some stickers and heavily played with.

Nautica Dark Shark  This was my first set with black visors and given that I missed Blacktron by a few years as a kid... it had to cover for the accident of a mistimed birthyear. 😉

That's my take on the Mantis.  I hope you enjoyed it.

Sincerely, The Cure-all Pill