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

MOC: Blacktron Robots

This week in a month in a year I've got a new Moc Post for my readers.

If you follow my Facebook page you'll have seen these models and I apologize, there's nothing new here except my personal commentary.

I built a Blacktron robot

The idea was quite simple.
I have a pirate Lego piece and I must use it.
Yellow Wedge, Plate 8 x 8 with 4 x 4 Cutout - via Bricklink

I also used a Bricklink sourced antenna in yellow since they were never made in transparent red... ahem Lego company... hint hint!  I want some.  (since I started working on this post almost a year ago!!! I got my hands on some... 😄 ...) go to bottom of post.

The model has a bit more grey than your typical Blacktron model and perhaps a bit too much yellow as well.  I was also a bit put off by the leg design I made based off the Alienator walking mechanism.   Which is why...

I built a second robot!

This robot was prompted by a conversation I was having with my brother via text.  I was staring at my Lego and blanking so I asked him for a prompt and he said build a mining mech.

6 hours later I replied back to him.  You will please notice that it is hinged in the back under the large very fancy dome.  It took a while to get that fitted and attached in a satisfactory and balanced looking manner.  I actually started with a different taller wire cage design that didn't pan out.  Think Power Miners but with old Space parts and you've got an idea for this robots abandoned design.

The trans yellow pennant is a spare purchased from Bricklink and the color scheme was started generically.  In the end I built it in the Lego Batman movie colors.  My few yellow bits were a bit tied up on a then assembled yellow submarine and underwater base.

The model is hinged with 2 hinge styles that were very common in the 90's and so can do some fun poses.

 It is a robot design that aims to please.  Charmed no?  But wait there's more !

I did eventually break down my underwater base and submarine to get those little yellow Blacktron bits and redid it in purist Blacktron colors.  I was prompted by a follower over on the Facebook page Futuron of My Youth.

Right as I wrapped up the color swap on my Mining Mech... which is kinda crab like and seems more like a sentry robot I started fiddling with some of my other Bricklink spares.

Vehicle, black Tipper End Flat with Pins -via Bricklink  The first appearance of this bit was in 1969!  But black didn't show up til much later; in 1970.  The part was still getting used when Classic Space showed up but by then it was really just a yellow construction theme piece.  The earliest sets it appeared in were part of the 4.5 volt train collection.  There is still a variant of this piece, without tipper pins, in use today.

I like to build these Futuron of My Youth MOC designs with a heavy emphasis on parts that a kid would reasonably have had a chance to have or have inherited from family in the era they were new or recent toys.  I like to show off how technically sophisticated or aesthetically cool these older parts can be.  This tipper bucket end was only used for tipping buckets and the pins aren't quite as big as average minifig utensils but they fit between 2 studs and would rest in there just waiting to be playfully tipped.  I realized while I was fiddling that they can make a triangle if you tie them together with plates.

Blacktron has triangles... you see where I'm going with this yeah?

So anyways.   I only had 2 so I couldn't make a full triangle, but I could start one and I built a yellow chair to hide behind my two thirds upside down triangle.  And when I'd finished the top I was like... if only lego men had triangle pants.  Not really... I was thinking, now what?

And so I built a robot.  A mean nasty robot who breaks M:Tron stuff!

I took design prompts for the leg chassis from Life on Mars bipedal robots and then went all chicken walker on it with classic plate hinges and technic bits.

So my robot has a claw, a laser cannon with a wrist mounted rocket launcher, tube adjusted arms and pose-able legs.

And it can walk.  I've always had an incredibly hard time building aesthetically pleasing and functional walking robots so I feel very lucky with this one.

It's a pitch perfect balance at rest and essentially leans back ever soo slightly, which works out because it's slightly nose heavy.

It can even continue standing with a raised cockpit, though it will topple if the cockpit travels too far forward.  Oh yes, I also bricklinked some yellow angled window frames to use in Blacktron MOCs... as you can see at the back of the chair.

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It's a Jailbreak!  You can go to Facebook page Futuron of my Youth to see the Full Space Police MOC these robots are attacking.

And with a nod to the greebles I sign off... Have a good day.

Sincerely, the Cure-all Pill
A brief note given my infrequent posting. I mostly finished up reviewing Blacktron prior to 2019 after hitting major blog burnout, all the appreciation I've since been shown for my blog came after I finished my main goal of reviewing these 4 Space themes in full.... The rest of these posts are fun asides until I have another theme ready... I currently don't have another full theme to review.  My Internet access has become much more limited since late 2017 and I've prioritized other uses for it.  My avenues to upload photos from my camera phone also all went away because I'm technologically tied to an outdated platform and all the ways I know to upload from it no longer work.  And speaking of ways, here's THE BIG BAD ONE my backup plan to sit at a local restaurant and upload photos from my phone via my laptop didn't account for Covid 19!!! ... I like this hobby, and I love that a tiny fanbase of this blog has developed and pops in to ask where the new posts are.  This post was finished to answer the prompting inquiries.  Thanks for the enthusiasm!

BEHOLD!!! 4 Transparent Red Antennae... And a Spyrius set remade in the SeaTron Color scheme.

I made some changes to the model based on part limitations of the 260 era... and some Bricklinked bits I like using.

Blacktron 260

I was looking at a Facebook post by Blacktron War and smacked my head... 260... I always do an Idea Book 260 post after wrapping up each theme and Blacktron's the last one to do... and guess what.

That's right, you got me... I totally forgot about it.  Here's a Space train from the Space Police page... there was some... ahem, arrested development in the doing of things for a while and I got off pattern.
I feel great though, how're y'all.

And Here, we, GO!

Wait, wait, wait... Those aren't really Blacktron!

I mean... but they are, kinda?  Blacktron got weird for 260... unlike the other 3 themes the book didn't make any attempt to keep these designs on pattern with the produced sets and instead added whites, transparent blues... and then drastically reduced the yellow and nearly erased the existence of transparent yellow.

The color decision aside, I really like the big Blacktron Trike, and the 260 idea instruction  model behind it is also small and attractive... it could've paired well with, or instead of, Meteor Monitor as a Blacktron 1.5 multipack release model between the original Blacktron and Blacktron: Next Generation; which did use white as a main color.

But then we have that toothy robot, and the little black robot.  (See that Small Robot on a black bottom Rocket stage... non Blacktron parts... at the time the best source for 3 of those parts would have been Classic Space: Polaris One Spacelab)  The robots look fun, if off color, and maybe the designs are better than what could have been done on theme... it could also be that the yellow and black would have been hard for kids to see and were thusly and rightly set aside in favor of achievable copying.

The only reason I like the tower is because I'm partial to some of the parts used on it, like a lot of them.

As for the spaceships... the triple tri-force ship is mediocre looking and my few attempts at it have been abandoned.  the rear spaceship seems like a halfway decent vehicle, but seems kinda stuck; not sure if it's Futuron or something else... and neither have Blacktron men...

Point is, Blacktron's representation in this book is slapped in there without any concern for the source material... and some of the times it works out.

The Idea Book build reappears here among the color faithful M:Tron vehicles... They seem to be on friendly terms... kinda sorta.

But of course with Blacktron, they'll spy on you even if you are their 'friends'.

The build for The Blacktron Speeder is simple and sweet... of all the Blacktron things they could have had us build this is the coolest looking one among the options.



The Model features 11 obvious white Futuron parts.  I think there was a shape they wanted to go for, and with no available yellow parts to do it, they switched over to white and didn't look back, or try a different design.  Who knows what might've been?
















To Build it from the existing sets I suggest getting
1 Strategic Pursuer... wha! This is not Blacktron?

1 Invader... I made it big because Blacktron rules.

1 Space Patroller, and this is not Blacktron.

1 Interplanetary Rover... How dare... also not Blacktron.

"It's cute and bug eyed... like a tree frog with no legs... Fancy some rockets little treefrog?"  To be serious, this is the one Blacktron model in the book to use trans yellow... these are exclusive to Invader and very nice.  I might be slightly biased about how nice they are because they are a rarity.  What's with the frog?

Our most Serious assessment continues: It's the smallest Model of Blacktron to feature the trident nose, and the arrows seem to indicate a feature is present.

"That feature is rotating froggy eye..." they don't clear enough room for a door, and the ground gets in the way of what could be construed as the 'view'.  On a more serious note.  They look like blaster cannons on doors that don't actually give enough room for ingress/egress.  It's totally a Lamborghini!

Propulsion appears to be via that black console brick... quite an odd choice, I don't think I've seen that method used elsewhere.  "Maybe it hops in short bursts, as legless tree frogs do."

"Great plagues of Bison, that's a lot of frogs! Hey, dudes, we got a frogidemic erupting in our seriously cool Blacktron post about us."

"The froggy eyes can look around independently... more like a chameleon..." but then again... they may actually just be dangerous laser cannons for ripping apart air molecules on unsuspecting moons.  

"Of course this sweet lil treefrog is actually a real treefrog and really, they aren't legless at all... Did you know, that Frog legs are leg-"

"Oi, that Futuron dweeb's ruining the awesomeness-iss-nes... we're a serious dangerous organization... and he's comparing us to... Base, come in... we got a problem of serious coolness de-Nile!"

All in all, a fine little model from 260. 

In my scholarly Blacktron dood self's personal-est opinion... this is the most wickedly neat instruction option for all of 260 Space.  I do wish they'd made our idea bigger though.  

"It's soo cute and tiny and adorable.  

So cute like a tree frog, oh yes you are."            

"Sic em dudes and dudettes, , we'll not let this fiendish effrontery sully our amazing badassedness-nes-nes... oi, a mouthful... Get them!!!"

"Anyways, it's cool, we got the little bug zappers and put em back in their place.  All's well that ends dastardly-ish."

And then it hits us like a danish brick; We Blacktron didn't get a spread of our own in 260!

Blacktron is the most mature-est and pretentious-est of the 4 awesome-est Space themes.  

*The sets may not have done super amazing because parents don't like cool bad guys, and so as not to disappoint too many kids with a 260 book in their hands the primary elements from Invader were maybe only made prominent since they accidentally made soo many of our wonderful spaceship.  The existence of Renegade (U.S. exclusive), and Message Intercept Base were neglected... pheh!  Battrax got some small parts representation on that trike, oh yeah!  And who knows if Alienator mattered in the overall scheme, it likely didn't, we apparently alienated too many concerned mothers.  But it was for a good... er... badass cause.  

*Futuron of My Youth makes no promises that any of this hearsay has any bearing on reality.

Our cause is coolness!

But in the long term... We kids liked Blacktron soo much...

We still talk about it in vast corners of the netisphere!

That's it from me... I'll be back with Blacktron's brick contributions in a few weeks. 

Sincerely, The Cure-all Pill