Re-imagine SeaTron: part 3

So last time I turned the spaceship into a space truck and then... I dropped this on ya!  It's essentially a space age magnetic winch crate hauler module.














It was developed to do a particular thing... So, here's the configuration for which it was designed.  I'm not convinced this is the prettiest design, but it is yet another versatile option in the swiss army spacecraft's plethora of options.















I made some very mild cosmetic additions to the wings to minimize cargo sloshing.  A mere 2 bits were added and I think they look good even if the functionality is left un-utilized.
Space Control Panel














Dun dun dun, we all want to have a yellow submarine.  I did says re-imagine seatron... what would my spaceship be without a yellow submarine? 














The design for this yellow submarine is a very loosely interpreted take off from Sea Sprint 9, but utilizing the parts I have from the M:Tron, Futuron, Space Police, and Blacktron part selections.















I wanted to give Seatron's Submarine a more... Classic design.  Propellers are a bit underwhelming, but I could prolly swap em out for real ones quick enough.  The submarine uses way more SNOT than anything on my big spaceship.  Blacktron provides all of the yellow in use here.
















And it goes like this.

Deep in the newly discovered reaches of the far off universe... A space freighter delivers a Submarine to a most liquideous moon.













Additional Configurations are opened up by the one  magnetic winch module addition.  With a few tweaks, i.e. removing the wings to an attachable stud, I can fit one of the space ship twins on board.

I really fancy the heavy look of the cockpit in this configuration.

The earlier design I showed off in part 1 can fit the rig in back and switch from a large fighter to a smaller hauler

I can even get the twin cockpits in on the towing fighter action.

Or yet again, the tow fighter can bring along a Yellow submarine.

Soo many toys!!!

I would be remiss if I forgot to show you the big main unit toting the Yellow Submarine.

Le gasp, the post must end, but I already wonder... what could the new rig bring to the wheel options I brought in earlier???

Sincerely, The Cure-all Pill

Reimagining Seatron: Part II

About a month after initially finishing the Modular Spaceship I was minding my own business when a builder in my head muttered... It'd look good with wheels.  So now we'll head back into the post to have a look at the central fuselage of the Spaceship and my new bevy of modules.  two Wheel rig pair styles, and a ball and joint hitch kit.

The hitch kits and wheel kits 'can' go on this way... The initial design was actually the reverse... but these modulars are pretty flexible, so.... shrug or whatever... I'll give you a tour.

For extra support in this modular tour I developed a robot loosely inspired by the Episode 1 Pit Droid design from 1999's Phantom Menace pod racer sets.  I built it as close as I could with the Space themes' available parts (didn't get far) so when those ran out the design took a left turn. The red driver works on getting things together while our red lab technician enjoys a lemon lime snowcone.

The arrow indicator prints are a bit raised in this instance to allow for clearance over my front units unlevel built up side.  On the back module and on an as yet unshown module they'll fit more snug, but for now.  This lifted shape manages to look good and the raised arrow gives a functional push point for removal.















The robot can drop its rig and take a seat at the wheel of this powerful rig.















Here's the lab interior mostly shorn of its tools and with a cool little console unit.  The red tray is currently empty.















Our lab technician needs to bring out a research sample kept in the handy lockbox.

The yellow sample oughta do.  Let's see what what we've got on this chipset.

The salinity of this planet's oceans exceeds our own, we'll have to make calibrated adjustments to the ballast for 'that'.

And so, that's variant one for this Moon Rover.  I didn't modify the body for the wheels, the new pieces were developed to pair to the existing superstructure.

The Lab unit can form a truck all on its own.













The lab console screen folds down to allow the technician to see forward and drive the lab around.

Variant 2 is a good deal simpler, I have a rock scrabbler and the lab it reports to.  This is the original working intention for the front wheels.  In truth... I think the design is a teensy weensy bit WIDE! at this scale.  

Variant 3 is the original shape I put all of these bits into.  It's basically the above in reverse.  Adaptable ain' it :)

The Robots welding tool can mount on the labs rocket attach point.

Variant 4 ditches the hitch and pushes the big wheels all the way back.  The connection utilizes the labs pre-existing inverted slope section and the wheel mount's push removal arrow indication print points to create a compelling suspension design which is level under load and adjusts downward over rough terrain.

The use of half pin axle pieces came about due to a shortage of suitably colored technic pin bricks.  They stabilize the modules and make removal easy.  But they also work great for this side application of 'I accidentally discovered a finished and decent suspension idea when I stuck my module on the superstructure this way.'

And suddenly a whole new attachable module was discovered.  What is it for!  

                                                             

Sea you again for Part III!

Sincerely the Cure-all Pill

Re-imagine Seatron: Part 1

When I started collecting these old space sets in force circa 2013?  I had an idea that what I wanted out of this endeavor was to build a Spaceship kind of like Deep Freeze Defender, but for Futuron.

Of course there was also this part of me that really liked that color scheme for the spaceship in the Seatron development image.  I've half a mind to build a Submarine and modular transport hauler to option in according to the colorscheme. 

Via Brickipedia
Originally featured in brickjournal6

So I'll probably do a more true Futuron color scheme mothership at some point... but for now... this Seatron riff  on Deep Freeze Defender is what I've done.

I built my model up in modules much like Deep Freeze Defender, I started with the modular method so I could make the task seem easier, and to avoid my childhood pitfall of letting the design get away from me.

I'll explain any part additions through the walkthrough... but by and large the pieces you see here are from Futuron, Space Police, and M:Tron sets... as I delve deeper into the next blog part(s?) you'll start to see Blacktron pieces showing up with a handful more of stray part callouts.  My goal is to show off just what it was these toys could do as they were in... say, 1990. 

Working from small to large as often happens in a Legoland instruction manual I assembled escort fighter x2.














From the beginning I was anticipating the use of the red striped Classic Space nose, which is one of the odd part additions I threw into the Golden Era Space collection for this build.  Red blends well beneath the red canopy and gives the interior some color along with the M:TRON console.  In a reversal from Futuron I played off the Seatron spaceship's transparent red, white and black by feeding in bits of Transparent blue. I love transparent blue sooo much!















Parts 3 and 4 mirrored were the edges of this part 5 spaceship.  I designed the mirrored edges for the front cockpits as segments to bolt into an as yet unknown midship portion with the only plan being the use of that Classic Space V-Nose.












This was part 5 in the process.  The aforementioned Classic Space nose appears here to good effect.  I'd thought about using the transparent Blue Spyrius antennae for this, but I only have 1 slightly bent example to work with and 1 very bent example, so I focused on the Futuron 6990 stalks again; I'd emptied out a sellers supply of them when my 6990 was delivered without the pieces so I have an untold number of t-(he means 5).  The transparent red windows have a bit of gap here in the classical manner.  Some people don't seem to like such gaps, but I think it makes the ship look more convincing as an actual Legoland prototype/finished product.  I took an ever so slightly unconventional route when mounting it to the body.

The mount point is a black bracket  notable for transition from a 2 wide base to a one wide plate which I then hinged back into a 2 wide hinge granting a swift lift of the window with minimal part usage.














I took off the rockets from the front spaceships and bolted all 5 modular sections together.   As Modules I could establish each chapter and verse of the model as I built up the overarching plot; SPACESHIP!!!.  I could prevent the over reach of a solidly built up and awkwardly sized plate or brick if I needed to make a change midway.  To me at this point in the build this was looking pretty good.  This was the first night of work... 2.5 hours or thereabouts... dinner that night was a rush job.















Next night up I built this cargo unit which turned into a kind of space station research lab as these things tend to develop.  I take the view that it can be landed and left behind.  It took an additional 2 hours... I had a lot of trouble with blending it in, 'and' making it shapely in its own right.  Elements in addition to the main themes are an extra white space panel wall with stripes, 4 transparent blue Belleville rocket tips, one of the black boxes from Ogel's Shuttle Launch complete with transparent red box lid, and one transparent blue Belleville shower head/insectoid radar eyestalk.













My Astronaut researcher's beveridge is a lemonlime sno-cone.  If you can see it, the Octagon window hinge wall can be fitted with Space Police's prison windows, and to get a good bit of transparent red into the model, I totally took advantage of that fit.  The backside with the white and black accents was the last part and probably took the lions share of my thinking about how to get something aesthetically compatible to the red window octagon side while making a mount point to the previous build.

Inside there's a tool supply depot, and a type of disk reading computer.  The disk tile is remove-able and stored in the box behind the astronaut.














The base capsule paired well with the two front escort craft and mirrored edge connectors, and on the third night I produced the rear wings which you see sported quite nicely by the midship command cabin.  You know, not where they should be.












So it was on the third night I mounted the mirrored rear wing modules as a pair and brought the look together.   the wings took about an hour or so and I transferred the rockets from the duplicate spaceships to the back.  More Belleville Showerheads added a bit of eye-catching awesomesauce.
I had a lot of trouble sourcing those blue showerheads and blue rocket tips in quantity and available together back a few years ago... just soo you know, that's why I want to use them on everything I build.  The endeavor was expensive... very very expensive... something something Europe, overseas shipping, bother bother bother. 

Someone call Lego and tell them we need more sets carrying transparent blue rocket tips and Insectoid showerheads.  

I thought it was a surprisingly pretty result...

                                     
After finishing up I set the model out for photography.  And tried out some unplanned combinations with the chunks of module.  Needless to say I liked them... or I might have just said, oh yeah, it can recombine and... yeah... I liked them.

With a quick flip I can switch command cabin to be the rear as the mirrored connector edges and wings can function on either fuselage piece.

With a quick flip and some rocket rearrangements; as above... so below, but now the back is the front.

This fleet is perhaps the least interesting mix of small ships, but I think the individual units work when considered as options of options.  The moonbase module can fly itself down without the fleet of one ship having to waste fuel on reentry and departure.  Oh yeah, those blue rocket tips are treated by me for these things as the miniest of modules... for when a variant seems to lack boosters.

I especially fancy this interpretation.  It's a shape I don't think I would've gone for as is, but I like the heavy transport with escort craft feel achieved this way.

About a month later I came back to this spacecraft and decided to build wheel modules for the central fuselage.

But that's for another blogpost.

Sincerely, the Cure-all Pill