HOW IT BEGAN
Decision to build Neo Sandstorm was an "impulse" moment for me. I was
browsing brickset.com for latest LEGO sets and saw the chopper from the Dino
theme. This made me to lament my failure to buy a similar LEGO chopper from
Creator theme few years ago (I practically ignored it when it's on shelves
back then) . Finally it led me to more googling to find out more about this
peculiar hollowed out helicopter known as
Skycrane. Then seeing photos
of it being orange in color seems to be very strikingly beautiful..... it
redirects me to more nostalgia moment of once owning (a hands-me-down from a
cousin who had outgrown his toys) a G1 Transformers triple changer called
(drum rolls please...) Sandstorm. Too bad I sold it to a fellow transformer fan
many-many years ago, regretfully.
The toy above is a pretty well-done Transformer for a triple changer. Both
alt modes are solid and looks like what they meant to be. Besides the short
arms.. I can't seem to find any fault in it. The lack of articulation is just
normal and forgivable here.
THE MAKING OF NEO SANDSTORM (aka TRIVIA)
I was almost deterred and nearly given up building this MOC because of
two major setbacks:
- Initially I can't find ways to make the rotor blades disappear in dune
buggy mode (like the G1 toy) . With some trial and error... I decided to
apply more hinges into them and make them fold into a "hopefully"
decent looking shoulder cannon.
- The buggy mode has FOUR fairly big tyres. "Concealing" two of them is
hard enough, there's two more I need to find ways to hide them. Finally they
end up "obscured" behind the cockpit, making the overall cockpit longer than
a typical skycrane chopper.
I actually took 2 weeks "downtime" to wait for parts to arrive
from bricklink.com sellers before I continue. Orange parts are pretty scarce in
my inventory.
Initially I don't intend to apply yellow colored parts in the MOC, but after
finding out the only technic parts I use to build the tail rotors are
yellow (and no other colors available in my inventory), I need to balance things
out by having yellow stripes running across the helicopter tail.
Due to the fact that there are 4 tyres crammed in the chopper body, which
actually forms the robot torso, I am unable to bulk up /decorate his crotch with
more tiles or slopes.
The back tyres for the chopper are not that strong. After a while... the
backside will sag and the tyres will spread outwards.
The nature of how his hands are build made it hard for him to really hold
weapons firmly, so the payload cum cannons are simply connected to his hands via
conventional studs.
I "cheated" a bit..... ... well not exactly. This is related to my purist view on using only LEGO "unmodified" parts. If you see the hinged component on top of the chopper
windshield. I ran out of 4 stud length "wand" part (aka light saber). I am
forced to cut a longer LEGO antenna to become 4 stud "wand" to utilise
instead (observe
the rough edge on the cut antenna used in the hinge) . I can choose to buy more
"light sabers" from bricklink.com but they're pretty pricey . :P
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PHOTOS!!
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The payload doesn't connect securely onto the
chopper. it dangles instead. |
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The underside of the buggy shows how the tail
rotors are folded in snugly. |
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For a complete set of photos, visit my blog entry below:
http://alanyuppie.blogspot.com/2012/05/lego-neo-sandstorm.html
For transformation sequence between each modes , click below too!
http://alanyuppie.blogspot.com/2012/05/lego-neo-sandstorm-transformation.html
