Transformers: Dinobot Swoop : A LEGO® creation by Miguel Garcia : MOCpages.com

Transformers: Dinobot Swoop

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Possibly my favourite Dinobot from The Transformers 'Swoop' was the aerial combatant of the faction using fear as his primary weapon against his enemies bellow!

About this creation

I wanted Swoop's general appearance to resemble that of his 1st Generation counterpart while adding more mechanical features more reminiscent to the style seen in the recent transformers movies such as his robotic bird-like legs. To achieve this I used around a 50-50 split of conventional System pieces and Technic/Bionicle making sure that I kept his classic colour scheme.

After much thought I decided to replace Swoop's red 'Thermal Sword' with a sort of mech Katana. Although the traditional red swords were almost symbolic of the Dinobots I felt this sleek sword design went well with the sleekness of the character's appearance, I also felt it was important to add my own touch to each aspect of his design.

Designing the sword was tricky but then thats where the fun comes in! rather than using one of those ready made Bionicle blades there are so many of I chose to have a rumage through my lego boxes and see if I could find some inspiration. I then came across and curved train-track piece and Hey-Presto! with a couple of technic pieces I had a weapon that would strike fear in to any Decepticon or Autobot alike!

While with any Transformers build it's important to have a robot and altmode which work together and are equally as impressive I've gotta say that I put a little more love into his Pteranodon mode for two reasons: the first is that... well they're the 'DINO'bots! I felt that this mode would be most important to get right, secondly I just love dinosaurs and their mechanical dino modes were always my favourite!

I went through a bunch of tweeks and complete rebuilds for the head and I find myself still looking for ways to improve it. Most difficult was getting it to merge with his robot mode head but I'm happy with what I ended up with (for now!). If I have one major regret with the head it's that the articulation is limited to a side to side swivel and can only look down if detached from the robot mode head. However I will try and find some way to rectify this when I revisit this build.

one of the things I liked about Swoop's dino mode in the cartoons and comics is that his legs formed into these sort of chunky back thruster type structures which gave it a futuristic aircraft look on top of the Pteranodon appearance. this is something I wanted to properly represent in my design.

While the wing articulation is limited to only a hinge on each outer wing segment I felt this was sufficient as you don't see swoop doing too many ridiculous poses in this mode throughout the cartoon or comics besides the articulation in his feet compensate for this limitation. instead of rocket launchers I built some laser-cannons which mount on the underside of his wings however I may make some rocket-launchers in the future which will be interchangeable with these cannons.

I do have a lego Slag built which I will be photographing and posting in the near future however there are some stability issues I want to work out with him first.

I hope this was useful for any builders who are looking to build swoop but are having trouble making a start, hopefully this can give you some ideas and eventually lead you to building an even better one than mine!

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