Samurai Mech: Reimagined

Growing up as a kid, I was inseparable from LEGO. From LEGO City to LEGO Creator Expert, there was always something I enjoyed from each and every LEGO set that I was given as a gift or from purchasing myself. As I grew older, I was constantly fascinated by the amount of detail and intricacy a LEGO set would bring ranging from the simplest vehicles to the extraordinary architecture builds. But the one thing that was the most intriguing to me, was always the mechs and machines.

LEGO Ninjago was one of my favourite toy lines as a kid. Everytime the new wave of LEGO Ninjago came out, I would always beg my parents to take me to the local toy store and window-shop the newest stock. Having had a fixed budget on the amount of LEGO sets I was allowed each year, I unfortunately missed out on all of the releases of the Samurai X mech, a mech which had a samurai-based design from the LEGO Ninjago TV series. Desperate to fill the absence of it as a kid, I would salvage as many parts as I could from my LEGO collection to create my own, in hopes of matching-up to the official releases.

As a kid with limited LEGO parts, building my dream set of course... didn't go as smoothly, as you would expect. I remember reconstructing the model seven perhaps eight times over the course of 5-6 years in my childhood, where I would modify it, and then come back a few months later and just completely disassemble the build because this part wasn't working or that part didn't look good... to the point where during one of my attempts in remodifying the build, I gave up. I was tired of looking for pieces, tired of the colour miss-match... I was just done. I sat the unfinished build on one of my shelves, and left it there to collect dust.

Recently, I decided to give this build another shot, and well, the final result was definitely worth it!

This set is a reimagining of the various different designs of the Samurai X mech from the LEGO Ninjago TV Series combined. Some notable features include:

This set accomplishes many things at a considerably small scale. By only using ball joints, hinges and technic pins, this mech was able to not only pull-off exceptional articulation, but fairly good-looking proportions ranging from the head, torso as well as the limbs. The amount of articulation allows the model to withstand pretty much any pose that comes to mind, even rivalling against that of a modern-day action figure. In conclusion, this model presents a stylised take on the samurai mech design, while also acknowledging certain attributes from the original/inspired designs of the Samurai X mech from LEGO Ninjago.

Overall, the final result of this project blew my expectations out of the water. To me, this is something that I will hold dear to me, it is something that represents my childhood. I will be able to place this back on my shelf, knowing that I have done it justice, knowing that it has finally been given the amount of time, effort and appreciation it truly deserves. Going back to the set, two points that particularly stood out to me both come from the torso section. The first point that I was quite proud of how it turned out was the spinal section by using six 1x1 round cylinder pieces. The integration of these pieces to me, really adds a plus to the back profile of the overall build. The second point is how the minifigure was able to be so thoroughly encased into the chest region by just using a simple combination of hinges and ball joint connections. Being able to only leave the minifigure head to stick out really adds a presence to the build from the inside, while also maintaining a very stylized mechanical look.

To you all who have read through to the very end, thank you so much for checking this project as well as story out, it means the world to me. As you can probably tell, the colours in the actual build are a bit all over the shop, so please feel free to drop a comment on any suggestions with regards to the colour, or any further improvements that could be made to make this set even better!

- TheMechGuy