29 November 2019

2019 Parts Fest #2: Kev's Robots

Posted by Elspeth De Montes
UK-based builder Kevin Levell is back and, as with many other Parts Festival creations, these ideas are spawned from those amazing LEGO® Batman accessory packs. Many of you readers have expressed frustration that these are unavailable from Bricks & Pieces, because they are 'locked' to the Batman license. It seems there might be good news on the way about this – part 50018 is now listed on B&P, although out of stock – so we will keep you updated.


I very often like to build in a freeform, directionless, even Zen-like way. Part of the delight of a Parts Festival for me is the opportunity to experiment with new parts in that exact way. I very rarely have a clear idea of what I want to do, I normally just tinker, putting things together in abstract ways, in regimented or geometric ways, until something 'speaks' to me. Often, multiples of the same part are a particularly effective way to do this, and this is a further delight of a Parts Festival.

Little Robot


In the course of my experimenting, I thought it would be nice to try to build something using exclusively the elements from multipack Mini Accessory, No. 11 (6266977|50018).

Lots of things that look like they would create interesting visual detail in a large build are easy to produce with these parts.  Producing something coherent as a standalone model was much more challenging. I failed to produce something within the self-imposed restriction but it was an interesting journey nonetheless. I tried a few different things, but couldn’t quite get what I was after with just one pack.
I was also tempted to add other parts and I eventually gave in, piled on into my greeble parts to spawn a little robot.

Robert Walker and Robert Wheeler


Way back in 2017 when I first contributed to a New Elementary Parts Festival (The Nexogon), I showed Tim a model I had been tinkering with - a robot head. I put it away unfinished for a combination of reasons. This particular exploration of Mini Accessory, No. 10 in Silver Metallic/ Flat Silver (6266155|40598) and Mini Accessory, No. 11 also in Silver Metallic (6266977|50018) prompted me to dig that unfinished model out.


I'd built another robot head using the Batman accessories bags and I had a few ideas in progress that looked vaguely skeletal. So it was 'just' a case of expanding these heads, to create two bodies to go with them.


Here we have Robert Walker.



And here, Robert Wheeler.  I realised that I was playing heavily to nostalgic sci-fi influences that the average man-child of my generation will most probably all share with me: Johnny Number Five, C-3PO (without his coverings) and the Terminator – Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 aka T-800 aka Arnold Schwarzenegger!




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Products mentioned in this post were kindly supplied by the LEGO Group. All content represents the opinions of New Elementary authors and not the LEGO Group. All text and images are © New Elementary unless otherwise attributed.

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