LT-100 Hurricane Trooper
Since life doesn't have enough challenges and I'm trying to figure out what I like to do, I figured I'd give mechs a shot. Talk about one of the most complex LEGO models to do: it involves sculpture techniques, technic, and a really good understanding (that I'm trying to get the hang of) of the human form.
In building several Gundam models (not out of LEGO, but off the trees and connecting the pieces together), I was going to try a Gundam first. However, it seems like everyone has built a Gundam (none like Sun Yun's), and his work has influenced my desire to build LEGO mechs.
Like a Gundam, the Hurricane Trooper has to be a military mech--ready for combat. He comes with a set of weapons (two laser blasters and a laser rifle) and a backpack that includes two spare lasers and a mount point for the laser blasters.
The Hurricane Trooper has strong armour in addition to the strong laser weapons he carries with him (gotta take what you can dish out, right?). The black and gray colour scheme allow him to not stand out in the field and be a large target.
The colour variation had to do with I didn't want to paint a target on him--I could always make it out of LEGO, but it seems to defeat the purpose with a combat mech. It still drives me crazy that Gundams and Zakus have these bright colours, but they're military mechs.
The most difficult part of building the Hurricane Trooper was to figure out how to make the joints move. Note to self: don't do this again: I made the entire body frame from throwbot pieces--concentrating on the hips to make it strong.
This in itself seems like a wonderful idea--until I realised, yeah, it's a good idea to make it look like a mech instead of a robot frame. So, I started to build around the throwbot parts. This was working fine, and it still stood strong. Matter of fact, it was a lot stronger of a frame than I thought it would be.
As I built around the frame, the body took shape first--then the arms, then the legs. The head was the most difficult thing as I really didn't have anything particular in mind--but it looks like a cross between a Gundam, Soundwave, and Megatron :-).
I added the weapons, and the frame ended up being strong enough to support the backpack as well (as long as it doesn't have much in it). The feet are rather large, and help stabilise the mech from backfire in order to hunt you down before you realise you've been had.