This is what I was waiting for. Can't wait to see what you come up with next. Will you be attempting articulation improvements as well?
Love the round eyes. I'm actually ok with the red and green head for the most part. But iido like what you've done there. I'm interested to see how you alter the yellow lion head in particular as I feel it's the one that needs the most altering. The lower jaw of the yellow and blue could use some reworking too. Thanks for sharing. Mine arrives tomorrow and I'm super pumped to start on it.
Seeing Len's pics has gotten me very excited. No way I'd ever be able to build a Voltron like his on my own. I lack the parts and the skill. But I am much more capable of modifying and existing one, especially if I have a guideline from the expert himself.
I'm curious how strong Len's voltron held up. I've seen many pics of his voltron standing tall and curious if Lego's decision to make the changes they did for sake of joints was really necessary or if Len's original design using the joint he did worked good enough. I get the fact that Lego wants it to be sturdy for a child to play with it, but i really dont see a child playing with a 15" tall lego robot unlike they would say a transformer combiner where the arms and legs are bound to flail around. and if a child is truly going to play with voltron its made of lego, its going to fall apart playing with it. thats what happens when something is made of stuff thats made to come apart. I dunno, maybe im just a little butt hurt that i was totally looking forward to this lego set based of Len's version and we ended up getting something that, in my opinion, is so much less. I'm on the fence about buying it. on one hand who doesnt want an offical lego voltron. on the other hand i wish it looked like it should have and with better articulation. so far i like the subtle changes Len has made thus far with red and look forward to how he improves to make it more toon accurate. If he pulls that off i'll def pull the trigger and get a lego voltron. for $180 i really dont want to have to go buy more parts to make it better unless its that much better. And on a side note as far as parts forming its a real shame lego couldnt figure out a way to do less parts forming. i dont see how they couldnt have incorporated something in the shoulders and hips of the black lion that kept it fully together where u pull out the shoulders and hips, still attached by a techinic rod, rotating the whole assembly while still attached by the rod and snapped back into place. I think this would have made it so much less parts forming than having to completely remove the piece.
The decision was likely made for longevity. I've made very large builds myself and over time the joints just can't take the weight, even without posing them, unless I really double-up on them. They don't necessarily become floppy, but Lego seems to have gone with a "posable statue" direction where there's articulation, but it's more centered on being a display piece that will hold a single pose forever.
Finally opened up my Hyperphase Voltron from comic con today. Man what a let down. Mine was riddled with QC errors, misfired pins, scratches and cuts in the plastic from unknown sources, terrible paint. I’m tempted to try and figure out how to get a refund, but tbh I only bought it for the new weapons and wings. Just a word of warning to anyone else interested, it’s not worth the 120$
If you like Lego, you should pick this up it's a really fun build. If you like Voltron, you should pick this up, it looks amazing, has considerable heft and is very sturdy. Also is such a deal breaker that you have pull the Black Lion's limbs off?
pulling the limbs off isnt the deal breaker i just think for the sake of making a good lego voltron that doesnt parts form they had a pretty easy solution. what bothers me the most is how ugly the individual lions look. the open shoulders on black revealing the joint kibble is ugly. the black lions head is ugly. doesnt even remotely look like the black lion head. the folded up wings are ugly. the other lion heads are ugly and honestly each lion has a different head sculpt but not these guys. the big thick bear looking legs on the black lion is also ugly. the pics i saw of the back view are horrible. The combined mode looks good, i'll give it that. But the individual lions are just trash. On a normal mech i can understand emphasis on the actual robot, because its a robot, but Voltron is so much more than just a single combined robot. If you dont take into consideration of the lions you get what Lego produced. Obviously Len spent the time trying to balance the 2 modes which i think is what made his build so much better than what lego landed with. With all the complaints i've seen about the extra piece of the super mini-pla voltron they did a fantastic job trying to get the individual lions accurate while also making the combined mode beautiful. I just wish Lego would have tried to do the same thing. Thats why im on the fence with it. Sure i could probably give a go at making it better, and i really hope others do and post their mods for everyone to see (hopefully with some good instructions for others), but again at $180 its a lot of money for a nice looking statue that really only looks good combined.
Well then don't buy it if you think the lions look like trash. Go play with the Playmates version. It's same size, has more articulation, and the lions don't look like "trash". And I'll be over here admiring my Lego Voltron.
Finished Lego Voltron! It's pure joy to assemble. So cool. Being Lego, it's fun to mod a bit. Like in the cartoon, the legs disappeared when in Voltron mode. I started taking parts of the legs off to mimic the cartoon. Fun times! Enjoy.
Giving the Lego Lions some love. Also, the sword is pretty sweet. I rotated the blue parts by the hilt cuz I thought it looked better than the instructions. The black lion can hold the shield/disk in the arm ports. Kinda looks like one of the shoulder weapons from the cartoon.
