MOC: Stringer 2.0

[Aanchir]

As soon as I had completed Bulk 2.0 to my satisfaction, I got to work on building a 2.0 version of Jimi Stringer. However, I've had a lot more difficulty coming up with his design and would like some feedback on what I have so far.

EDIT: I've updated the image and LXF with revised versions that I'm a lot happier with. I still welcome feedback, but am no longer quite so desperate for advice on how this could be changed.

(Image links to Flickr)

The main changes are in his left arm and legs-- his silver metallic "name badge" was moved down to his legs and his arm cladding was changed entirely. The color scheme of this new version feels a lot more balanced, and he feels a lot more distinct from the other 2.0 heroes.

Another change I made was in his helmet accessory, but this was just to make the color scheme easier to visualize. From the default LDD angle, Evo's helmet accessory doesn't show much of the face. The helmet accessory here is just a placeholder for a custom part anyway, so logistically which part I use as a placeholder is just a matter of which looks best in screenshots.

I ended up keeping the weapon the same. It feels unique compared to the other 2.0 weapons, but doesn't use radically different parts. It should be noted that the axes are available on Hero Recon Team, so I considered them fair game here.

My brother recommended I use the flick-fire grappling hook piece from the Agents theme, which would have also been good but which I was hesitant to use since flick-fire missiles don't fit securely in the weapon shield in real life. I don't have the grappling-hook version here with me, but I fear it might have the same problem.

Download the model

Download the model here!

Edited April 13, 2011 by Aanchir

[Shine]

Well, I messed around with the thing a bit and came up with this.

I thought the weird bits on the shoulders were very reminiscent of the original Stringer's weapon, though they might do better replacing the axes.

[Aanchir]

Well, I messed around with the thing a bit and came up with this.

I thought the weird bits on the shoulders were very reminiscent of the original Stringer's weapon, though they might do better replacing the axes.

Hmmm... it's a neat concept, but as always my perfectionism gets in the way. I want this to be like a viable set, and as far as I know a set can't include one of the BIONICLE minifig tools without having the whole collection (they're all listed as one item on LEGO Customer Service's website). Still, of course, I'll see how they work-- they're a part I hadn't really considered when looking through what System weapons worked on the weapon shield.

I kind of prefer the silver metallic to the titanium metallic in this case also (the guy needs contrast!) and the flame yellowish orange to the bright orange. Bright orange would require fewer parts to be painted or otherwise customized (at least in the case of the weapon shield), but it deviates pretty wildly from both the way the other Hero color schemes are organized and also from the color scheme established by Stringer 3.0.

That angular 6M shell you have on his shoulder is a part I've been meaning to incorporate, and I've currently got it on his left wrist similar to how Breez has it on her right wrist. Seems the name badge disappeared in your concept... as I mentioned in the first post, I've moved it down to his legs to give them a bit more color (I could probably also dabble in waterslide decals if I wanted to make this guy for real, since it seems like an easy part to apply a decal or sticker to). But overall I'd like to keep this guy's design fairly simple, following the same sort of design rules laid down by the rest of the 2.0 heroes.

Just did some refining of my current concept, and may be able to upload it later today. Not too many changes from my original concept, but I'm a lot happier with the overall design after making these changes.

[Brickthing]

Seeing as this is more of a mod than a MOC, I don't have too much advice to give - your Stringer would fit in fine as a 2.0 Hero, albeit without any water/ice tools.

My main advise/personal preference would be to stay with Evo's headgear in Silver, as it closer resembles a speaker/sound related motif than Nex's headgear does.

I also think it's essential that Stringer's upper arms are properly armoured as well, as he isn't a lean or thin character. Even though this would cause him to exceed the piece count of 2.0 Heroes, he could only be a special edition set anyway, right?

On a presentation note, your action figures would look much better if you posed them as if they were physical MOCs. However, I haven't properly tried to make an action figure in LDD yet so I'm not sure how much easier said than done that is.

[Aanchir]

Seeing as this is more of a mod than a MOC, I don't have too much advice to give - your Stringer would fit in fine as a 2.0 Hero, albeit without any water/ice tools.

My main advise/personal preference would be to stay with Evo's headgear in Silver, as it closer resembles a speaker/sound related motif than Nex's headgear does.

I also think it's essential that Stringer's upper arms are properly armoured as well, as he isn't a lean or thin character. Even though this would cause him to exceed the piece count of 2.0 Heroes, he could only be a special edition set anyway, right?

On a presentation note, your action figures would look much better if you posed them as if they were physical MOCs. However, I haven't properly tried to make an action figure in LDD yet so I'm not sure how much easier said than done that is.

Yeah, I prefer Evo's headgear. The Nex headgear is mainly just to make the screenshot look better, and if I were to make him in real life I'd presumably try to make a custom helmet accessory (as difficult as that might be). If I were the least bit creative I wouldn't have that screenshot problem, since I'd take the screenshot from a more interesting angle and maybe even pose Stringer to resemble Hero Factory 2.0 box art. This is a lot easier on the latest version of LDD than it would have been in version 4.0 with ball-joint-based MOCs.

As for his upper-arm armor, I'd love to design him as if he were in a special-edition set-- maybe even packaged with a unique villain like Bulk & Vapour. However, the main thing I was concerned with here was that he shouldn't look out-of-place in a lineup with the other 2.0 Heroes. Overall, you're right about his upper arms, though. While a leaner look would be OK for him in my opinion, it would be inconsistent with both his 1.0 and 3.0 versions, and that's not something I'd like to aim for. Still, I don't see what I could really easily do for the upper arms... I'd have to armor both of them if I want his look to remain balanced, but armoring the arm he holds his weapon with could reduce his posability. Decisions, decisions...

It's probably worth noting that in one of the recent character videos on the Hero Factory website you can clearly see Bulk and Stringer 2.0 behind Furno in a scene that probably came from a summer episode. They were basically just the 3.0 versions with a lot of the 3.0-specific armor and elements removed, though, so not much inspiration there. In any event, I guess it's back to the drawing board for this one.

Out of curiosity, did you think any more highly of my Bulk 2.0 concept? He's probably my main reason for being so strict with myself when designing Stringer 2.0. With Bulk 2.0 I was able to design a concept I was totally satisfied with, without deviating wildly from any of the established trends among 2.0 heroes. I feel it would be a real shame if I weren't able to do the same with Stringer. Of course, both Bulk and Stringer deviate from one of the most consistent trends among the 2.0 Heroes-- their colors aren't especially vibrant-- and I guess it was just harder to work around this with Stringer than with Bulk.

EDIT: Actually, just goofed around with Stringer a bit on LDD and realized I can add a 4M shell to his upper left arm without throwing off his visual balance or raising the piece count above 31. Do you think this is a sufficient change to make his arms look more substantial? It strikes me as a significant improvement.

Edited April 17, 2011 by Aanchir

[Brickthing]

EDIT: Actually, just goofed around with Stringer a bit on LDD and realized I can add a 4M shell to his upper left arm without throwing off his visual balance or raising the piece count above 31. Do you think this is a sufficient change to make his arms look more substantial? It strikes me as a significant improvement.

You could remove the spike and add another 4M shell to the right arm as well. I think that would help substantially, although then you've got the small issue of including 3,4,5 and shoulder shells on the same Hero.

As for fitting in with the 2.0 lineups, most people won't look closely at piece count to determine whether a set matches the rest of their series. The strong design style of Hero 2.0 pieces, the nametag, a 2.0 helmet and the shield is more than sufficient to make Stringer suit, regardless of how many armour pieces he uses.

[Aanchir]

You could remove the spike and add another 4M shell to the right arm as well. I think that would help substantially, although then you've got the small issue of including 3,4,5 and shoulder shells on the same Hero.

As for fitting in with the 2.0 lineups, most people won't look closely at piece count to determine whether a set matches the rest of their series. The strong design style of Hero 2.0 pieces, the nametag, a 2.0 helmet and the shield is more than sufficient to make Stringer suit, regardless of how many armour pieces he uses.

My issue is that without the spike he's got dreadfully few colors in his color scheme. He's already limited by his frame matching his primary color, and furthermore that one color is pretty boring without something brighter as an accent. I suppose he'd still have printing on his badge that could help with that (yes, if I make this guy in real life I definitely intend to print some waterslide decals for that piece, since it's so conveniently smooth and flat), but I still prefer having at least one spike on there. And you've got a point about the piece count. I guess I'm too much of a perfectionist in that regard. Again, though, it feels really lame to have done so wonderfully designing Bulk while adhering to a maximum piece count of 31, only to give in so easily when designing Stringer. I might test a wider variety of options if I end up building him in real life.

[Zarkan]

Honestly, I kind of like Shine's Stringer just a bit better, Aanchir, as yours is just too skinny for the character in my opinion. The big shoulder armor definitely looks good on him, though I don't really like some of the other changes Shine made. I think if you combined the armor design of his with the color scheme, weapons, and face mask of yours, you'll have the ideal Stringer 2.0. MOC.

Edited April 18, 2011 by Zarkan

[@l3x]

Nothing "realistic" about this in terms of parts usage, but here's my take:

[80 Dollar]

Nothing "realistic" about this in terms of parts usage, but here's my take:

I really like this one a lot...would you mind sharing the .lxf file? I'd love to take a closer look at the arm...

[Aanchir]

Honestly, I kind of like Shine's Stringer just a bit better, Aanchir, as yours is just too skinny for the character in my opinion. The big shoulder armor definitely looks good on him, though I don't really like some of the other changes Shine made. I think if you combined the armor design of his with the color scheme, weapons, and face mask of yours, you'll have the ideal Stringer 2.0. MOC.

The trick is managing to make him look bulky without using a huge number of pieces. After all, while Shine's version uses only 32 parts (which isn't bad), it has a much smaller weapon. So it would be difficult to use the weapon from my design or anything nearly as complex on a MOC with that level of armor/cladding.

I'll continue goofing around with armor, but overall I want to make sure I have balanced cladding and a moderately impressive weapon.

Nothing "realistic" about this in terms of parts usage, but here's my take:

That's absolutely amazing! I love his arm cannon-- very creative use of Technic!

[Aethersprite]

While @l3x's Stringer is much more awesome, I think I get what Aanchir is trying to get at here, a MOC that can can be an actual set. I quite like it, although having the axes as weapons looks really odd. I like your Bulk better though, but nevertheless good job on this one.

[Barrage]

Bit of a noob question.. How did you get the parts into colors that aren't available when you click the paint button?

[Aanchir]

While @l3x's Stringer is much more awesome, I think I get what Aanchir is trying to get at here, a MOC that can can be an actual set. I quite like it, although having the axes as weapons looks really odd. I like your Bulk better though, but nevertheless good job on this one.

The axes were basically my decision when I ran out of ideas using the parts already used in DesignByMe mode. Axes like that are available in Hero Recon Team, and furthermore their simplicity keeps them from standing out as minifigure weapons (unlike many of the alternatives like the larger halberd pieces from LEGO Castle). There's also a bit of a visual pun, if you use the slang meaning of "axe", which means a guitar, tying in Stringer's sound motif (although trust me when I say this was just a silly coincidence and did not feed into my choice for the weapon).

Needless to say, I'm not totally happy with this weapon and neither was my brother. But it was about as unique as I could make his weapon without making it far more complex than the other 2.0 heroes. I goofed around with some ideas like mounting his weapon on his upper arm, but overall I couldn't make it look quite right (with that idea it felt like his lower arms and hands had nothing to do).

Bit of a noob question.. How did you get the parts into colors that aren't available when you click the paint button?

Well, there are a couple ways. The more difficult way (but the one that is available to all users immediately upon downloading LDD) is to click View>New Themes>LEGO Universe at the top of the LDD window to switch a model built with DesignByMe mode's Hero Factory parts into LEGO Universe mode. In LEGO Universe mode, you can color bricks any color, even ones that the part doesn't exist in in real life. The problem with this method (and the reason it's such a hassle) is that since Hero Factory parts are not available in LEGO Universe mode, you have to click View>New Themes>LEGO DesignByMe to switch back any time you want to add more Hero Factory parts you can't clone from elsewhere on your model.

The method that's more exclusive but less of a regular hassle is to follow the directions in this topic to unlock LDD Extended mode, which includes all parts currently programmed into LDD-- even those which are not in LEGO Universe mode, like microfigs and Hero Factory parts. LDD Extended mode has all of the same freedoms as LEGO Universe mode, including an even wider range of colors in its paint bucket tool's color palette. Of course, while this greatly simplifies the process, it is not a cure-all. Certain decorations cannot be generated in LEGO Universe mode or LDD Extended mode, and so you have to use the first method to switch into LEGO DesignByMe mode to get those decorations (including certain Hero Factory parts).