D2C Contest: Rise of the Dread Colossus

[Aanchir]

Rise of the Dread Colossus - 1039 pieces

The Portal Emperor has stolen the 5 treasure keys from the Deep Sea Salvage Crew, and has used them to summon Atlantis’s ultimate guardian—the Dread Colossus! With the help of their modular submarine, the divers need to retrieve the treasure keys and stop the Colossus in its tracks.

-Includes six minifigures: 5 divers and the Portal Emperor

-Submarine features two firing Technic shooters, working steering, and deploys two mini-subs!

-Submarine measures 9” (24 cm) squared!

-Dread Colossus stands 1’ (30 cm) tall!

This entry is a joint entry with my twin brother, who put just as much work and as many ideas into the MOC as I did. The first part we designed was the submarine, although we refined its design many times even as we were building the Dread Colossus later on.

As you can see, there are two mini-subs that can be deployed from the sides, and two Technic shooters as armament. Also, the roof of the main submarine can open. Inside the submarine is storage space for equipment, including four harpoons, a metal detector, a hammer, and a wrench. The engine room is also inside, though not very visible in any of the pictures I took.

The main action feature is the submarine’s functional steering, which is operated using a knob on the top. Here’s an animation showing the steering in action:

Underneath the submarine is a sea-monster-proof cage for holding onto the treasure keys once they’ve been reclaimed. All five divers’ flippers can be attached here as storage. Here, Dr. Fish demonstrates how the cage opens and holds the keys in place.

As for the Dread Colossus himself, he has many points of articulation, and has a treasure key mounted on his chest and each of his limbs. He wields a giant trident and has articulated fingers for grasping either the trident or an unfortunate diver!)

The importance of the mini-subs quickly becomes apparent. While the larger sub distracts the Dread Colossus with blasts from its blunt shooters, the mini-subs have to approach the monster and grab the treasure keys off of his very body. Without the treasure keys, the Dread Colossus will be powerless, and the Atlantis Deep-Sea Salvage Crew can escape with the treasure keys.

For more pictures, check out the gallery (when public)! Any feedback is appreciated!

Edited April 25, 2011 by Aanchir

[Tazmaniac]

Firstly Great build and perfect for the comp

I'm a bit puzzled though is it Leviathan or Colossus ?

Single shot per picture and no photo shop box art style for the six picture that are posted in the entry thread.

So you might want to change the multi-ups. Good luck

[XimenaPaulina]

Wow, a very impressive joint entry Aanchir (and twin brother)! The overall entry is very well designed I must say - from the detachable mini-subs coupled with the other highly-playable features, to the nicely-built formidable foe, this really has the makings of a great Atlantis set. Excellent job and best of luck in the contest!

[Oky]

Quite a few "Leviathan" entries out there, eh?

This is one fine looking entry! The sub looks very well designed, especially with all those play features, and the Colossus is great as well. I like the concept of keys powering the monster and the divers having to retrieve them. It has a certain videogame feel to it.

Bur yeah, you posted way too many pics. I'm not even sure if that animated one is legal.

I'd like to see close ups of the sub's interior, so, uhm, what gallery are supposed to check out?

[Brickdoctor]

I too want to see the interior, but at least the outside of the sub is lovely. The shaping of it all is perfect. The Dread Colossus seems a bit too Exo-Force-y, but maybe that's just me.

Edited April 22, 2011 by Brickdoctor

[Raven Brickroft]

I love this one. Great creation!

I love the play features and especially the large creature.

I can't help but notice the mustache tentacles. Inspired by Cthulhu?

[Gregorovich]

Excellent entry, Aanchir! I love the sub. It's got a great design and plenty of play features; I'm sure it would fit well into any official Atlantis set. The Leviathan/Collossus is also very well designed. I think that a small rock formation, a Greek column or something along those lines would add to this set, though. Well done, and good luck in the contest!

[Aanchir]

Firstly Great build and perfect for the comp

I'm a bit puzzled though is it Leviathan or Colossus ?

So you might want to change the multi-ups. Good luck

Pictures are fixed. I must have overlooked that part of the images-per-topic rule. Anyway, it's supposed to be Colossus-- I must have goofed when writing the topic title. I'll PM a staff member to fix that.

Wow, a very impressive joint entry Aanchir (and twin brother)! The overall entry is very well designed I must say - from the detachable mini-subs coupled with the other highly-playable features, to the nicely-built formidable foe, this really has the makings of a great Atlantis set. Excellent job and best of luck in the contest!

My brother's actually a member here, but he rarely posts. He mainly joined so I could stop having to report LDD errors that he was finding.

I felt the overall set should seem very action-y and playable. After all, while "slice of life" sets like the Medieval Market Village are nice, I think what really defines a D2C set isn't the subject matter so much as the scale and level of detail. And if we're going to define Atlantis as an "action theme", then action is an inherent quality that can't be ignored even at this scale. In that respect, the Portal of Atlantis could easily have passed as a D2C set on its own!

Quite a few "Leviathan" entries out there, eh?

This is one fine looking entry! The sub looks very well designed, especially with all those play features, and the Colossus is great as well. I like the concept of keys powering the monster and the divers having to retrieve them. It has a certain videogame feel to it.

Bur yeah, you posted way too many pics. I'm not even sure if that animated one is legal.

I'd like to see close ups of the sub's interior, so, uhm, what gallery are supposed to check out?

I've fixed the pics now. Anyway, getting closeups of the sub's interior was mainly difficult because lighting it is difficult. While you can easily tilt the submarine to see the inside clearly, this wasn't easy to do in the studio set up for my by my college's photography teacher.

Did I fail to actually link to the gallery? Stupid me-- I made so many mistakes when posting this topic. Edited now.

I too want to see the interior, but at least the outside of the sub is lovely. The shaping of it all is perfect. The Dread Colossus seems a bit too Exo-Force-y, but maybe that's just me.

Well, as far as the Dread Colossus was concerned, the Exo-Force joints from the Undersea Explorer set were some of the only ones we had with us at college that could support his weight! We tried to cover them up to a certain extent, but didn't want to limit his posability in the process.

I love this one. Great creation!

I love the play features and especially the large creature.

I can't help but notice the mustache tentacles. Inspired by Cthulhu?

Definitely some Cthulhu inspiration there. Since we built the sub first, we weren't totally sure what type of sea monster to include. My brother is the one who recommended a Cthulhu-like humanoid, and once we had made some progress on the head the decision was final.

[Gabe]

Wow - what a fantastic entry! I adore the sub, i only wish the official subs looked as good as yours, i might have bought some then. The colossus is great too, (any relative of the Rhodes colossus? His ugly brother perhaps?? ) i love the bulky feet and incorporation of the Atlantis keys. The trident is a great design too.

Best of luck in the contest!

[Aanchir]

Well, that was a fun contest, wasn't it?

I was kind of hesitant to share this before the end of the contest, but after I created the topic for my MOC and began to disassemble it, I began to put together LXF versions of the two components of this MOC:

Modular Submarine

Dread Colossus

I built these primarily to get a piece count for the overall model (it's 1039, in case you're wondering). The main reason I was hesitant to post these before or during voting was that I figured many AFOLs would be disappointed in the MOC if they saw it without stickers. As a lot of people know, I'm incredibly "pro-sticker" for nearly anything other than LEGO animals and minifigures, and since all of the parts in this MOC came from sets I actually owned they all had the original stickers. My brother and I even built many parts of this based on whether the stickers looked appropriate for this MOC-- for instance, we avoided using too many stickers with set numbers next to each other since the set numbers often didn't match. The LXFs also show off certain parts like the back of the legs that I'm not too proud of. These tended to be consequences of our limited parts here at college-- our main sets we have with us are Hero Factory, Space Police III, and Atlantis, and during the entry period we even had to go out and buy two new Atlantis sets just to have all the parts we needed.

In retrospect, these LXFs might not have done as much harm as I was worried about. The submarine is far from boring, and the main thing that really causes problems in the LXFs is the ugly static pose the Dread Colossus is in (I have very little patience with hinging things on LDD). But in any event, these can potentially give you a better look at this MOC from more directions. I especially invite you to look at the construction of the Dread Colossus's feet, which I built myself and am immensely proud of.

Anyway, to those who voted in the contest: In what areas did this entry surpass other MOCs, and in what areas did it fall behind? What changes could I have made to the model to make it earn your vote? I'd love to hear your opinions! Thanks to everyone who voted for me, and to everyone who at least took the time to look at my model before casting your vote!

[Stonir]

WOW! Good job!