Transformers: Transforming Lego

[Delta62]

Not sure if Transformers are big here, but it just perplexes me how people are able to make transformers in lego and are able to transform them. How would you come by to doing this? I've heard that hinges and Mixel joints are a good use, but i am limited to those parts. I do have plenty of classic bionicle and hero factory pieces from a loot i got at a local flea market. Would those ball joints work? Guess i just have to play around with those lol.

[LegoPercyJ]

This guy seems to specialize in Transformer Models. I'm sure If you see some techniques he used, you can get an idea of how to do it yourself. 

A recommendation I think could work would be to find an actual transformer toy and reverse engineer it in lego based off that model.

Hope this helps 

[Delta62]

Thanks, I've heard of that guy and his transformers are incredible. Good idea, I have a bunch of transformers i could use for inspiration.

[The Librarian]

In terms of joints, I've always found that simple clips and bars are the most useful. It does however, greatly depend on scale. For a minifigure scale car, for example, I'd recommend investing in a lot of pneumatic t-pieces - they're exceedingly useful for limb joints. At a larger scale, click joints end up being the way to go - I generally favour them over ball joints for holding power and getting things aligned. With Transformers, you have to think about how the components will fit together in vehicle mode and ball joints, unfortunately, lend themselves to big gaping holes! That being said, the new small ball joint pieces allow for some excellent panel shaping and movable sections.

Reverse engineering existing toys is a good starting point but you will almost certainly run into the problem that TF toys are built with much thinner panels, allowing for a much greater amount of compression. You'll probably find you have to change sliding motions into folds (for example, when I was building Sideswipe, I changed the back of the car so that it unfolded into the legs rather than sliding over them: like so.

Edited March 16, 2017 by The Librarian

[bacem]

Yes, hero factory and bionicle pieces works just fine. In fact there is an moc theme called bioformer, where people building legoformers using such parts. You can try checking drscorpionx's channel on youtube, for example.

As for building with normal lego, i can't deny that hinges and balljoints are essential, so if you plan to build a legoformer, do try to stock them up. While building a functioning legoformer without using much hinges and joints is still possible, big compromize will be needed, like what i made here.

And also, like what the librarian above me said, while reverse engineer a transformers toy works, there are also some parts that are really hard to do, especially when it comes to movie toys. From my experience, i have learned that simple transformation actually works better for legoformers, especially for smaller scale. And simple doesn't always means boring. You can still come up with interesting transformation while keeping it simple, the librarian's flickr gallery shows some example of that. So my advice, look around the creations of legoformer builders, and try to come up with your own idea. I'm sure you can do it.

[PaddyBricksplitter]

https://www.youtube.com/user/boyzwiththemosttoyz

 

This guys had some good "How to build Transformers" videos on his channel in his early days. Don't know if they are still there though. You might need to search through his videos.