Steel Wheel Forest

[henjansson]

I want to present my very first MOC, Steel Wheel Forest, which I've work on for several month. Here is a description:

One dark and stormy night, the mighty Old Hollow Tree was struck by lightning. As a result, its top was broken off and the interior was all made into charcoal.

To take care of its remainders, the Steel Wheel Sisters and their helicopter crew was sent deep into the forest to Old Hollow Tree. But once at the sight, they got hypnotized by its appearance and instead of chopping it into firewood, they decided to breath new life into the tree. Bringing all their scrap parts of gear wheels and metal beams, the team managed to create something the world had never seen before — a hybrid between a thousand-year-old tree and a machine! It was the embryo of Steel Wheel Forest…

It didn’t take long before the four of them became a part of the forest themselves, devoting their lives to make the rusty machinery run as smooth as possible. As a result, they made friends with the trees and the animals in the wood, among them the skunk Smelly.

The tree contains several play-functions:

• By turning the master gear wheel, the helicopter platform at the top will rotate, as well as a huge circular saw blade, a gear wheel chain and some propellers.
• The tree can be split in two vertical halves, connected by hinges and a hanging bridge which is unfolded when the tree-halves are turned apart.
• Inside the tree there is a spiral stairway which can be rotated from the outside by a gear wheel.
• The helicopter can be taken off to be used as an individual toy. The rotor blades can be turned around by a crank.
• The lattice doors and the spider web can be opened.
• Most of the leaves can be turned into different directions.

Included are the following mini figures and animals:

• The Steel Wheel Sisters: Cloak Kelly and Aviator Ana
• Their Gear Wheel Brothers: Gear Wheel Gert and Mushroom Martin
• The pet skunk Smelly
• The three spiders Imse, Vimse and Trimse

1 - Steel Wheel Forest Krom by Henrik Jansson, on Flickr

2 - Open Tree by Henrik Jansson, on Flickr

5 - Stairway by Henrik Jansson, on Flickr

6 - Aviator Ana by Henrik Jansson, on Flickr

7 - Cloak Kelly by Henrik Jansson, on Flickr

10 - Group image by Henrik Jansson, on Flickr

15 - Top View outside by Henrik Jansson, on Flickr

3 - The Entrance by Henrik Jansson, on Flickr

Demonstration video

If you like the project, please support it at LEGO Ideas:

Steel Wheel Forest at LEGO Ideas

 

 

 

 

[samurai-turtle]

It definitely has a vibe / look. 

[BeKindRewind]

I really like this! My only complaint is that I want to see it in person because I feel like there are a lot of small details and working parts that I can't appreciate with just pictures or even the video.

I don't know if I'm explaining myself well by saying this, but most MOCers large-scale MOCs suffer from a lack of variation, ie a 6-foot model of such-and-such famous landmark just ends up having a bunch of large, flat, dimensionless walls. This MOC, however, is brilliant in it's ability to be large and still pack something interesting in every square inch...and it's not just greebling, either. It all looks functional. This clearly took a lot of planning and I applaud you.

[henjansson]

Thanks a lot for those words! Maybe you're right that it's hard to make this MOC justice in pictures and videos. There are a lot of details which will probably get lost on a screen. I've work hard to make it interesting both when it comes to aesthetics and playability. This is the third version of the tree (plus one digital pro version for the second version with real bricks), and it's been a lot of planning but also some ideas I grabbed in the moment and chose to include. Some parts, like the huge round saw blades (which might be hard to see in the pictures), haphazardly found their place in the final model.

Hopefully I can find some way to expose my MOC to people in person so they can watch all the details and actually get a chance to try the play functions...