Lego Transformers (Part 1)

Focus of projects: Make both vehicle mode and robot mode look legitimate

Okay, I'm going to take a break from chronology to show you all what got me started in lego engineering. When I was really young, I made a few of these Lego "transformers" that would look like vehicles but if you moved some parts around they became humanoid robots. I've always been a fan of the official toys, even though I had close to none, and the live action movies also compel me with the special effects (although the story could have been much better). Unfortunately, the transformers I made in the old days were not documented in any way, but after a while I started taking pictures and eventually videos of such works. I'll start with the oldest and progress from there. On a side note, everything shown in this post was made way before I had any Power Functions elements. And also, parts never had to be physically detached to complete any transformation.

Giant Helicopter Transformer:

Above I present my first Lego transformer to be photographed. It was definitely larger than all the ones I made before it, and thus it was my favorite lego creation at the time. This helicopter did have its laughable areas, like only having two main rotors and looking like a boat from a top view, but nonetheless it was fully transformable. Initially the Gatling guns on the sides were not there, but they were added without removing any parts.

Here we have the cockpit opened to reveal the tiny pilot inside. Unfortunately, the missiles you see there were on the robot's back, pointing down. However the Gatling guns were still in a good spot:

You may notice some proportionality with its human form, like the wide space between the legs, but I didn't have the right parts to change such things back then. As you see one of the hands actually has fingers, while the other bares the rear helicopter rotors as a permanent weapon. The Gatling guns could move vertically but not horizontally. Also, the feet were unfortunately pretty delicate.

Car Transformer:

This one was a little strange; it used the large robot joints from the Lego Exo-Force series despite its small size. Excuse the layout of the pictures; this blog only allows really small images to be side by side.

Fighter Jet Transformer:

This was also a strange one, since the vehicle mode looked much nicer than the robot mode. Another difference with this model was that it had a distinct color theme.

Tank Transformer:

A while after making this I made a newer, better Transformer that turned into a similar tank, but it somehow got dismantled before I could document it. I remember the rubber tracks being part of the arms instead of the back. This one here was unfortunately quite delicate.

Helicopter Transformer:

This one was also a bit delicate, but it was one of the "cooler" ones. The robot's head was hidden really well and could only come out after moving the white flaps down and rotating the entire driver's cabin. The helicopter tail along with its rotor was removed to be transformed into a handheld weapon, where the rotor was utilized as a saw.

As much as I dread the following, I force myself to present to you the following videos relating to four of the above Transformers. I was a young child back then with the bare-minimum tools to make these videos, so bear with me. There also may be no need to watch the instructional videos.

Car Transformer (super embarrassing):

Lego Transformers Battle (this is what tripods are for):

How to build my Car Transformer:

How to build my Helicopter Transformer:

That's it for part 1. These were all the first to be documented and presented to you in chronological order. As these were the early birds, I don't have high regard for their designs, along with issues in physical delicacy and color variation. Most robots were made around 2007.