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Mega Construx 2017 summer update & more!

As I mentioned a few times previously (see links at the end of this post), besides LEGO, I also occasionally collect Mega Construx (formerly Mega Bloks) figures. I don’t really care for their sets, as LEGO is providing plenty of building materials to work with, but I do like Mega’s small, fully detailed and articulated micro action figures. I’m not hugely invested in Mega, and my collection is small (a bit over sixty characters), but I do keep tab of all the new releases and see if there is anything I would like to get. 🙂

Mega runs on a very similar schedule as LEGO. They participate in the same toy fairs and shows to feature new products, and their two major releases in January and early summer correspond with LEGO’s new set launches. It’s pretty easy to keep updated on these events, as I’m already looking at LEGO at that time anyway.

The summer 2017 wave of Mega Construx sets is quite large, with new products in every franchised theme they carry. Speaking of franchises, a major difference between Mega Construx and LEGO, is that all of Mega’s products are franchised properties. They are heavily invested in Call of Duty and Halo (their most popular lines), and they also have other franchises for shorter periods.

If you are into realistic military or fantasy military themes, Call of Duty, Halo, and Destiny are three very solid collections. My focus is on the action figures, but the sets are well designed too. If you are interested in checking them out, I recommend watching JANGBRiCKS’ reviews on YouTube, as he covers pretty much all of the Call of Duty, Halo, and Destiny sets. And, if prefer the action figures like me, each of these lines comes with collectible figures with only a few accessories.

A new franchised theme that was added this summer is Pokémon, with seven sets. They include some adorable brick-built Pokémon characters, mini Poké balls, and a little display setting. If you are into the game, you may want to take a look, as the sets are very cute and pretty well-built with some interesting pieces and accessories.

If you like cute stuff, Mega also released some new sets under Despicable Me, and instead of just minions, this time they also included the whole Despicable Me family with Gru, Lucy, Margo, Edith and Agnes.

For girls, Mega continues the Barbie, American Girl and Monster High collections, each of them with several new sets. I have written a review about these a little while ago, which you can read here: LEGO and Mega Bloks Mini-Dolls Comparison

For adult collectors, another interesting line is Kubros, Mega’s take on blocky brick-built characters that became popular before LEGO released their BrickHeadz collection.

One thing I’m a bit bummed out about is that it seems the Mega Construx Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Collectors Series is getting discontinued. Mega did release some regular TMNT sets this summer, but nothing was added to the Collectors Series. This is one of my favorite lines, so I always pay attention to new releases. I did pick up the Samurai Leonardo Battle Pack that came out earlier this year, and includes a super fancy version of Leonardo in full Samurai gear (see below). It is one of my most treasured mini action figures of all time. Looks so gorgeous!

One more thing I wanted to mention is that there was a fantastic Mega Construx futuristic city display at the New York Toy Fair, which got a lot of attention and created immense excitement. The display was called World Beyond, and included near-future space and underwater exploration, as well as cities with environmentally friendly power generation and transportation methods. It was one of the highlights of the toy fair. At that point, it was not clear if this was just a special display for the event, or there were going to be sets related to the theme. Since then, it has been tentatively confirmed that this is indeed going to be a new theme that Mega is planning to release in the near future. I’m definitely paying attention to any updates on this, as the displays looked fantastic. I have included a video below with some of the displays from the toy fair.

I know we mostly talk about LEGO here, but occasionally I like to check out some of the compatible brands just for a bit of variety, and because I find them interesting. If you want to take a look yourself, MegaConstrux.com has all the new sets listed. They don’t sell anything through their website, so you will have to find the sets at either local toy stores or on eBay or Amazon, but at least you would get an idea about what they have.

What do you think? Are you at all interested in Mega Construx? Do you own any of their sets or micro action figures? Do you have a favorite? And what do you think of the new releases? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below! 😉

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

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(Written by William)

When the LEGO Elves line was introduced back in 2015, they immediately got my attention. While most sets with mini-dolls use very simple building techniques, the LEGO Elves sets required some more serious building skills. They were still not as complex as some of the more advanced sets in other lines, but then came the #41184 LEGO Elves Aira’s Airship & Amulet Chase, and I was blown away by the building techniques! 🙂

Mind you, it has been a while since I had time to build an official LEGO set. I’ve been working on my own LEGO model for some time now (which I might write about in a later article), so I’m not sure if it was just refreshing to build an official LEGO set, or if Aira’s Airship is really just that wonderful. I’m inclined to think the latter. But, enough of my gushing, the bottom line is that I like the set, and below I will show you why.

COMPLEX SYSTEM WITH LEGO BALL JOINTS

In past articles, we’ve discussed how simple machines are used in official LEGO sets. Levers, wheels, pulleys, wedges, etc. all help to make novel little moving elements. A more complex system takes multiple of these simple machines and combines them. Many LEGO sets use complex machines, so in itself, this is not unusual, but what I especially appreciated is how Aira’s Airship’s utilizes small ball-joints.

It would get a bit tedious to explain each and every simple machine component that makes up the more complex assemblies, so I’m just going to point out the important aspects of how the machines accommodate the ball joints. First, we look at the wings. Given the range of a ball joint, they need to have at least two types of motions to make it worthwhile. In Aira’s Airship, the wings have the ability to move forward and backward as well as up and down. Pretty much the only thing they can’t do is rotate in place.

Since the wings have so much freedom of movement, it is less important for the trigger-mechanism to have the same amount of freedom. Rather, it only needs to accommodate the free moving wings when they are pulled and pushed. For this reason, the ball-joints that are in the trigger are attached to mobile liftarms to soak up any unusual movement.

To achieve this, a couple of ball-joint connectors (also referred to as LEGO Technic Links Without Stoppers) are used. The piece is essentially a lever that lets you manipulate a ball-joint from a distance. LEGO designers often use rubber bands for this type of application, however the rigid nature of the ball-joint connectors not only gives us pulling tension like a rubber band, but they also let us push ball-joints back into their original positions.

It is this rigid connector piece that makes the technique a possibility. In addition, many of the ball-joint receivers that hold onto a joint are made with an inherent friction, which means they can’t move freely. These extended ball-joint connectors are free moving, which makes them doubly unique.

If you want to try out this technique on your own, you’ll need some of these ball-joint connectors first. The piece comes in a number of LEGO Technic sets, and also some regular sets where LEGO Technic mechanisms are used. From there, you can play around with both sides of the connector. My recommendation is to make one end the free moving side with the other a bit more restricted. The restriction will give your moving elements control rather than looking like spastic convulsions.

ALTERED GENRE WITH LEGO

Aira’s Airship is a very unique looking aircraft, and it was designed this way on purpose. You could say it’s something of a cross between fantasy and steampunk, and by being so different, it basically establishes its own genre. So how can you do this in your own creations? It is actually remarkably simple. You start out by building something recognizable. In the case of Aira’s Airship, we could start out with a fantasy ship or a steampunk flying ship. Either way, we cross genres so we can have a hybrid of the two.

Steampunk has its characteristic engines and balloon, and we probably don’t want to mess with these as they look striking. This does mean however that we lose the usually beautiful sails of a fantasy ship, but maybe we can reintroduce them as wings on the side of the ship. Then for the engines, we can have them run on magic. Thus, you end up with a propulsion system that does not firmly belong to either genre.

The nice thing is that you can stop here, or continue with finding different areas to cross. Some areas you may consider are decorative elements, action elements, coloring, actual purpose (from a narrative point of view, i.e. attack vessel, courier, etc.), or dimensional (this is where the ship comes from one genre but finds itself in the other genre’s world). Depending on which area you tackle, it will guide you in very different ways. It’s also a great way to utilize parts and colors you wouldn’t normally think of combining.

APPLYING WHAT YOU LEARN

Small ball-joints offer a lot of very interesting opportunities, so it’s worth studying how they are used in official LEGO sets, and how they are connected to other pieces to create complex moving sections. Sometimes restricting the movement of the ball-joint by rigid pieces is exactly what you need.

As for using altered genres, this is the technique you want to master if you are creating your own original worlds. You can start playing with ideas in “What if…” scenarios. For example, what if Santa had his own LEGO Star Wars ship? What if there was a LEGO Modular Building in the old LEGO Castle line? What if the old LEGO Classic Space theme was featured in a LEGO Architecture set? Playing around with any of these ideas could create some interesting results.

What do you think? How do you like the LEGO Elves sets, specifically Aira’s Airship? Are there any other interesting building techniques that you noticed? Do you like to work with ball-joint pieces? And how about creating your own genres to create unique environments? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below! 😉

And you might also like to check out the following related posts:

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