Random Lego Set — Huojian (REDLINE)

In the world of REDLINE, the Houjian mecha — called an Efreet in the game’s terminology — has quite an interesting backstory. The UNE faction had been developing an ultra-fast efreet for quite a while, and when the news of such a development reached the CPM’s leadership, they knew they had to do something about it. From this need to counter the newer developments of military technology on Earth, the Huojian was born.

While the UNE’s new machine reached its specs using jet thrusters and advanced software, the CMP engineers were forced to go through a different path. A bit more direct in their approach, they made the chassis as lightweight as possible. Some industrial espionage also led to the copy of some of the features of the rival machine. In the end, the Huojian turned out to be a surprisingly swift machine, with a good bite to go along with it.

This design was quite the challenge to translate into Lego, especially at the scale I’m working with. The legs came naturally, developed from some ideas I worked with for some of BattleTech’s light mechs (see my Hornet for a practical example). The arms were also quite obvious to me.

What wasn’t obvious was the cockpit area. The original art depicts a large cockpit that goes from the nose to the weapon boxes over the shoulders. Official Lego parts don’t have anything similar that looks good enough, so I attempted a few different things. In the end, I was kind of forced to squat the canopy a bit, and use a 1x2 plate to make the frame, so I could rest the canopy on top of it. The front still looks too heavy for me, but I decided to call it a day.

What are your thoughts? Have you checked REDLINE, from Saving Throw Studios already? Let me know, and have a good day!