Most of you will know by now that my Science Fiction journey did not start with writing. A long time ago, it started with swooshing Lego spaceships around.
One of the first ones was this.
Debuting in 1997, it was a step up for a five-year-old me, with moving parts, antennae, and electronics. The sheer weirdness of the Insectoids theme still resonates with fans nearly thirty years later. It is what inspired me to get into Science Fiction. Well, that and watching The X-Files waaaay too early.
Which is why, for #Febrovery (a yearly Lego space rover event) I decided to bring the theme screaming back into view.
Say hello to the Insectoid Crystal Rover.
The idea here was to make something which stuck to the ‘rover’ theme of Febrovery, but which also came across as totally alien.
I wanted the original to be flatter and longer, but as I was building, this weirder shape came about, and I quite like it. The shape informed the story of the model, or MOC (My Own Creation).
The build has a front wheel assembly which can adjust to rough terrain, gears which turn insect teeth at the front, a bubble cockpit for one driver, and the original Insectoid theme wings.
Doesn’t he look happy in there?
I gave the build its own set of eyes also, and little arms with laser guns, not just because of the Rule of Cool1, but because I am telling a story here, as I am with everything I do. Comedy, Books (obviously), Minecraft streams, TikTok sketches, Stand-up, Drawings, Lego; all of it tells a story. And sometimes those stories overlap, or share a cosmos.
The story of this little fellow is that the rover part itself is alive. It is a spider, and the top part is a dragonfly. Now, today is the end of February so I had no more time to play with it, but my goal in the future will be to make it so these two parts can comfortably separate and become their own sub models. I may also change the wings, though that feels almost blasphemous to me. I could at least rig up a novel way to connect them to more modern parts, as the hinge tips of the wings I have, and their counterpart hinge bricks, broke about fifteen years ago.
Importantly, whilst I was making this digitally I tried to make it out of parts I know I have, so when I get a place big enough to swoosh toy spaceships around, I can add this beastie to my ridiculous Lego city.
The back end of it showcases some crystals that have been harvested, and glowing red energy pods. No idea why alien bugs put their starship batteries in such vulnerable places, but we have exterior testicles so I guess I can’t judge them.
There you go, testicle joke inside a Lego post. Evidently my writing voice is the common theme throughout all these disparate posts. That’s something we will get into in a future post, as I think about bringing everything I do onto a single TikTok account and confusing the hell out of our new robot overlords.
I like this spaceship rover thing so much, I sort of want to write it into THE STEPHANIE GLITCH. I have not forgotten her stories. I just needed to finish WHO KILLED THE HUMANS first, and a bit of EARTHLOOP.
Anyway, if you want to see the Instagram post about this creature, and help me on my journey to 10,000 followers (currently at 6634) click the below button. It’s free.