Conglometroid: Please tell us a little about yourself? What got you into metroid?

About me? Well I’m a recent college grad who likes doing everything. Aside from my 3/4 time job I work on my photography, sewing, my computers, baking, reading, writing, drawing, woodworking, video games and the internet.

I got into metroid when I was in middle school. My cousins owned Super Metroid and knew the game forward and backwards. They actually had a game with 101% (I guess most people don’t realize there is an extra missile tank in the game.) They let me and my siblings borrow the game and we left it in our Super Nintendo, which erased their data… … …So I really got into metroid when Metroid Prime came out.

My love of metroid games is two fold, well, maybe three fold. I love the imagery. I love the alien planet. I love the world that was created, it intrigues me and I want to explore it. The other thing I love about metroid is the music. I have a handful of favorite metroid songs that I could listen to for hours on end. Torvus Bog from Prime 2 and the OCREMIX Torvus Clockwork by darkesword are two of my favorites, although there are several more.

I also love metroids. I think they are cute. If I could have a metroid as a pet, I totally would. I don’t sympathize with the Space Pirate’s lifestyle but I dig their taste in pets.

Conglometroid: You made a metroid morph ball model. That’s quite impressive. What inspired this creation?

Well, this isn’t my first metroid project, so some of the inspiration came from the other things I have done. I’ve had some ideas floating around in my head for a while.

One of Phillip's hats

C: That’s Right, you made some metroid hats, metroid plushies, and also that glowing mushroom.

Right. The Saturnine mushroom. I can’t take full credit for the hats, I actually found the plans on metroidhats.com. The mushroom was a tan replica made of resin that my mom was going to throw away. I rescued it and gave it a paint job.

C: When did you make the decision to do this?

I was playing Metroid Prime after I got the Trilogy and I started thinking about Samus’ morph ball. The morph ball has always intrigued me and so I started searching for a model online. I assumed by now, someone had made a morph ball replica, but I couldn’t find one. So I knew that I had to make one.

C: How much planning went into a project like this? Did you just go to the store and start working or did you go through a few design phases?

This project was about one to two months in the making. It was really a mix of planning and doing. The first thing I did was go to Pet Expo and buy a seven inch hamster ball, which actually looked a lot like a morph ball to begin with.

From that point on I started looking around for material, mostly at second hand stores. Early on, I found a tap-lite which had a translucent spiral top. It looked exactly like what I wanted. I took it home and put it in my creation. It was perfect. Unfortunately I only had one of them.

C: So you didn’t draw up any plans or schematics on what you needed, you just played things by sight?

Right. When I searched the internet for morph ball models, I also searched for morph ball photos or screenshots. They are surprisingly hard to come by. In the end I wanted some photos of the Phazon suit in morph ball mode. I downloaded part of a speed run so I could see it, but that wasn’t good enough for quality. I had just moved on to MP2 on the Trilogy, so I got out my GameCube and took some photos of my television.

Varia Suit Variant

C: The morph ball is designed after the spiderball model. Any particular reason why you chose that one over the default?

When I first got the idea for the morphball I was midway through Metroid Prime. By the time I decided to do it I had finished the game, so that model was what I had in my mind. What really intrigued me about the design was the lights. I like things that light up and glow. I toyed (and still am toying) with the idea of doing a more classic model or perhaps a darksuit model, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get there.

C: Now you say you wanted photos of the Phazon suit, but your actual model has three colors of light inside it. What made you decide to do this?

My favorite suit is the Varia suit. I love the green glow it has. When I first started, that’s the photo I had in mind. But as I began working on it, I wanted something with more versatility. When I showed a friend my initial design, he mentioned that he loved the Phazon suit and that was the coolest one there is. So I started looking for three-color LED lights.

Gravity Suit Variant

C: So all three colors are produced by the same bulb?

Yes. I put four led lights in there and each one can be red, green or blue.

C: Going back to the building process, you said you started with a seven inch hamster ball, but the final product is smaller than seven inches.

That is correct. I’m actually on hamster ball number two now. I decided to switch for two reasons. First off, I ruined my initial attempt by trying to use a sander on it. My dad has drill bits that can be used for sanding and when I used them they actually melted the plastic and made black marks on the parts that were suppose to be clear. I really didn’t like the result.

Secondly, the seven inch ball was glued together at the seam. When I found the five inch ball it was (still is) held together with four screws. This means I can take it apart without cutting it, which made it much nicer to work with.

C: So you kinda had to start everything over again.

Yes. I didn’t like the paint that I was using. I tried to spay paint the black to the inside, but it didn’t stick well and even the special plastic paint I got didn’t seem to be as opaque as I would like.

Morph Ball Casing

C: What did you end up using instead?

The inside is all hot glue and caulk.

C: Hot glue and caulk?

Using the outside of the ball for a model, I made the inner concave spiral out of hot glue. That allowed me to make my own spiral design and have it be translucent for light to shine through.

I then used aquarium caulk to make the clear lines along the inside of the ball. This was translucent enough to see through, but distorted the light so that the inner working would be hidden.

I found a black caulk in the auto department of Walmart, which is what I used for the opaque sections of the ball.

C: How did you go about painting the black caulk for the opaque sections?

I just cut the tip of the tube and squeezed it on. I did the clear parts first so I just had to fill in the gaps. I then used a small screwdriver to move the caulk around to the smaller areas. It was also handy in clearing out air bubbles and such.

C: What was the most difficult part of the project?

Overall the lighting was the hardest part to achieve.

C: And how did you pull that off?

I bought my three color LEDs off of ebay. I then had to find a 4 position switch. I needed a position for off, red, green and blue. I ended up buying a single switch from a site called Digi-key for about $1.50. I payed something like $2 for shipping and they sent me this inch long switch in the huge box. It was quite amusing.

I had a problem with the lights at first because I was bending the wires too far. One of the lights stopped lighting up green and only did blue and red. I had to fix the lights to a circuit board so that I didn’t damage them as I soldered.

Morph Ball Inside

C: Did you actually create a circuit board for this then?

No. I thought about it, but it was more work than I required. I just needed something to keep the wires straight and uncrossed. I drilled my little holes and pushed the wires through. I then soldered the wires on and used hot glue to keep everything in place.

C: And it’s all powered by two triple a batteries?

Yup.

C: You have quite the vision. Do you plan on making more of these?

I’m not sure yet. I still have some supplies and I would like to see if I can improve my design a bit, but I don’t know how much time I’ll be willing to devote to it. I know of a few people who might be willing to buy one, so I’m tempted to make one for them, but I’m not sure if I actually will or not.

C: Is there anything you would suggest to someone planning to do a project similar to this?

Wow, so much I could say. First off, plan. The more you plan the better the project will turn out. Secondly, don’t be afraid to sleep on an idea for awhile. I actually thought about this project for a week or two before I actually did anything. Shop around and ask around. As soon as I knew I was going to do this I started looking around. I took a number of trips to second hand stores just to see what they had available. Don’t just look for material, look for inspiration. Ask around as well. I actually went and talked with a local high school art teacher I knew to get ideas and to brainstorm. Plan to make mistakes. Almost from the beginning I knew that the first hamster ball I bought would not be my final result, but I needed something to play with. I needed to find out what would work and what would not work.

Perhaps most importantly though, is be sure to finish. Give yourself a deadline if you have to. Just don’t give up, even if it seems a bit tedious at times.

C: To date what project have you done(metroid or other) that you are most proud of?

I would have to say that the project I am most proud of is a photography project I did this spring. I called it “Liquidated Laptops.” This project took months to complete. It started with an idea that I slept on for about two months before I was finally ready to put it into action. What really made this project special for me was that I did a timed release at the Macheist forums where I got amazing feedback.

C: What’s your favorite metroid game and why?

That would have to be a tossup between Metroid Prime and Super Metroid. I’m much better at Metroid Prime. (Especially now that it has good controls with the Wii-mote.) But I do love Super Metroid as well. I’m still looking for that last missile upgrade so I can have 101%… I do like the side scrolling adventures (Donkey Kong Country as well). Both games have good music and really captivate my curiosity and interest.

C: So what is your next project going to be?

Well, I have a number of projects I’m working on at the moment, none of which are metroid related. I’m actually still playing through MP2 (that game just doesn’t hold me interest like the first one.) I’m just going to wait and see what inspires me next.

C: Thanks for taking the time to answer so many questions, any final thoughts for the readers?

I would just encourage everyone to do a project every now and then. It doesn’t even have to be metroid related. (Although it would be sweet if it was.) Let your creativity go and see what you can do.

We contacted him and he was able to offer us some insight into their construction.

The build for the Reaper Vine was quite straightforward, as the creature itself is so simple. the harder part was designing a background that meshed with the Chozo Ruins aesthetic. I’m severely deprived of parts in tan, so I had to use some funky angles to get the right effect. The floor is probably the most telling part of the dio, as far as relating it to the Ruins goes. The varied floor levels and sizes in the rooms of the Ruins were the main inspiration for the unusual tile heights I used in the floor sections.

He also constructed the Metroid Prime variation of the Zoomer.

The Zoomer was such a pain. Designing an effective method for building a spiked, ovoid shell in LEGO is very, very difficult, I found. I spent more than three times as much time on the Zoomer’s build than on the diorama it sits atop, which itself was not terribly complex. After trying more than five different ideas, I eventually settled on one using minifigure arms and legs for the shell shape. Though this allowed for spikes to be positioned correctly across the shell, it was incredibly annoying to fit all those tiny parts together. However, seeing the end result is so very gratifying.

I’d love to do more of these enemy dioramas from Prime, as they’re incredibly fun and interesting builds. However, I’d like some input as to which enemies to do next– there are a hundred of foes in Prime, and I’d like to build the ones that others wish. Any suggestions are more than welcome!

You can see more of his work on his flickr channel and mocpage.

If you have any suggestions as to what enemy should be his next project then leave a comment or send him a message over flickr. We look forward to seeing more of his work.

Considering how similar this behavior is between Headcrabs and Metroids it was obvious that Metroid hats would eventually be made. But don’t go ahead and think they’re official Nintendo toys. They’re just a simple yet brilliant idea developed by Eyes5, from metroidhat.com. In fact, the domain’s name pretty much says it all. Besides several news updates and apparently an active story, the site includes a tutorial on how to make these hats.

Epic

But, ironically, hats are not the only thing that this site covers. There are actually Metroid plushies, and there is also a tutorial for those. I love how these look, they seem so soft and cushiony… I want one!

But I guess Phillip (frodolad_) from Flickr is way ahead of me already. Inspired by the above mentioned site, Phillip decided to take on the dangerous and likely mortal adventure to make his own interstellar parasitical Metroid beasts. This is what he told us,

My Metroids are my own creation, but I cannot take credit for the idea. I stumbled across a website called  and decided that I would take a weekend and make some Metroids. I started off making “normal” Metroids from Super Metroid. I liked the green color and got a standard red. The green and white colors actually glow under a black light.

One of Phillip's hats

That’s pretty awesome. And for the materials he uses…

I use fleece as my fabric. It’s nice and soft and the hats are warm.

Well this sums it up. Both Metroid plushies and their ironically amazing Metroid hats relatives are incredible inventions product of a wonderful creativity that shows once more how active the metroid fanbase is and how awesome we are. In fact, I might just do a hat on my own…

There they go!