Random set of the day: Sea Scorpion
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 6160 Sea Scorpion, released during 1998. It's one of 11 Aquazone sets produced that year. It contains 301 pieces and 3 minifigs, and its retail price was US$35.
It's owned by 1,232 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
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34 comments on this article
Man, I've got nothing bad to say. It looks absolutely incredible.
Also it looks like it would beat the crap out of me if I said otherwise.
Ah yes a Sea scorpion.
Well this is certainly a design from the year 1998
Man, I never noticed the flippers used for detailing on the back before. Nice
@MCLegoboy said:
"Man, I've got nothing bad to say. It looks absolutely incredible.
Also it looks like it would beat the crap out of me if I said otherwise."
Really? Okay I'll be the negative one this time around. It uhmm... It's got too broad of shoulders, and not long enough of a body/tail. Also the asymmetry of the claws makes me wish it had more interchangeable options. Quick, someone make a witty joke outta that!
I like the design, but this was a point in Lego's history when it feels like the set designers stepped towards the colour bins, put on blindfolds, and then grabbed whatever was within easy reach.
A lot of Lego in '98 specifically feels like that.
What I wouldn't do for a return to Aquazone!
@GSR_MataNui said:
"Man, I never noticed the flippers used for detailing on the back before. Nice"
That was a common minifig accessory storage trick for that line. Those flippers are meant to be used with the guy manning the right claw.
I miss Aquazone. It was like Classic Space, but underwater!
When I was 10 this was my most coveted set. To this day I still want it!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Aquazone technically a roundabout sub theme, as the entire theme takes place on a planet completely covered in water?
I like those claws pieces.
Soooo, the guy on the arm is actually the pilot? Cause there isn't anyone in the cockpit.
Good set for Blacktron 2. trans neon parts abound. decent supply of black. but lots of useless grey and reds. Needs some white thrown in there.
The name kinda suggests this is a bad guy vessel...
The Aquazone villain minifigures had great head and helmet parts. I repurposed some of the minifigure pieces for a death knight (back right of this picture: https://brickshelf.com/gallery/AmperZand/Fantasy/death_knights.jpg)
Man, the frog is in for a rude surprise…
@ElephantKnight:
Maybe the pilot went to the Captain Kirk School of Leadership, and hops out to explore every time they slow down.
The golden days for me
This looked amazing back in the day. Today looks abi t dated but still interesting.
Just reassembled this one from the large tub. Belonged to my brother... Lots of missing pieces, but got most of it subbed with other pieces. Very interactive with lots of reassembly options.
98 was the start of my dark ages, so much junk came out around then
I miss the overabundance of transparant neon colors. At the time I thought it was just futuristic, but apparently it was just the 90s being the 90s.
At least Nexo Knights got that right!
As far as subs go, this one is quite nice. Just a bit late 90s in building style.
Fun fact: Sea Scorpions used to be a real group of creatures, but they are not closely related to scorpions and are their own group of arthropods. Although the more correct term would be euryptherids.
This is perfect. Printed pieces, trans neon pieces, chrome pieces, everything to make the set epic.
That face on the front is hilarious
Still, gotta love that neon
@GSR_MataNui:
@eMouse:
There are front and rear cockpits that are unoccupied in the image, and two free-swimming minifigs. If you look to either side of the mounted flippers, you can see two silver/orange circles, beside which sit two more bars for mounting the other pairs of flippers when everyone’s seated.
I picked this up about a year ago on Bricklink for quite a reasonable price--Aquazone hasn't gone through quite the same inflation that, say, Pirates or Castle have, and I was not disappointed. Mind you, given how little Aquazone I got in the 90s, it is my largest set in that theme by a good margin.
I disagree that the Stingrays lack a colour scheme--if you don't LIKE dark grey, brown, red, and trans-neon-green that is 100% fair, but I find it pretty consistent and I like getting all that pre-colour change brickage.
One thing about the design that can be critiqued, I think, even within the confines of 90s set design, is that it's quite FLAT.
Stingrays are quite honestly my favourite Aquazone theme by a mile.
Even today, I love the design of the Stingray vessels - while I don't have any, 6198 is very high up my 'wanted' list - but back in the day they were even more fascinating to me because of their mysteriousness. I first became invested in Lego themes in 1999, with the debut of the UK "Lego Adventures" magazine; and unlike other '98 themes like Insectoids and Adventurers, Stingrays (in fact, Aquazone generally) didn't show up in those magazines, which were my only source for Lego theme lore for a while, so I knew nothing about them; and they weren't touched on in any of the Lego video games either.
My only real encounter with the theme as a kid was on the old 'email postcards' section of the Lego.com of the day, where two of those featured the Stingray sets, with no further context, and... from what little I could see in them, I was enthralled. The shapes! The colours! The minifigures with those ominous red eyes and epic helmets! They weren't like any other Lego theme I knew of, and I was won over in an instant, but had no idea how to find out anything else about them - I don't recall them having a dedicated section of the website, though maybe I just missed it at the time, since I was still pretty young - so for over a decade they were just 'this mysterious theme that I loved but knew nothing about'.
I have Brickset's high-quality images of the theme to thank for finally showing me them in detail - and they are every bit as enticing to me now as they were back when I first learned of them!
Does anyone know if there was any official lore behind the Stingrays, by any chance? Background, character identities, anything like that? Because if there is, I'd love to know what it was! ^^
I liked that the Stingrays had a clunky, industrial look, set them apart from the sleeker subs the Aquasharks from a couple years previous had
A movable tail with a propeller at the end... who ever at designed this at Aquashark HQ didn't think that all the way through!
Also, CHROME!!!
@NatureBricks said:
"I love Aquazone!
Not my favorite sub group but all Aquazone is good Aquazone and I miss when LEGO did original themes that were different. (Even NinjaGo has gotten really lazy.)"
I wish you weren't right with the last one. Sure there are standouts (Hunted, 2019), but 2021 felt so forgettable in terms of the core sets. Only a few stand out, and even then they're brought down by design flaws. The biggest offenders are the mechs, most have immovable knees, even the small ones. Hopefully the summer 2022 wave fixes this.
Thanks to this RSotD, I've just discovered I have the Stingray1 figure (but with grey hands). Nice design on the head, helmet and torso.. but the brown trousers NO!
City and Ninjago have done Divers/Aquazone inspired subthems in recent times, still nothing like the oomph the colors of Aquazone had, the neon colors really do help make it stand out.
That said, Ninjago did also use neon colors in Prime Empire , and Monkie Kid throughout various sets.
@empire0 said:
"98 was the start of my dark ages, so much junk came out around then"
Nadir of my dark ages - just out of college.
Is there any data on when dark ages fall? I'd imagine that even for TFOLs, college would be a likely breakpoint...
@Murdoch17:
Aquasharks appeared to be human antagonists if some sort, while Stingrays are definitely not human. I don’t think they were supposed to be allied.
@NatureBricks said:
" @R1_Drift said:
" @NatureBricks said:
"I love Aquazone!
Not my favorite sub group but all Aquazone is good Aquazone and I miss when LEGO did original themes that were different. (Even NinjaGo has gotten really lazy.)"
I wish you weren't right with the last one. Sure there are standouts (Hunted, 2019), but 2021 felt so forgettable in terms of the core sets. Only a few stand out, and even then they're brought down by design flaws. The biggest offenders are the mechs, most have immovable knees, even the small ones. Hopefully the summer 2022 wave fixes this."
The NinjaGo island theme with Godzilla could have been amazing, just too few sets. They even had an underwater theme, the big sub was fun, but otherwise lazy. I really loved the Sky Pirate sets. I wish I had more money back then to have bought them all. NinjaGo was my favorite theme for years. Fun builds, decent priced set, now just lazy. Lazy is literally the only word I can think of to describe the sets.
"
Godzilla? You either mean those stone totem guys or the Jungle Dragon "Zippy"?
@Padmewan said:
" @empire0 said:
"98 was the start of my dark ages, so much junk came out around then"
Nadir of my dark ages - just out of college.
Is there any data on when dark ages fall? I'd imagine that even for TFOLs, college would be a likely breakpoint..."
No idea for sure about data.
I do buy a lot of lego second hand so I can share my experience about that.
Many sell their lego around 11-12 aka college age.
The other big group of sellers is around 18-22 something age before, duing or after university (of applied science).
For example, currently there is (in the netherlands on the second hand site I use) an overdose of nexo knight. To many kids dropping their lego while there is little demand. Some lower their prices while other keep uploading the same add while being ignored.
Same happened a few years after the castle 2007 wave. Even the traders failed to pick up all dirt cheap