Well if you don’t know the rest of that hook (“Get everybody and the stuff together, Ok 3-2-1 let’s jam”) you likely missed out on the late nineties anime Cowboy Bebop. Despite being only 20 episodes long, it weaves a tight tragic story with very human charters.

I first found Cowboy Bebop in the early 2000s and watched it on DVD and Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim (where it is still regularly shown). I actually just finished re-watching the series a few weeks ago. For a bit of background, the show follows cowboys (bounty hunters) Jet Black, Spike Spiegel, and Faye Valentine, along with Ed, a child hacking genius, and data dog Ein, as they try to make enough to eat and keep the Bebop fueled while their backstories come back to haunt them in various ways.

Swordfish II (left) and Red Tail (right)

The Bebop is the main larger ship that transports are heroes around, but Jet, Spike, and Faye have a smaller craft too.

You’ve likely seen MOCs of Spike’s Swordfish II before since they pop up every so often. However, Jet’s Hammerhead and Faye’s Red Tail are less common. I was very excited to find a new builder, samythril, on Flickr who built all three in minifigure-scale and captured them in excellent detail. She was kind enough to answer a few questions on the ships!

Michael: Hi there! I see that you are very new to Flickr but clearly are a talented builder. Will you tell us a bit about yourself and do you show your work anywhere else online?

Mythril: Hey! My name is Mythril and my pronouns are she/they! I'm 21 years old and I've been building with LEGO for about 20 of them. I'm proud of how far I've come with my builds but I know I still have a lot to learn. You can find my work on my Twitter page at @legomythril, and I've put up these particular models for sale on Rebrickable as samythril.

Michael: From your photostream, your wheelhouse seems to be more Bionicle/Mecha. What drew you to the three Cowboy Bebop ships?

Mythril: I actually built the Swordfish as a present for someone after watching the show with them and then decided I needed to complete the set!

Michael: I love MOCs for gifts—you have a very lucky friend! I've started plans for the Swordfish II at least four or five times and always run into roadblocks. Could you speak about your design processes a bit?

Mythril: I start most of my builds with a couple of seed parts; in the case of the Swordfish, I started with the bubble canopy and the red car windshields to form the cockpit. Getting the nose and the angle of the wings right was the hardest part, but I realized I could kill two birds with one stone by using a set of three joints to form a triangle at the front and then attach the wings there.

Michael: It works very well! The wings’ slight forward sweep is neglected by some builders that I’ve seen and that canopy solution looks great!

Michael: In addition to the Swordfish II, the Red Tail and Hammerhead are also excellently built, What were some of the unique challenges and rewards for each build?

Mythril: I already spoke about the Swordfish a bit, so I'll move on to the Red Tail here. The greatest challenge of this ship was actually the color choice! When looking up reference images I noticed that it was just slightly purplish in color, so I decided to reflect this in my model by using the lavender color over grey to make it stand out on a shelf. Unfortunately, it's not a very common color in the LEGO library, so I had to make a lot of compromises on what shapes I could use. (Did you know that the only cheese wedges that come in lavender are the 1x2 kind and they ONLY come in the Ariel and Ursula BrickHeadz!?) I didn't even manage to get any for my model because the availability is so limited.
For the Hammerhead, on the other hand, my work was cut out for me. The front of that thing is a brick, so it was pretty straightforward to stack up plates around a Technic brick frame.

Michael: I hear you on parts with limited colors! I’m notorious for picking color schemes that look great but I have to rethink a build halfway through due to a limited supply! You’re right the front of the Hammerhead is solid much like Jet. I don’t think I realized before how much each ship reflects the personality of its owner! Do you have any plans to build the Bebop, even if it is not to scale with the three smaller ships?

Mythril: Maybe! I started on one a while ago but the project stalled out a bit. I'd like to get back to it, but no promises.

Michael: Time for a few other fun questions, speed round style! Favorite Bebop Character?

Mythril: Ed! I'm transgender and he's borderline canonically genderfluid, which I was surprised to see handled in a mostly respectful way from a '90s anime. Plus I just love her antics, and her relationship with Faye is very sweet.

Michael: I’m partial to Ed too, but each time I re-watch I seem to get more out of each character. Next up, watching anime that has been dubbed or subtitled?

Mythril: Depends on the anime. Bebop has an excellent dub, but you don't always have that luxury...

Michael: Too true! Last one, what is your favorite LEGO piece?

Mythril: This is a hard one, but I think I'll go with the Nexo Knights shield tile, the pentagonal one. Its shape just calls to me for some reason. I'm always looking for excuses to use it, though I don't often succeed.

Michael: That one is great I use it when I can too, it has so many possibilities. Anything else you'd like to share?

Mythril: Thank you for having me! I've never had someone ask me for an interview so this is pretty exciting.

Michael: Well I’m glad I asked! Thank you so much!

And “SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY…”

Do you know any emerging builders that would be fun to get to know? Let us know in the comments below!

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