First Generation Bionicle Rebuilds

[The Librarian]

I recently felt a hankering to rebuild the first year Toa, only seven years (SEVEN!) after my original attempts (here). And so . . .

Hold on. Wrong magnification.

Obligatory daft joke out of the way - I started indulging my nostalgia with some brick-built mini-Toa but enough time spent staring at those lovely, lovely first year masks made me want to go the whole hog as it were. I'm not sure my Toa design stacks up against some of the designs out there but it's pretty darned flexible, which is a definite plus. More photos are available here.

There's more to come - my table is covered in Bioincle builds at this point - but for now, let me leave you with some brick-built Rahi and a WIP howling void.

Enjoy!

 

Edited October 9, 2017 by The Librarian

[Azani]

Particularly in light of G2's end, these are really evocative of the style of the early years. It gives off a nice vibe that balances greebles with a cohesive, genuinely real-to-life design. Going off of your Tahu and Onua designs, its very clear that the personalities are captured very well. I'm quite a fan of the others as well, of course. :)

Edited October 9, 2017 by Azani

[Chimaninja454]

Excellent MoCs, especially Tahu and Onua, because it's very clear that their personalities are very well-executed because it gives off a niche vibe that combines greebles with a detailed, cohesive and genuinely stellar real-life design. Going off to your other MOCs, I must say that I'm a fan of others as well, of course. :-)

[Aanchir]

These are definitely interesting builds! On some levels, with them taking as much inspiration as they do from the originals, I think it's a bit of a bummer that they don't really maintain a lot of the differences in the characters' proportions — like the way Gali and Onua's thighs had more volume than their shins when on the others it was the other way around, or how Lewa and Kopaka had the narrowest shoulders, or how Pohatu was the second shortest of the Toa and had a more bottom-heavy physique. But despite all that you did a great job staying true to the weapons, masks, and color blocking of the Toa Mata while using much more intricate System and Technic mecha building techniques. I also really like the Rahi you created, though it's a shame Muaka has lost its stretchy neck. Keep on being creative!

[Pate-keetongu]

I like them overall, especially Makuta, who is well randomed but still had rather imposing figure. Work with Nui-Rama's fangs is pleasant, too - just rightly disturbing composition.

[ZORK64]

Very impressive MOCs!

While the torsos look a bit too busy for my liking, they still manage to capture the feel of G1 Bionicle quite well, and I also like the limb design.

My only genuine nitpick would be Pohatu's design - I'd prefer him having an upside-down torso, just like his original design had.

But other than that, excellent work!

[The Librarian]

Thanks for the comments everyone!

On 09/10/2017 at 5:39 PM, Aanchir said:

These are definitely interesting builds! On some levels, with them taking as much inspiration as they do from the originals, I think it's a bit of a bummer that they don't really maintain a lot of the differences in the characters' proportions — like the way Gali and Onua's thighs had more volume than their shins when on the others it was the other way around, or how Lewa and Kopaka had the narrowest shoulders, or how Pohatu was the second shortest of the Toa and had a more bottom-heavy physique. But despite all that you did a great job staying true to the weapons, masks, and color blocking of the Toa Mata while using much more intricate System and Technic mecha building techniques. I also really like the Rahi you created, though it's a shame Muaka has lost its stretchy neck. Keep on being creative!

On 09/10/2017 at 10:31 PM, ZORK64 said:

Very impressive MOCs!

While the torsos look a bit too busy for my liking, they still manage to capture the feel of G1 Bionicle quite well, and I also like the limb design.

My only genuine nitpick would be Pohatu's design - I'd prefer him having an upside-down torso, just like his original design had.

But other than that, excellent work!

So . . . the proportions. I did want them to vary a little and they do, though I admit not in the same way as the originals. But I also wanted to maintain the utmost flexibility in the frame, which is why while I built a narrower-shouldered torso for Gali, I didn't want to use it for Lewa because it would have inhibited his arm articulation too much, and I didn't want to move his shoulders inward in another fashion because it would have messed up his chest plates, an aspect of the design I really liked. I built myself into a corner that I probably won't get out of without going totally back to the drawing board. I have no such excuse with the legs on Gali and Onua, save that colour-blocking wise, I don't think I could have inverted them without messing up the flow of medium blue to blue and dark grey to black (such as it is at the moment). I settled for a flat-out cheat with 'inverted' Hero Factory shells instead. Kopaka, I actually deliberately made *more* heavily built rather than less, so carry through the shield motif into full armour. And a fur collar. I just thought it might work.

Pohatu, Pohatu . . . well, I did come up with a version that was shorter in the torso and it looked too simian and rendered him about Onua's height, which didn't seem right. I avoided the flat-out inverted torso because . . . well, on one level I don't actually like it all that much on the original and on another, if I'd stuck to those proportions, the arms and legs would have interfered too much with one another. I ended up compromised - he technically has the narrowest shoulders and the widest hips, but the arms are spaced out on extra joints (cunningly emulating the original's shoulder pads [ish]) so they don't clash with the legs. His shortness relative to the others is then achieved with posture rather than proportion. Not the best solution, I grant you, but it did mean I could make him a mostly brown torso, which I don't think I'd have achieved otherwise.

 

On 09/10/2017 at 9:44 PM, Pate-keetongu said:

I like them overall, especially Makuta, who is well randomed but still had rather imposing figure. Work with Nui-Rama's fangs is pleasant, too - just rightly disturbing composition.

I was so chuffed to discover I could do that with the Nui-Rama. I did build an orange version but that didn't turn out too well, unfortunately.

 

[The Outsider]

Great work; very faithful to the original designs yet a lot better in detailing and articulations. I especially love the Rahi (which actually look like animals this time around) and the Vortex Makuta (always loved that form of his; a lot more eldritch and intimidating than the others).

[Tyndale]

Jesus... That thing at the end is... beautiful.

Nice builds by the way. 

T

[Steven the toa of flight]

Not bad

[Steven the toa of flight]

The Makuta was the best part I love the design of all the mess

[Azani]

On ‎10‎/‎9‎/‎2017 at 3:37 AM, Chimaninja454 said:

Excellent MoCs, especially Tahu and Onua, because it's very clear that their personalities are very well-executed because it gives off a niche vibe that combines greebles with a detailed, cohesive and genuinely stellar real-life design...

I'd simply like to jump back into the fray for a moment to address a couple of my more pernicious/pensive reflections on these statements. One of the things that implicitly and instantaneously made G1 a hit (relatively, with regards to what was initially planned for) was the degree to which the creators/set designers ruminated on the amiable and affable traits of all the robots. :P Now, one of my personal goals in my G1 work has been to favor the darkness and duplicitousness inherent in a story with the literary and thematic twists that G1 retained for the duration of its run; however, I do believe that it is worth remembering that we're irrevocably dealing with a toy line meant for 7-12 year old kids; the median here should be snugly in mirth and creativity, not in drama and existentialism. All of these MOCs are spectacular, as I touched on above; however, I failed to mention the intense personality in all of these that a couple of other folks initially mentioned.

A few other thoughts, to round this min-dissertation out and offer some more critiques; the Muaka and Kane-Ra type Rahi at the close are nice and complex at the heads, which I initially had thought of as a small yet noted concern (especially with the amount of SYSTEM used). It's not. My above critiques here are pretty minimal; again, it is clear that some spectacular and long-view draftsmanship went into the work that brought these to life. It must take a heck of a lot of patience to work out that Makuta. :P

My earliest MOC drafts are usually spanning/ranging from simply uninspired to exactingly over-executed; to me, it's simply unbelievable as to how phenomenal you were able to make brick-built characters without noting too many of the more ancillary details on, say, the original Muaka kit. Certainly, the Rahi are a personal favorite, but I would imagine that there are a number of "personal favorites" with the mind-blowing builds herein.

[The Librarian]

Hah! Only just spotted these latest comments. Thanks for coming back to your earlier comment, Azani. I've always favoured the earlier aesthetic for Bionicle myself - there's just something elegant and pleasing about the first few years' masks that seemed to get lost along the way.

Since this thread has been resurrected, it seems aposit to post a couple of my other builds, now that I've finally taken photos of them! But first, some more interesting shots of some of the Toa:

 

 

An Exo-Toa (just to get dark and gritty for a moment!)

 

 

A bunch of Rahkshi:

Hali and Dume:

 

A Manas Crab that's been living on the floor of my flat for a while:

 

Guess who:

 

And that group shot I failed to take last time:

[Mechbuilds]

Amazing work! I liked the exo toa the most and your updated version is just heaps better. 

[CaptainSerMig]

On 10/9/2017 at 9:35 AM, The Librarian said:

I recently felt a hankering to rebuild the first year Toa, only seven years (SEVEN!) after my original attempts (here). And so . . .

 

Hold on. Wrong magnification.

Obligatory daft joke out of the way - I started indulging my nostalgia with some brick-built mini-Toa but enough time spent staring at those lovely, lovely first year masks made me want to go the whole hog as it were. I'm not sure my Toa design stacks up against some of the designs out there but it's pretty darned flexible, which is a definite plus. More photos are available here.

There's more to come - my table is covered in Bioincle builds at this point - but for now, let me leave you with some brick-built Rahi and a WIP howling void.

 

 

Enjoy!

 

Congratulation, I think you went as close as reasonably possible to a perfect revamp of the original Toa Mata, I particularly like the tecnique used for the upper legs.

Keep up the good work man!

Edited December 6, 2018 by Leewan
Removed quoted pictures

[DuckBricks]

Wow, these are really, really impressive! I've been trying to reverse engineer those amazing torsos - any chance of providing half deconstructed photos?

[The Librarian]

Thanks guys!

23 hours ago, legozebra said:

Wow, these are really, really impressive! I've been trying to reverse engineer those amazing torsos - any chance of providing half deconstructed photos?

I'll do you one better - this is one of the few times I've persisted to create instructions, so here's a breakdown for Tahu:

Tahu Instructions by Librarian-Bot, on Flickr

Tahu Instructions by Librarian-Bot, on Flickr

 

[DuckBricks]

2 hours ago, The Librarian said:

Thanks guys!

I'll do you one better - this is one of the few times I've persisted to create instructions, so here's a breakdown for Tahu:

Tahu Instructions by Librarian-Bot, on Flickr

Tahu Instructions by Librarian-Bot, on Flickr

 

This is fantastic - thank you so much! Out of curiosity, how are the Technic panels on Lewa's torso attached?