blogs_blog_1497

Interesting. My concept did away with the independently-poseable arms since Onua came with a perfectly-good solution for broader shoulders, but your concept is good too (and, as a bonus, frees up the useful pieces used for attaching Onua's shoulder joints for other parts of the model).

 

I'd probably just stick with two gearboxes for Wairuha—one for the arms and one for the legs, like I currently have for Akamai.

Well, now that we have all these smoother, relatively smaller and more varied, less gapped parts, you don't necessarily need to use all the pieces; just make one Toa figure using all three colors, and at that not very much bigger than the originals. That's what I'm gonna do, 'cause I'm lazy Just mix and match colors.

Your build looks really cool, those are some seriously bulky arms, very intimidating. 

I think making a normal Toa with mixed up colors would defy the original idea of the Toa Kaita. They weren't just special Toa formed by three Toa combining, they were legendary, they were powerful, and to me, they were massive. Wairuha Nuva defied that by pulling some weird stuff with the shoulders I never quite liked, but to me, making Akamai and Wairuha the same size as a normal Toa completely defies what it means to be a Kaita. It'd be like if Devastator were the same size as a single Constructicon.

As Lyi mentioned, he and I have been working on concepts for Akamai and Wairuha. Wairuha is only slightly shorter than Akamai, but has a more effeminate design in accordance with the Toa Nuva Kaita models. Each stands about two inches taller than the largest Toa used in their construction (Tahu and Kopaka, respectively). So while they don't tower over regular Toa the way the original Toa Kaita would, they're more than tall enough for it to be clear that they're not just regular Toa.