The Oddjob of Bionicle Playsets and MOCing

[The Hordika]

Around 2005-2007, Bionicle had a short run of Minifig size playsets. Kinda obscure now, they were pretty cool. I have been looking for a few, and was looking into them for MOCing and such. Did any of you own these sets and/or MoC with them? I don't really have a specific point of this Fourm, just a mish-mash of opinions, MoCs, and anything else relating to these obscure relics. 

 

-Austin

[Mocmaker]

Hello Austin!

 

I do own a few of the minifig size playsets; I never thought about MOCing with them.    Oh the possibilities!     

 

And in my opinion the playsets are  !

[Bfahome]

I had a couple of them, though they've long since been disassembled.  As far as BIONICLE building is concerned, the fact that they were primarily SYSTEM-based made it difficult to include them in the same way as the standard sets.  On the other hand, they often included recolors that weren't used elsewhere, so that was a definite benefit.

[Ballom Nom Nom]

Yeah, I have a bunch of the 2006-2007 era Bionicle playsets. Long since disassembled, of course. The main things that were useful on them were the minifig parts. The Toa/Piraka/Barraki all had different recolors of the Exo-Force robot arms, some of which were unique to those sets, and their torso piece (link) works quite well with CCBS.

 

~B~

[The Hordika]

My personal favorite are the 2005 playsets. But I thought today of MOCing with em, and it seems fun. But if any of you try, post them here

 

It's sad there were so few, or else I could MOC easier.

[Evergrey: Toa of Music]

I remember getting the tower set from 2005 mainly just for the golden Kraahkan

[Ta-metru_defender]

Yeah, I have a bunch of the 2006-2007 era Bionicle playsets. Long since disassembled, of course. The main things that were useful on them were the minifig parts. The Toa/Piraka/Barraki all had different recolors of the Exo-Force robot arms, some of which were unique to those sets, and their torso piece (link) works quite well with CCBS.

 

~B~

Yeah, I bought some of the recolored arms on the aftermarket for MOC's. But that's about the extent of my own interaction with the playsets.

[Lyichir]

I never made much use of recolored elements from playsets, despite how cool they were.

 

However, actually MOCing conceptual Bionicle playsets is one of my passions. The world of Bionicle is one of the most compelling aspects of the theme for me, but outside of the playsets, the only parts of that world ever represented in sets were figures and vehicles. While the playsets were not always the best, and their timing ensured that the settings they represented were far from the most interesting, their blend of Bionicle's signature mechanical detail, Technic structural elements, and System-based architecture made them exceptionally unique and the closest Bionicle ever came to actually representing Bionicle's unique world.

 

Since early this year I've been using Lego Digital Designer to try and come up with Okoto-based playsets featuring minifigures of the 2015 Toa. I would certainly love to see the return of actual playsets, particularly if they featured Toa minifigs based on the new Toa and using the Hero Factory "mini-hero" design, but unfortunately given the poor reception of the original playsets, I don't know how likely it'll be for us to ever get that. So the most I can do is conceptualize how the lush elemental world of Okoto might be best represented with traditional System and Technic construction.

[The Hordika]

I agree. 2015 can be a year to try again and see what everyone wants. I haven't gotten a System set in a while because I am on a Bionicle craze. But if LEGO brought back the playsets, I'd buy one. Or two. Or seven.