Armed with a Tail

[PeabodySam]

"Beware my stinger tail!"

 

 

It is the beginning of a great new era of prosperity for BIONICLE fans who use Garry's Mod.  Not only do we have several classic Toa Mata and Toa Nuva models from BIONICLE: The Game thanks to Xiron (as showcased here with my earlier piece), but now we also have Glatorian and Toa Inika from Glatorian Arena and BIONICLE Heroes, respectively, thanks to the work of The Frosty_Engine. Still working on an idea with the Inika, but I definitely had something in mind for the Glatorian.

I suppose I'm in the minority of the BIONICLE fanbase, since I consider 2009 to be an overall good year for the franchise. Gone were the over-abundance of silver and giant projectile launchers and unrecognizable travesties of our favorite characters. Once more, we had a brand new world to explore, populated by literally-colorful new characters who hearkened back to the early days of the tribes of Mata Nui. I even think that The Legend Reborn is not nearly as terrible as most fans make it out to be, and I can make an argument for it being one of the better films in the series. Its soundtrack, on the other hand... But, I digress.
 
Anyways, I wanted to make a cool scene in the Bara Magna desert, maybe with one of the Glatorian tending a campfire while some Vorox lurk in the shadows, but tigerfaceswe already did a pretty good job at that, so I chose to do something different. Still wanted to do something with the Vorox, though; it's one of my personal favorite sets of the Glatorian line.

Then, I thought about a particular quote from The Legend Reborn, where Ackar refers to Mata Nui as crazy because he charged into a Glatorian arena with only a Scarabax beetle and a Vorox tail for protection. For some reason, I had the mental image of Mata Nui wielding a Vorox tail... still attached to a living and very annoyed Vorox. The whole scene still played straight and dramatic, except for the Vorox ruining the tone. I found this just too amusing to ignore.

But, if you're a stickler for canon, then I suggest you view this alternate version instead.
 
As before, everything you see here was done directly in Garry's Mod, since I don't have access to Photoshop on this computer. This one took a lot of playing around with different camera angles and lighting effects to try to recreate the scene I imagined, since Garry's Mod is currently lacking in maps with volcanic gladiator arenas like that of Vulcanus. Backlighting Mata Nui with a red/orange lamp seemed to do the trick, as it found a perfect intersection between a fiery setting and a dramatic tone, as well as making up for the lack of lighting in this corner of the map. Much to my frustration, models cast no shadows on the map, which I feared would ruin the whole picture... but fortunately, this issue ultimately rectified itself once I maximized video settings for the screenshot. I'm really satisfied with how this one turned out.

 

Once again, big thanks to The Frosty_Engine for making this possible.

 

Comments and constructive criticism are appreciated.

[evil_jaga_genius]

"So you're telling me, a comet fell out of the sky, turned itself into a Glatorian, made friends with a beetle and is now picking fights in Vulcanus Arena by throwing a Vorox at people?"

 

"Yes, O Mighty Tuma."

 

"This desert isn't completely filled with lunatics, is it?"

 

"Yes, O Mighty Tuma..."

[Akavakaku]

Oh, so that's what's going on. I could hardly tell what Mata Nui and the Vorox were doing because of the really dim lighting.