Metru Nui Mosaic

[xccj]

Metru Nui Mosaic by Jason, on Flickr

Metru Nui, the City of the Great Spirit, the City of Legends

Introduced in 2004, Metru Nui was the original home of the Matoran and the setting for both the 04 and 05 stories, and remained a focal point for Bionicle Gen 1 universe.

This is created using the pieces of 31203 World Map.  Well, not entirely; the additional dishes are pieces I added separately, and the set was short by about 100 coral tiles, so I needed to buy some more of those... but the majority of this model comes from the one set.

When the World Map was first introduced, I immediately know I wanted to recreate one of the Bionicle islands with it.  But, alas, a couple of different people beat me to remaking Mata Nui, so I decided to go a different route.  Figuring out the backgrounds was a challenge with most of these map designs, because the oceans were what the colored tiles were meant for rather than the land.  Some of the ocean designs I've seen have been just too chaotic, so I wanted something that was a little cleaner but still relevant to Bionicle.  And as it would be, 2004 Metru Nui was associated with six Kanoka symbols for each Metru that would be simple to recreate and not too parts intensive.

Each Kanoka symbol was made using two colors based on the selection from the set.  Some of them were trickier to choose from than others.  I was originally going to place them in a solid grid, but unfortunately that meant the ones in the middle would've been mostly covered by the island, so I moved them all around a bit so the defining details could all be clearly seen.  This did leave a small gap around Ga-Metru, so I added a UDD symbol to fill in the empty space.

The island is mostly made of white studs, but I wanted to make sure I included enough details to make Metru Nui stand out from Mata Nui, since the island shapes are very similar.  Metru Nui is distinctive because of the many canals, chutes, and buildings.  The canals were added using teal as the primary water color and shows the clear separation of the six Metrus.  Tan tiles are used to form the Chutes that interconnect the island, creating pathways from one area to the other.  Various buildings and towers were also included, and I recreated these using white dishes and set their locations based on various landmarks off some of the details maps on the island.  Each Metru has a central hub facility that is slightly larger than the others, and the Coliseum rises out of the center of the island using a larger cone piece.

This took me a couple of weeks to get the designs and colors selected.  Then I waited until double VIP points to buy the actual set; after that it took me about five days of building sessions to put the full mosaic together, teasing it on Instagram as I went.  I had to wait on a few separate orders to get the domes all finalized, but now that they're in I've got it all put together and photographed.  (I mean, it's not the greatest photo, but it gets the idea across.)

Since it's a fairly big and costly project, this one will probably stay together for a while and hopefully will show up at a few cons.  It will most definitely be at BricksCascade 2022, and maybe I'll eventually fly it out to BrickFair.  (It'll have to get broken down for transport but I think it's possible.)  I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out.

And for a quick summary, here are the colors I used:

Ta-Metru: Coral and Medium Azure
Ga-Metru: Medium Azure and Lime
Po-Metru: Orange and Bright Light Orange
Ko-Metru: Medium Azure and Lime (I'll be honest, I plan to switch the lime out for another color like Aqua, but I don't have the pieces for that yet.)
Le-Metru: Bright Green and Lime
Onu-Metru: Dark Blue and Coral
Water: Teal
Land: White
Chutes: Tan

Thanks for looking.

Edited October 25, 2021 by xccj

[Valendale]

You did a good job of differentiating it from Mata Nui as you said. The lettering on the upper left side works great too! Hopefully I'll get to see it at Brickfair if you do decide to send it.

[Elephant Knight]

Ooooh, this is very nice. I want one!

EKnight

[The Toa of Music]

Nice! That looks amazing!