Dark_Stranger

Well, you're never too old to have a hobby. Plus, it's something I can have in common with my little siblings. And if I'm not afraid of being a bit pretentious, I can always declare that "It's not a toy, it's a medium." Being an aspiring artist has its perks.

The Silent Mary is pretty incredible, even if I wish there were sets closer to my price range (no, Brickheadz don't count). Hopefully this monster will be discounted enough at some point that I can actually buy it.

I was afraid that the summer Ninjago sets might not be open to photograph, given the lack of coverage elsewhere. The descriptions make them sound pretty fun, though...guess I'll have to set aside a few minutes to watch the trailer sometime and see for myself. Unreleased sets aside, the Vermillion have an excellent aesthetic to their vehicles--almost a bit steampunk-ish in places. It seems a bit odd to introduce a new color in only two pieces; I can't wait to see what other copper parts are released in the near future. Here's hoping for as much CCBS as humanly possible!

I understand where you're coming from, but part of being a professional artist (which I'll admit I haven't accomplished quite yet, but I'm getting there) is understanding that passion and dedication, while essential, aren't generally accepted currency. Passion is the engine, but it needs money to fuel it. Or maybe it's the other way around. You can't do without either, regardless. In this case, I'm not really sure I could get this project done in a timely manner without donations. Admittedly, I jumped the gun in putting up a donations page before I had anything more than a cover picture, but I should be able to show off some semi-presentable Toa soon. As for the continuing legal concerns, I know there are at least a few people who accept token payment for instructions for MOCs based on licensed properties. If they can do it with no problems, I don't see why I would be prohibited from taking donations, which is far less capitalistic. And, again, I made sure to announce this project where Lego can see it; if they start chewing me out, I'll delete the donations page and just finish the project at a much slower pace. They haven't made an issue of it yet, so I haven't corrected the potential issue yet.

I have thought for awhile that what the final Hobbit film really needed was battle packs. The actual "Battle of the Five Armies" set was okay, and had some nice Dale architecture, but wasn't nearly big enough to stage any kind of proper battle. Instead of a single ~$50 set, we really should have had a $10 battle pack for each army. Mirkwood Elves, Men of Laketown (both with an eagle), Iron Hills Dwarves (with a cavalry goat), Dol Gildur Orcs (featuring one or two warg riders), and Gundabad Orcs (along with a few war bats)--I would have bought scads of those.

"This isn't the constraction you're looking for. Just move along."

I think the Scarecrow set is actually my favorite of all these--a very well-designed impulse set featuring possibly the best Scarecrow minifigure Lego has ever released. (Gotta admit, he's one of my all-time favorites.) Bane is good, except for reminding me that the Whirly-Bat is a thing that exists. The big fig is just about perfect, and while I've never been a fan of TDKR, the Mutant has enough versatile parts for me to accept his inclusion. The Batwing is very blocky-looking; a real disappointment. The poor selection of minifigures doesn't help. The Two-Face set doesn't inspire strong feelings in me either way--I don't hate it, but I doubt I'll bother picking it up.

This is certainly true to some extent, but it doesn't really cover all the instances mentioned. Some of these guys are fairly minor, yes--but plenty of others, eg. Faramir, Eowyn, and Bolg, are pretty darn important to their narratives. I myself am still a little miffed that we never got those three.

Oh, man. I have no real interest in TLBM, and the sets and character designs have been pretty hit-and-miss in my opinion, but this is amazing. The combined vehicle is cool, and the Batmobile is easily spotted sitting up front (if anything, it looks even better), but I wish we could have had another picture to see the other three vehicles. It really says something that the beautifully realized Bat-signal comes off as an afterthought here. Couldn't agree more. Sauron>Polka-Dot Man; there's really no contest. Still, at least this way if I take the plunge and buy this monstrosity, I can easily sell off the D-lister to recoup some of the cost.Hopefully, there are one or two summer sets that are still unrevealed, because I would be rather annoyed if Lego passed up another chance to release a second-age Sauron figure, especially since they went out of their way to insert him into a franchise where he doesn't belong.

Firstly, I suppose upon rereading that my phrasing was a bit vague, so I understand the confusion, but I am not selling anything. The story will be available for free. The set instructions will be available for free. The campaign is to fund Bricklink orders and paint--and obviously no one has to contribute, it would just be helpful and appreciated in the face of what is frankly a huge project. I could easily have just shared this with my little siblings and nobody else, but I thought I'd give a wider audience the option to see what I had in mind for a proper ending. As for LEGO themselves, this is admittedly in their hands, which informed some of the phrasing on the actual contribution page. But I made sure to immediately post this project to the official pages for both Bionicle and LEGO as a whole, and I haven't heard anything from them yet, so unless that changes I figure they're fine with it. Finally, I do intend to update the page regularly with content, and in fact I posted the first such update less than an hour ago. There isn't much physical to show yet, as the project is still in its infancy and much of it is still either in my head or in the phase where the prototypes are still half-built, full of parts substitutions, and overall kind of junky-looking. I'm working on getting them out of that territory, and they're slowly but surely getting there.

Well, I've been mentioning it sporadically for a while now--and now it has officially begun! With some help from my siblings, I'm working on MoCing up sets and writing a storyline, but, as always, funds are low. Donations can help finance paint and Bricklink orders, as well as the time spent building and writing. More to come soon! https://fundrazr.com/bion_2017?ref=ab_26NoEc

Stone needs to stick around. Replacing Air with Jungle was acceptable because Air always had strong thematic ties to jungle-type environments, and because Jungle still retained some air-based powers as part of its repertoire. Stone, though, has been a prominent quirk of Bionicle since the beginning, and should not be replaced. As for the whole "definition of Bionicle" debate, even G1 never completely phased out the Mata/Nuva, just moved them to the background. The reboot demonstrated that you can make some pretty dramatic changes without diluting the brand too much, but the original 6 heroes should be somewhere, even if they're not the protagonists.

Well, I've never played many video games, but several of my siblings are excited about the board game version coming out this month. I don't think any of them had even heard of Doom before, amusingly enough.

G1: Count me among the masses who think romance shouldn't have been stricken from canon. Makuta also should have kept the more morally grey motives hinted at in MNOG and Mask of Light. Even as a dumb little kid I thought mono-gendered tribes were stupid. They can be predominantly male or female, sure, but having it as strict as it is just limits options for MOCs and characters. Oh, and if I killed the whole Red Star reveal, would it stay dead, or bring itself back to life? G2: A more solid storyline. More and better background material. Names for the Protectors right off the bat. A proper ending.

Offhand, I'd say the torso needs to be a little shorter (right now it looks a bit long compared to the legs), and the shoulders could stand to be positioned a bit higher (the arms seem kind of low on the torso as is). Otherwise, I'd call this solid.