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I've been wanting to do this for many years, to build Onua entirely using black pieces (well, except for his eyes), and now I've finally gotten the last gear I needed. He looks quite awesome like this, if I may say so myself.
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The one on the left is actually the best picture, though the thumbnail doesn't look it. My camera has trouble focusing sometimes, and that one turned out the best... and there's a whole gallery if you want to explore a little more.
I had original
Because I'm sure these are going to be mentioned and observed and discussed at some point (and some have already), I thought I'd just address all of these here: the 2009 Bionicle names taken from Latin. We might as well start from the beginning.
Malum is Latin for "evil." (There is another word malum that means "apple," but we all know which one of the two meanings is relevant here.)
Vorox comes from the word vorax, meaning "hungry."
Metus is Latin for "fear."
Fero is in all probabi
"America has had great parties" ~ Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
That quote has nothing at all to do with the rest of this entry.
So, apparently I have the Senior Staff title now... I had completely forgotten that was coming up, probably because I still feel like one of the newer STs (STs FOREVER!) for some odd reason. It's sort of weird to think that of the current Support Team (you should know I'm nostalgic by now), only three people have been on it longer than Rayg and me.
Here we go again... ToyFair's come around, real pictures have been produced (I saw the leaked ones earlier), and in some respects I was pleased, in others disappointed. Mainly, the leaked picture of Gali made her look fairly cool (though not Gali-like), but in reality she has the annoying reversed Piraka chest and her mask looks, in the words of Janus and Toro, perfect for a Dark Hunter but dreadful for Gali. The leaked pictures also showed Tahu being quite distinctly normal red, but no, he can'
In the past two days I have acquired two things that make me very happy.
The first was Takanuva, who I bought at Target yesterday. (Incidentally, while there I fell in love with Rockoh and Gali Mistika. The former is really cool in person, the latter a great set, but still not Gali-like.)
First impressions are that his build is amazing. -Never- have I seen anything so at once intricate and solid and in the end good-looking on a titan set. I seriously enjoyed building him and spent at l
Just so everyone knows, the thirteenth annual Day of Silence is this Friday, the 17th.
If you don't know what that is, it's a day where you stay completely silent in order to raise awareness of the bullying and oppression of LGBT students in schools. The point is to let people know that there's a problem here, and then to create discussion about it. I know that sounds contradictory, staying silent to create discussion, but it's basically this: if a lot of people stay silent together, other pe
This was an idea I came up with yesterday.
What if, for every element, there was one single Toa in the course of Bionicle history whose control of it went above and beyond just the element itself? So the Toa would not merely control his or her element to its fullest extent possible, but could actually affect things that aren't strictly part of it, but are just associated with it? It's hard to explain in abstraction.
I got the idea with the image of a Toa of the Green leading an army of tre
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A treatise on orange and Pohatu Phantoka:
I have come to the conclusion that, given certain conditions, orange can be quite a good color for Pohatu Phantoka. Now, before you all jump on me and accuse me of heresy, allow me to explain.
The problem with his color comes from the Adaptive Armor. Without it, his color scheme could just be yellow-orange and reddish-brown (the color that replaced brown in 2004, which Avak had) and things would be simple and everyone would be pleased. Bu
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The mysteries are revealed!
So there you have it, finally. The picture explains pretty much everything, but now you know how they all work – redesigned Nuva chest armor, and the mirror-molded Nuva shoulder armor pieces, which are sort of a cross between Nuva armor and Matoro's shoulder pads, now that I think about it. And the texture I'll probably end up working with in the end.
And there's also a cross-section of the chest armor so you can see the alignment of the center pin
I finished reading The Golden Compass today. I love that book so much. Lyra is the most perfect child ever and there are witches and bears and I love Pantalaimon and Mrs. Coulter is cunning and devious and awesome. I have an odd thing for murderous, beautiful, intelligent women in literature. They're always the most fun characters. Mrs. Coulter is no exception. "Do you like chocolatl?" *shiver* She's a lesson in why you should not accept candy from beautiful strangers.
And I love the idea of
Strakk or Gelu?
I have decided at this point to get Kiina and Ackar, and I've always wanted one out of the two Ice Glatoriana, but certainly not both. They're way too similar to make both of them worth it. But I do like bits and pieces of each. Strakk's fantastic color scheme and shoulders/head; Gelu's armor and swords and helmet and snowflake shoulders... (don't have Metus)
Once they go on sale or something.
~ ToM
So at this point I'm rather out of the loop when it comes to less-than-major storyline developments (among them anything at all from the serials). I happened to see the other day that the color scheme for Lighting had been revealed – blue and white – to which my response was "wha — when was this decided — why isn't it yellow—". Since lightining had seemed to me one of the simpler Kal elements to assign a color to, given that bright yellow (Jala yellow, if you will) is the color pretty much unive
Since this came up in the comments of last entry, I figured I would just make an entry about it to discuss it in full...
So. Crystal. I've seen the idea for it as an element come up in quite a few places, and if it were up to me (and apparently to quite a few others), I'd have canonized Crystal as an element rather than Psionics. If we're sticking with Lego's ridiculous one-gender-per-tribe scheme, it would be female. Because goodness knows Bionicle needs more female elements.
The idea occ
Finally, finally, I got his color scheme worked out.
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The bottom three are a mockup of his build, as far as is possible to build physically. Other things to note: The Technic jet intakes on his lower legs – they're there to both give his legs more substance and to recall the curved shape of the Nuva's legs. For the color distribution, since I was using both lime and medium green, I opted to make his upper arms and thighs green, rather than grey, so that his green components wer
So everyone can see what I'm thinking of, more or less:
» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «
This is the color distribution I had thought that Mata Nui had – gold armor over a yellow-orange and black body. It's not perfect, since I had to use Metru thigh armor instead of Matoro shoulder pads; the latter leave more black showing in his thighs and make them bulkier as well. But it's pretty close.
Minor color editing done to the leg armor (representing Inika legs with the new
Prior to one week ago, my repertoire of BZP members I had met consisted of only two: Black Six and HauNuva (if anyone even remembers him).
That has changed now, and so I shall list everyone as a sort of thank-you for all the amazing memories they provided me! Smeagol4 (attacked me as I got out of the airport) Janus (see above) Darth Vader (protected me from the above two) Hahli Husky (Disney singalong <3) Senjo (is a spectacular cook, and can do just about anything!) Nikira (is beautiful!)
Spring has fully come, absolutely everything has become properly green again, the weather is amazing, and that means it's time to go outside and take some more Tohunga pictures. As well as some gardening stuff on the side. I really can't get enough of them.
First, we have Jala – actually the Tohunga I've had for the longest, since 2003, after Nuparu and his Boxor. I really like the picture on the left; it's one of the few instances I've gotten a good close-up shot where my camera focuses prop
I received a delightful bunch of pieces yesterday.
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Most of these are just parts I've been wanting to get ahold of for a while, and others that I just happened to come across while looking around. Dark tan is a wonderful color; I wish more of it existed. I threw a few of such pieces together with some other pieces and decided that tan over dark tan is one of the most perfect Stone color schemes one could manage. Mata Nui anyone? And I've been wanting transparent black Bohrok eyes for y
I go to pick up the printed poster tomorrow. If you're good, maybe I'll take a picture of the poster itself. Otherwise it shall be revealed properly at the end of August.
Les comptes de mes aventures en Bruxelles viendront demain. Until then I am still away.
~ ToM
Some thoughts I've had since first clear canister and CGI pictures, then instructions, then finally the sets themselves, have come out in the past few days... Pohatu being orange is so much better than yellow-orange, if rather perplexing at first. The fact that Kopaka's chestplate is iron grey is absolute failure, both enough to make me use that term and on more than three levels. One, as Kopaka Nuva; two, the loss of that piece expected to finally be in silver; three, he has no iron grey but
I discovered a piece of paper in my pants pocket with that written on it yesterday. I have no idea where it came from or when it was said. But I'm extremely, extremely curious now.
Help?
~ ToM
Just felt like taking this picture, which I've kind of wanted to for a while.
The rarer masks that I have. I was debating between the infected Hau and the gold Vahi for the seventh slot and eventually chose the Hau just because I felt like the Vahi was slightly more common. Slightly. More opportunities to get it, and in cheaper sets. Plus I have four of them and only one infected Hau... so yeah.
Still on my list are a copper Komau, maybe a yellow Kaukau, and really any of the misprin
A work that is likely to remain in progress (though not intact) for a very long time until I can acquire Antroz's mask and wing pieces... and a few other things I'm lacking; I only have two red Piraka thigh pieces and one Kalmah armor piece.
Antroz is certainly the most formidable-looking of next year's Makuta (until we see Icarax), and a fairly good set, but I'm just not that fond of him. His mask is rather too spiky and toothy and such for my tastes, too.
I also dislike his name, so
AUGH.
I'm about to be gone for about a month. Until next Wednesday, I'll be in Delaware, visiting family; after that we're spending a week and a half in Belgium, and when we finally come back we're spending the rest of the time touring New England, visiting colleges and then attending theatrical things with family friends. It's a lot to do with little rest time, but it should be fun.
BUT. I still have to finish my BBCC 50 entry and my Brickfair poster, because I have no time after tomorrow
