Anthro-Bionicle art can be divided into three "waves." The first wave, lasting from 2001 to 2003, was carried on by D'anda-inspired artists like ToA who built on set-style to give their characters more personality, adding pronounced facial details and realistic textures to create a less rigid alternative to the emotionless set-style art that was the only way anyone knew how to draw Bionicle characters. To compare Bionicle art to music, one could compare it to the pre-'50s blues that influenced the fifties rock artists. The second wave, lasting mainly from 2003 to 2005 was spearheaded by RZ, Razor and InnerRayg, who built on the first-wave style even further and merged the styles with the new phenomenon of movie-style, adding features like anime eyes, teeth and emphasis on the organic elements to create a style unlike any that had come before. Finally, the artists who popularized these styles after RZ's banishment and added even further details, clearing the path for Organic and HB artists and squabbling for the new RZ title. The royal queen of this movement?

You guessed it. Nikira.

Originally Nikira12, this Ohio-born artist began sketching rough drawings of Matoran in 2004 at the tender age of thirteen. These drawings were crude but were nonetheless like nobody had ever seen before. The incorporation of realism, anime and sci-fi comic art allowed Nikira to work in a style faithful to conventional set format but allowing for boundless experiments with emotion and posture. Nikira had a loyal cult following for a while, but it was not until her breathtaking perspective/shading experiment titled simply "Archive Scene" that she truly hit the Bionicle Art mainstream.

The new Queen of Bionicle Art took the Bionicle art world by storm, entering the finals in every Art Contest she entered except one. She kept with the times, creating new designs for every new character that entered the storyline. At the beginning of 2005, she started working on HB, or Human Bionicle, art. While HB had emerged in the second wave and was popular already, it was dismissed only as a fad until Nikira drew hers. Along with Brave-Dragon (who will be nominated for February's Artist of the Month prize), she helped Human Bionicle become one of BZP's most popular art styles.

After showing her darker side in 2006, Nikira began to slow down. She started focusing more on extracurricular, non-Bionicle projects, mainly focusing on Ninja Turtles. When she did produce a piece, however, it was showered with praise, especially in the case of 2007's very dark Rain of Flame, which won her first AC. She also spent much time on BZP projects such as her staff duties, her critically acclaimed blog and her relationship with BZP senior staffie Smeagol4. She is still one of the most influential Bionicle artists of all time and unquestionably one of the best.