NickonAquaMagna

I know how you feel. Let me introduce you to Lesovikk, one of my favorites, yet one of the worst horrors I ever laid eyes upon. The cracks. Oh, the cracks. My brother has Thok and one of the thighs broke, I'm talking about the socket.

 

It's gotta be a molding issue, I'm sure. The Toa Metru probably didn't break due to durable parts, but I never knew.

I think it's because, with the gaps in them, those older socket pieces were... in some weird way reenforced, because it was like having multiple smaller supports. With one solid blob of plastic, though, it's much easier for a single fracture to just tear its way through the whole thing. You'd think being less of a single, solid mass would make the older sockets weaker, but oddly enough, it was their strength. Like I said in the opening post, I think the change was a cost cutting measure... one that was VERY costly on OUR end of things.

Given the frankly disturbing lack of limbs and sockets on places like bricklink, it just makes me wonder how moc makers are supposed to make their Bionicle mocs in the first place once all those later sockets have broken and they have nothing to hold these figures together, anymore.

Well, many of the ones I have HAVE worn out after being used many times, but at least the figures can stand up. Their strong point seems to be the simple fact that they never, EVER break, no matter how many times I pop 'em loose and back together, and I love 'em for it.

The telltale experience usually goes like this... you fit the balls in the sockets, and for that FIRST time, they usually fit together okay. Maybe on occasion, one could break, but pretty rarely. But, the second your imagination kicks in and you feel like making something different, they break as soon as you pry them apart.

...Why, Lego? Just why?

We've all been there, haven't we? This wasn't so much a problem with the older sets, but come 2006-onward, the thigh/upper arm beams have a dreadful tendency to break after being used but a few times.

In the case of figures like Hahli Mahri, some would say it was the color of the plastic used to mold some of these pieces that somehow made them weaker, but it's a problem with many such sets. In those last coupla' years, these pieces were given a new shape, and supposedly made more durable... yet, when I recently dug up my collection of figures from 2009 and began cannibalizing their parts to make some new figures (which I suppose I'll post photos of sometime), I was shocked and annoyed that just about EVERY SINGLE LIMB PIECE I REMOVED SUDDENLY HAD A CRACK IN IT. Now, with these new figures I've made.... every single limb has cracks in it. I'm definitely never going to take these guys apart again, and I almost feel afraid to even MOVE them now. I ended up sacrificing Matoro, Strakk and Gelu just to make a decent reimagining of Kopaka... dang.

This is really strange to me, because... I never, NEVER had this problem in those early years. Remember the Kaita? I must've disassembled and recombined the Toa Mata DOZENS of times, switching between their normal forms and the Kaita again and again because it was so cool.

Then there's the Toa Metru, my favorite canister set design of all. I was so wowed by how beautiful and well designed they were, I took them apart and rebuilt them again and again and again... and you know what? Not once, not EVER, did even a SINGLE socket piece break.

In those later years, we didn't see things like the Kaita as much. Oh sure, we'd sometimes see a combiner featured in a Lego magazine or something, but they never appeared in the instruction booklets of actual sets. We weren't ENCOURAGED to play around with those later sets this way. Some would say it's laziness on the designers part, some would say the pieces just don't quite mesh that way, but I think they were simply trying to prolong what they knew would happen sooner or later.

I mean, let's look back at the older socket pieces. All right, so, they have a more rounded shape, and they have all these gaps in them. Why is it that they seem SO MUCH STRONGER than the more solid, less gappy sockets of later years? Is it the quality of the plastic? It must be. I dunno. I guess the sockets were molded the way they were in later years because it was a simpler mold with less detail, so it was cheaper to produce. For us, though, the actual buyers, it wasn't a fair trade. Apparently, those older socket pieces are just a far more efficient design.

In any case, this is a nightmare for any moc makers. Just today, I joined Bricklink, which is where I'll be getting most of my moc making pieces from now on, and when looking through the Bionicle parts section... I noticed they had almost everything, with the exclusion of... limb pieces. While there's still plenty of armor to dress your existing figures up with, I find this lack of skeletal pieces quite disturbing, because the only conclusion I can draw from this bizarre absence of one of the most common Bionicle pieces out there is that most of them are broken and unfit to be sold.

....This is a pretty big problem... 'specially for someone like me who's already broken most of their spare limb pieces. What about you? Got any horror stories of your own to share?

Aanchir... it's called having a narrative.

If fanfiction is difficult because of how the actual, official story cuts into it... than just make something more distinct, something far removed enough that it doesn't interfere, like... well, like what I'm doing. It's not hard to come up with a new world with its own races an' whatnot. Heck, just look at Chima. That line has AMAZING potential for good stories, but it's hopelessly bogged down by bad writing..... eh.... oh well.

I don't want to sound dismissive, and I'm sorry that all of your old efforts to add something to Bionicle were fruitless. I've been there, too. I've tried many times throughout my youth to make similar things, but ended up going nowhere because... well, the Bionicle we had was already so good, so complete, that there was nothing I COULD add to it to make it better.

However... that's what I think was it's strength. Having wiggle room is nice, but there's nothing wrong with having a solid, coherent narrative, something they came close to having with the Breakout line, but... yeah.

I'm just hoping it'll be something more inspired than Hero Factory.

A few things just came to my mind, will this story be in multiple story arcs? And is there a threat to come? Because it seems to me like there isn't anything threatening the existence of the matoran...

Oh, there is. The Matoran just don't realize it. It's a big world, one they've only explored a tiny chunk of.

Anyway, there will be multiple arcs.

I like the prolouge, but I couldn't read the first chapter. I even went into deep link but could not read the text.

 

My might make a fan art of this. It looks good.

Was the text too small? Was your computer unable to load the whole thing? Did the transparent background make it blend in with a darker browser background? What's the problem? Maybe I can help.

Wow. I like the look of the new Kanohi and the Koro. May I suggest it's power be Thermal Heating. Heats up an area or object the wearer desires.

That's a neat idea, but... it's nothing a Toa of fire couldn't already do, so no matter who wears it, it kind of feels redundant. However, someone on DA suggested making it the Mask of Incorporeal flame, turning the wearer itself into fire, and... that's just way too cool to pass up.

Sorry guys, but it turns out you will need to wait a little while for the next chapter... and each one after that. I just have too many other projects to get around to to let this be what I do all the time.

I don't want to outright CANCEL this project, but I do need to find a better way to go about it... so here goes. From now on, alongside the usual pages of the other comics I upload on Deviantart, I am also going to whip up a new illustration (YES, JUST ONE) for Bionicle- Nova Orbis each day... if I have the time to spare on it, that particular day. I am also going to try making fewer illustrations (just less than ten, maybe around seven) so you won't have to wait as long between new chapters. I'll try to have a new chapter online every two weeks at the latest, but sooner if I can help it.

I apologize to those of you who really REEEALLY wanna see the rest of this story play out as soon as possible, and who were looking forward to seeing the next chapter tomorrow, but... I have other things to do, and this is the best way I can think of to go about it without it getting in the way of my other projects.

In the meantime, I'd appreciate whatever feedback you guys can give. I've put a lot of work into this, and I'm going to keep doing so, but I don't want to do it alone.

Chapter One is now available for viewing in the comics forum! http://www.bzpower.com/board/index.php?showtopic=11507

See you there.

Oh hey, it's you! Cool, thanks. I can't say this is how I'll be doing EVERYTHING from now on... I mean, of course I want to go back to making actual comics, soon. But this has been a great chance for me to learn all sots of new things I may never have tried otherwise, things that will go a long way to make my art in general better, from now on.

Well, it's finally here! Chapter 1 of Mystery of the Toa Miro! This is a big one... http://nickinamerica.deviantart.com/art/Bionicle-Nova-Orbis-Mystery-Chapter-1-427228809

And in case you missed it, here's the prologue. http://nickinamerica.deviantart.com/art/Bionicle-N-O-Mystery-of-the-Toa-Miro-Prologue-426019578

Hope it was worth the wait. I put a lot more work into each of the illustrations than I usually do in normal comic pages... which is why this took so long. Maybe I need to make fewer illustrations.

I've just realized that I may not have done enough to differentiate Calor's average body from the more athletic Le-Matoran in panel 3... I'll make him more... "Takua-looking" in future chapters.

And yes... Ol' Ahkmou is still around. He was the mysterious Po-Matoran who appeared in the prologue, as one person guessed. His mask is a bit different, but this look just seemed right for him. I tried drawing him with his old mask, but... I just couldn't make it look good. This mask that we saw another Po-Matoran wearing a more lightly colored version of, though, fits him just right... at least in the context of this new story.

AND YES... you CAN shake someone's hand that way. I've tried it. It's as awkward as it looks.

I wanted to draw all of the Matoran tribes, but... this chapter already had so much going on in it, I just couldn't add anything more. We'll get to see each of them in due time, though. And we WILL meet Matoran from some of the other tribes in the next chapter. I really wanted to give you guys a sense of SCALE with this chapter, and just how populated this land is, as we start out in Calor's small slice of heaven and quickly expand to other parts of the island. With this introduction to these Matoran characters, I hope I've made an impression.

That's it for now. I'll try to have the next chapter online by Monday, this time.

Chapter one comin' up tomorrow morning.

Just a quick preview of the next chapter... which I'm sorry to say WON'T be finished tomorrow, as I'd hoped. Still, for now, there's this.

They're like... giant bird houses.

Lately, I've been using the "noise" tool to get rid of the smudginess of the lines, but this time, I forgot to use it before applying the lighting effects. Whoops. Oh well...

On another note, here's a crazy new Kanohi I whipped up.

I must've drawn, like, fifty masks before I finally had the result I wanted. It usually doesn't take that many attempts for me to be satisfied with a design... just two or three, most of the time... but dang, it was worth it.

Now, if only I could decide what its power should be...

I just read the first chapter and, other than a few minor grammatical errors (Commas interfering with the flow of a sentence, for example), the entire story is golden. The concepts, the artwork, the overall look of the layout... It just looks and feels like an official BIONICLE story. I particularly enjoy how the characters remind me of the same style as the first three BIONICLE films. On top of that, you can see how most of the components would fit into the original BIONICLE system, especially the vehicle (I can almost envision it as a full LEGO set...).

 

I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this project. The art and the writing just compliment each other in such a way even the original BIONICLE stuff didn't quite pull off (Although the 2006/2007/"All Our Sins Remembered" comics are pretty close).

 

As long as I have Internet access I'll be giving feedback on this. PLEASE don't drop the project, or at least finish the writing aspect.

 

And congratulations. Your story has officially made me quit lurking on BZP.

Yeah, sorry about that. I don't even know what mistakes I've made, aside from a few spelling errors that I have fixed.

The problem is that I've been working on comics for so long now (about seven years) and it's been so long since I've had to write any PROPERLY written dialog that, well... I've completely forgotten how to. I'm used to everything being surrounded by word bubbles, and I feel like such a numbskull for it. I'll do better next time, though.

Anyway, thanks for everything. I don't plan on quitting any time soon, but just keep in mind that I still have comics (and videos) to work on along with this, sooooo... yeah, I'm going to be pretty busy. I'll try to finish the next entry over the weekend, though.

Oh... and I'd LOVE it if someone actually made a Kegan MOC.

It's finally here, guys! Head on over to this thread to see the first Bionicle- Nova Orbis serial begin! You can find a link to it in the opening post. http://www.bzpower.com/board/index.php?showtopic=11507

But just this once, though, here's a freebie. http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/010/b/9/bionicle__n_o___mystery_of_the_toa_miro__prologue_by_nickinamerica-d71n2t6.png

Whatcha' think, so far?

It's here, guys! The beginning of Bionicle- Nova Orbis serial! http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/010/b/9/bionicle__n_o___mystery_of_the_toa_miro__prologue_by_nickinamerica-d71n2t6.png

Also found above, in the opening post. All of the upcoming chapters will be posted up there.

Watcha' think?

Do you mean like... the Hero Factory 2.0 chest pieces?

Anyway, thanks.

I'll hopefully be able to upload the first entry in the story, today... but I'm not quite sure how to handle it. The actual chapter, with the illustrations, as one file, would just be too darn big to upload here without making it an awful looking JPEG... maybe I'll just post one panel at a time with text in between? I dunno...

Wow... reminds me of a really tragic scene from Battle Angel Alita- Last Order where she finds the "empty" but freshly preserved body of a friend of hers that she was looking for for a while. She begs this amazing scientist she knows to find some way to bring her friend back, and he delves into what you've just talked about. He says things like,

"Would you have me make a clone of her? Where's the sense in that? The memories and personality would be gone. It would be a completely different person that only LOOKED like ***." (not gonna spoil the character's name)

And going on about how you can't measure life by organs and genetic data alone... that it's the memory that defines someone, almost like a computer, and if THAT data is erased, then that person you knew is effectively, truly dead.

I guess it's the same with Matoran and Toa.

Precisely. But technically, Matoro would be hard to revive anyway. Because all of him, and I mean ALL, including spirit and data et cetera was consumed as energy to revive Mata Nui. Unless there's a back-up of him.

Well, assuming these characters do have souls (and I'd like to think they do, since they technically are living things) thanks in part to Velika, I find it dreadful to imagine Matoro being trapped somewhere in Mata Nui's giant robot body AS it's possessed by Makuta and then shut down. That would be... like, purgatory. And even the thought of his consciousness just disappearing altogether is hard to stomach. Maybe he's watching over his friends in some timeless, ethereal form, with Mata Nui. I dunno.

Bringing characters back just because their fans miss them is bad writing.

Yyyyyep. Thanks a bunch. I did admittedly put more work into that one than usual.

Anyway, here's another update! The first wave of Matoran sets... or not. Here's the higher res version, if you want a closer look at them. http://nickinamerica.deviantart.com/art/Bionicle-Nova-Orbis-WAVE-1-Matoran-Bios-425392381

I've decided to release information of a few Matoran at a time, released in four waves or so, based on how relevant they are to the story.

Could you make a combiner figure from these three? maybe...

Here they are, each on their own.

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/007/9/c/banhi_bio_by_nickinamerica-d719ras.png
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/007/6/2/tenius_bio_by_nickinamerica-d719rlw.png
http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/007/b/5/trux_bio_by_nickinamerica-d719rm8.png

Anyway, I'm pretty proud of how these turned out... Banhi, especially. I was originally going to have her be a boy, but when I did some practice sketches of her headgear, and realized how beautiful it would look on a girl... yeah. Just like that, spur of the moment decision...

Interestingly, this sudden change may effect some developments I had planned for the better.

Anyway, with the whole progressing compromise of organic and mechanical body parts going on in most of these tribes, I thought it would be fun to mess with tradition just a little bit. For example, there will also be a few Ga-Matoran males. Not really gonna delve into how that works, but... then again, we've never really have to.

I'm really proud of Banhi's design, both in terms of proportion and her armor. Keeping in mind how short the Matoran tend to be, I wanted to give her burly, dwarfish proportions, and I think she's pretty sound. Here she is without the background to blend into. http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/007/b/3/banhi_by_nickinamerica-d719pbf.png

As for her job, I guess you could say this is what became of the mask makers of Vakama's time, this being yet another result of the Agori culture melding with the Matoran's ways. In the background (which I'll upload separately, sometime), there are two masks of shielding (2001 and 2008), a mask of concealment, a mask of sonar, and Malum's helmet. Just a tribute to past characters.

As for Tenius... while I'm most proud of Banhi's design, in some ways, I think Tenius is my favorite. I just loved the idea of making a meek, scrawny-looking Onu Matoran to contrast with all the tougher, burlier ones... and I had a LOT of fun redesigning the Kanohi Akaku to have this more industrial look.

As for Trux... I really don't have that much to say about him, though the whole thing about his height didn't come to mind until I realized that his head is much smaller than it should be for an average Matoran... but then again, he isn't, now. >wink<

Sorry that the backgrounds aren't much compared to the Toa and Turaga.

That's it for today. Not much left to go before we finally begin the story.

Feedback is appreciated.

Got another new guy to introduce you to... to you... whatever. Here's the third member of Piras' CURRENT Toa team. Breaks up the colors, doesn't he? http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2014/006/4/1/toa_ledas_bio_by_nickinamerica-d714ido.png Okay, I think I've finally found the ideal profile setup I'm going for. Quote, name, character description, then features.

I had loads of fun drawing this guy.

Coloring him, too. I didn't need to use a SINGLE lighting effect on Ledas himself (though I still used one for the background). The color selection tool does wonders, and without it, there's no way I could've pulled off this frost covered look he has.

In set form, I suppose most of these parts would have blended colors, like Strakk's shoulder armor. Granted, that would be pretty excessive... but hey, it's just fun to color in drawings like this.

So, recognizable pieces... rounded Toa Inika feet, Toa Metru legs, the shield piece introduced in 2013... and that's it, really.

The thigh armor is the same that Toa Piras wears, but the plating on his shoulders and shins are two unique pieces. However, both of them could be arranged differently, depending on how you want another character to look. For example, the shoulder armor could make a decent shin guard for a stout, bulky character like a Toa of Earth. The chest armor is kinda plain compared to Piras', but I think it fits Ledas.

His weapon is kind of a mix of Gelu's BEAUTIFUL blades and Nuju's... things. I suppose these could stick to the bottom of Ledas' feet, similar to Nuju's weapons, but that may be redundant in the case of the quite huge Inika feet.

The mask took many, MANY attempts... dozens, even... to get right. For the longest time, I just didn't like how it looked. As some of you may know, this is the same mask worn by Toa Tuyet, a Toa of water... so, I wanted to make something that felt gender neutral, you know? Something you could just as easily imagine a Toa of Water wearing as anyone else, something I love about Tarix's helmet (he's a guy) and Toa Hahli Mahri's epic mask.

One personality trait I left out of this bio is that, while not an all out bad person, he is not above using his powers to cheat, even when simply sparring with his Toa brethren. I just didn't want to give a bad first impression of him... but I guess that's kind of moot, now.

At first, I wanted to make it look like he was "phasing" out of the background, emerging from the ice.. but I didn't want to spoil the frostiness, once I'd colored him. Still, I just love the idea of the guy moving through the ice... you could even say he spends most of his time IN it, like that's how he relaxes. Pretty spooky.

I've always wanted to emphasize just how much a Toa's element is a part of their... being, like they ARE that element. The old descriptions of Kopaka causing blizzards and stopping avalanches all by himself just made him soooo awesome



...Okay, NOW I'll get around to the Matoran. Truth be told, there isn't much world building left to be done before I can finally move on to the story itself! Isn't that exciting, after all this buildup?

That's it for today.

The thighs are my favorite part. It's very tricky to make all those components mesh and flow together, but you've pulled it off.

I am in awe, I just love this.. everything you have going on here. The world you are building, the designs, your drawing style, all simply amazing. Love it, love it, love it. I can not wait to see what more comes of this, I'll be keeping a close eye on you.

Thank you. There's a lot of love in this project.

I am significantly enjoying your developing world. The basis on actual canon gives it a nice twist. As for the art, the cartoon feel really lends itself well to something I'd want to read on a Saturday morning.

Thanks. Of course I want it to be something new, its own thing, but I still wanted there to be SOME little things that made it recognizable as... well, the Bionicle we knew... Or at least something like it.

A bit, yeah, but in having thought about it, it just doesn't seem as sturdy as the rest of the figure.

Yeah, I know what you mean. On the original Mata Nui figure, the spindlyness of the inside of the arms was something that bugged me. It just seemed lazy. If you have some spare Toa Metru chest plates to spare, though, putting those on the inside of the arms bulks it up, and it looks much better. Try it out, if you haven't already. You'd be surprised.