Aanchir

Gorgeous! Someday I hope you are able to make a full dragon at this scale — judging from what you've come up with here, it would be amazing! You did a great job hiding the joints while still keeping the posability intact. The shape feels very coherent without losing its scaly, organic texture. The purple inside the mouth is a creative touch that works very well. Even the base is really tasteful in its simplicity.

Matoran, Toa, etc: it doesn't make sense. They're robots.

 

Agori, Glatorian, etc: go for it. They're mammals.

Why does biology matter? Romance is just a form of emotional attachment, and if Matoran and Toa are capable of forming friendships, then at least some of them should be capable of forming romantic relationships.

I don't necessarily think Bionicle NEEDS romance, but I do think there's never been any justification for it NOT to have any that asn't paper-thin. And in fact, G1 Bionicle had plenty of hints of romance, they were just generally downplayed in the wider story, usually with the naive excuse that they couldn't lead anywhere. But in my opinion, Hewkii and Macku's mutual crush, Jaller and Hahli's budding romance, and Matau's flirtations with Nokama greatly enriched the stories they appeared in.

The REAL reason romance is scarce in Bionicle, of course, has nothing to do with biology — it's that it's always been largely aimed at tween boys, and the prevailing stereotype about that demographic is that they think romance is gross. However, even this justification falls apart under scrutiny. Other LEGO themes aimed at basically the same age range as Bionicle, like Ninjago, Legends of Chima, and The LEGO Movie, have had canon and highly visible romantic subplots. So have plenty of other successful cartoons and animated movies aimed at more or less the same demographic. As long as romance does not overshadow the other parts of the story, it gives many fans another way to relate to the series and its characters, without taking anything important away from those fans who like the series for other reasons.

A fearsome, curvy LEGO Bionicle/Hero Factory villain I built this week.
She stands 42 modules/33.6 centimeters/13.25 inches tall and has 26 points of articulation. Her name means "poisonous rose".

Check out the Flickr album for more photos! Feedback welcomed!

 

If you like, you can always ask Greg questions at the Chat with Greg Farshtey. Greg will personally answer the questions you posted there.

 

Hope this helps.

Does he even answer Bionicle G1 things anymore? I mean, he's said some pretty... Do NOT bypass the filer. -B6 things about it after it ended. Didn't he burn all the bridges to focus on his silly little ninjas and whatnot?

 

 

"His" silly little ninjas? Greg's scarcely any more involved with Ninjago than he was with Hero Factory or Exo-Force. I believe his main job with LEGO is still as an editor for LEGO Club and the catalogs (which I believe was also his primary job during G1 as well, even if it isn't what we knew him for).

And I don't remember him saying any condemning things about Bionicle G1. As far as I'm aware, he loved his time working on it. It's just that between his actual paying job and personal life, he wasn't able to keep writing unpaid serials. And once G2 came along he felt like resuming Bionicle stories completely unrelated to the current canon would end up generating confusion.

He certainly still answers G1 questions to the best of his ability!

Well... I mean they're not like the normal Kanohi... do they even fit on the heads?

To Aanchir Re: Yang

Yang's involvement comes out a bit a head, probably not as much as yours.  I did like that he was introduced a while ago, so its not like the Power Rangers were next season's big bad is worst than the worst but only now decided to stroll in. His motivations aren't much different from Morro's or Garmadon's.  I think would work if we saw more of their past and see how this lack pushed them down the dark side.  When we see this with Garmadon it added to his character.

I don't think Yang's motivations are all that similar to Morro's or Garmadon's. Morro was mostly just bitter because he felt the Green Ninja title was promised to him, then taken away and given to somebody else. And Garmadon's motivation was a pretty general evil ambition/hunger for power, fueled at least in part by some perceived parental favoritism.

This was from one of the latest issues of Blocks Magazine, but I think it's just speculation on the part of the person writing the article. It's not in quote marks so it's not a statement by the designers they were interviewing. I don't have this issue but from what I hear from people who have read it, it doesn't actually provide much insight into Bionicle's cancellation, let alone its future.

Mini-Review Mild Spoilers Incoming

 

Day of the Departed is one of those story ideas that looks good on paper, but the execution seems lacking. I'm not giving away anything that isn't in the promos and commercials. For one night only, enemies from seasons' past get one more chance to do in the ninja. A Villain All-stars edition of Ninjago. It seems good on paper. But it fails to work because none of these enemies were ever direct challenges to the Ninja. They wanted something the Ninja had or the Ninja prevented them from getting something they wanted, but none ever proved a personal obstacle.

 

For an example, in the CW series 'The Flash', Barry has a real challenge in the Reverse Flash in Season 1. This guy is not only a fast as Flash, but also challenges Barry on who to trust, on how to get faster and what can be done with his speed. In short, the villain is a real challenge to the hero.

 

Back to Ninjago, most of the villains are comedic distractions. Plus the Ninja have grown in power and abilities with each season. Season 1 bad guy should have to work a lot harder to keep up with a Season 8 ninja with Airjitsu and everything..

 

The biggest complaint is once again Cole gets short-sheeted. Jay, Kai and Nya get a full season to be the focus of the story. Cole gets a two-part episode. Black Ninja deserves a little more in the character department.

It's true that the villain conflicts felt a bit weak, but I feel like this was more because of the story structure than the ninja's character development. Even though the ninja were stronger and smarter than the last time they'd defeated these villains, these were still top-tier villains they'd never had to face one-on-one. But the constant scene changes between six different ninja conflicts made the conflicts feel disjointed, without a meaningful amount of time or focus to get emotionally invested in the conflicts. And the varying tone of the fights added to this disjointed feeling — some of the fights were appropriately lighthearted and silly, but were somewhat awkwardly interlaced with more serious fights.

The LEGO Hero Factory Breakout special in 2012 had a similar structure (switching between six characters on solo missions), and struggled in a similar way to tell a coherent story.

I did enjoy seeing a lot of locations we haven't seen in a while, like the village of Ignacia, the Birchwood Forest, and the site of the Monastery of Spinjitzu. The non-fight scenes had a lot of emotional resonance, more than you typically expect of a Halloween special.

I don't think lego really cares that much about their "carbon footprint" because it doesn't matter to them as long as their able to be profitable and I don't think a bunch of elitist environmentalists are a very big number of their sales or customers.

 

Bionicle being in canisters made it different than many other themes, it helped it stand out and be a different type of lego and I'm aware that many themes around its time were also in canisters, but those such as dinosaurs and knights kingdom were very unusual lego themes on their own as well.

 

I'm not saying they should bring back canisters just for nostalgia sake, I'm saying they should bring them back because it would help kids notice it at store shelves because I first noticed bionicle at my local pharmacy back in 2001 because of their canisters that you claim are so "evil" and so "environmentally dangerous" and so "bad carbon foot print" or whatever. The enviro elites can't get in the way of bionicle and constraction being great again!

Hold up a sec. Don't start putting words in my mouth. I never once said canisters were "evil" or "environmentally dangerous". But they DO have a bigger carbon footprint than boxes. And as Bfahome points out, that's something LEGO cares about. It would be irresponsible of a company their size NOT to care. Not when caring is as easy as using cardboard, which has always served them well in their other best-selling themes.

Being "a different type of LEGO" was definitely a good thing back in the late 90s, when other LEGO themes were genuinely struggling to stay relevant. But today, LEGO is one of the most popular toys on the market, not just for kids but also for teens and adults. So being "different" from other themes isn't necessarily the great thing it once was. And if kids can notice City or Ninjago or Speed Champions sets just fine in normal rectangular cardboard boxes, why wouldn't they notice the fancy hexagonal boxes that are different from all other LEGO packages?

I don't think Bionicle's end was because kids failed to notice the sets. Why should Bionicle need a completely unique style of packaging to get noticed when all other LEGO themes do not? LEGO Ninjago, City, Creator, and Technic sets sell just fine in plain rectangular boxes. LEGO Friends and LEGO Elves sets sell just fine in rectangular boxes with beveled edges. Bionicle G2 already had more unique box designs than ANY of those themes, or any other theme for that matter. If that wasn't enough to get them noticed, then chances are the problem didn't have anything to do with how the sets were packaged.

Back when Bionicle G1 was around, it was not the only theme that had plastic canisters. The Dinosaurs sets, Knights' Kingdom buildable figures, Racers Tiny Turbos, and $5 Creator sets, among others, had similar packaging. But today LEGO has stopped using this type of packaging in general, not just for Bionicle. This is because it was more expensive and had a bigger carbon footprint to produce and ship than cardboard or plastic foil packaging.

I don't understand why many people's idea of what Bionicle needed to succeed hinges on it needing special treatment or special gimmicks beyond what other themes its size get. Isn't that presupposing that it's less desirable to begin with than other themes? And if that were the case, why would LEGO have been motivated to invest more in it and not in other themes that could pay off much more handsomely?

I have no Dragon sets, though I did try building an oriental style dragon from Throwbot torsos when I picked up a Throwbot Superset out of noastalgia Earlier this year. Sadly, I forgot there were two types of Throwbot torso, and five of the kind that can be joined into a geared chain isn't enough for a really good serpentine body.

That was actually a really clever idea though! I wonder if anybody has ever done that…

I'm partial to the Vikings dragons from yesteryear. The Nidhogg and Fafnir dragons look great.

The dragons and monsters from the Vikings theme had an interesting aesthetic. Because of using a fair number of Bionicle parts, they had a pretty stylized, almost mechanical look, even though they mostly stuck with parts that had smoother textures and curvier shapes. To me, that stylization almost made them feel like some sort of illustration come to life.

I get a sort of similar feeling from many of Nuju Metru's "Dragon Lands" creations, even though those generally don't use Bionicle or constraction parts as extensively, and have a lot more care put into their proportions.

Oh gosh, they are cute! And they have so much personality! Great job!

 

e: and no I have absolutely do not have any ulterior movies for wanting a precedent set for LEGO making buildable doll figures I don't know what you're talking about >.> <.<

If you're thinking what I think you're thinking... Miraculous Ladybug Lego YES. 

 

(fits stupidly well with Lego given her power is creation and all too).

 

As excellent as that would be, sadly it'll probably be a few years before that has any chance of happening, seeing as LEGO just launched their DC Super Hero Girls license and might be hesitant to pick up a separate superhero license right after that. :/

I'll be enjoying other LEGO themes, enjoying other non-LEGO properties, and making occasional MOCs (probably including Bionicle/constraction ones). But everybody's going to have their own way of dealing with the absence of new official Bionicle sets and stories.

I'd be more excited for Elves constraction sets, but that's mostly due to having more of an attachment to that theme and its characters.

I don't honestly know whether buildable dolls should use the CCBS, since the doll market doesn't seem to favor as rugged a look as the action figure market. If they did use the CCBS, part of me thinks that some "unclothed" portions of the dolls might should use new beams instead of standard beams + shells. This is especially true because the outfits of LEGO Friends and Elves characters generally have short sleeves or no sleeves at all, so full-size arm shells might feel out of place.

I'm also curious how best to work in a creative/"free-building" angle. Armored, robotic, and non-human characters are somewhat easy to mash together into original creations. With human characters with lots of exposed skin, that's perhaps trickier without creating something that looks unnatural. It's true that the LEGO Star Wars buildable figures have less of a creative building angle than any previous series of buildable figures, with no alternate or combination models advertised anywhere. However, with an in-house, girl-oriented theme entering an unprecedented "buildable doll" market, there may be more pressure to prove that they're more than "kits designed to build one thing". A certain amount of fashion play is also often expected of dolls, so I think you'd also want any outfits to be somewhat customizable.

Separate head and hair might work, but it could also might be costly since it could mean more new molds. I'm also curious what material the hair should be made from. Chances are you'd want it to be somewhat flexible, since most Friends and Elves characters have long hair and you wouldn't want that to limit the figures' posability. Actual doll hair would be the most flexible, but I know from experience that doll hair is a nightmare to keep neat, let alone to tame into character-accurate styles. Rubber might work, but could still be somewhat limiting.

As far as play features are concerned, I'm not sure what would be ideal. LEGO Elves sets tend to emphasize "magic" with their play features. It might make the most sense to give the characters accessories with action features than to incorporate action features into the figures themselves. That could potentially help cut down on the "uncanny valley" effect.

Overall, buildable dolls are a direction I definitely wouldn't mind the LEGO Group moving, even though I don't think the fashion doll market is growing as rapidly as it was a few years ago. There are a LOT of unanswered questions, though. And since I'm neither a girl nor somebody who grew up playing with dolls, I'm probably far from the most qualified person to answer them.

 

 

 

The good news: if neither version of Pohatu was overstocked and on clearance, then perhaps you could take that as anecdotal evidence that brown sets no longer sell as poorly as they used to during G1.

I don't think that necessarily counts since none of the stone sets in the second generation actually have brown as a primary color.

 

They have Dark Orange, which is much more of an earth tone than, say, Bright Orange or Flame Yellowish Orange (and was one of the original '01 stone colors to boot). And considering that the "brown" of the original Pohatu was ALSO considered a shade of orange (Earth Orange, to be precise), I'd say Dark Orange qualifies.

 

Earth Orange might be considered a shade of orange to the people at Lego and to individuals such as yourself, but to consumers it's just brown. I think that ought to be taken into consideration since you're trying to say sets of a specific color are selling better than they used to. Dark Orange most certainly is a more earthy tone than some of the other colors that were used for stone sets in G1, but it's still not Earth Orange, or as consumers know it, brown.

 

It's still just as much a shade of brown as classic brown was. I've seen a LOT of Bionicle G2 reviews from people who don't know or care about the official color names that just call the primary color of Pohatu, Ketar, and the Protector of Stone "brown" or "light brown" (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc.)

Anyway, as to the question in the first post, it honestly wouldn't surprise me if Lewa and Gali were shipped out to stores in a two-character mixed lots, and that store just happened to order more of them than the other Toa due to their lower price. I know stores had to order some Hero Factory characters in two-character mixed lots like that.

LEGO has made a LOT of sets containing dragons, especially in recent years. Brickset counts around 70 sets containing dragons, more than half of which were released in just the past five years.

So out of curiosity, how many LEGO dragons do you have, and which ones are your favorites? Do you prefer molded dragons like the ones in LEGO Castle, or more brick-built ones like the ones from LEGO Ninjago and LEGO Elves?

I'm not sure how many dragons I have from 90s Castle sets, but my twin brother and I have about 25 dragons from the past decade: the Kardas Dragon from LEGO Bionicle, Dragon Bolt from LEGO Hero Factory, twelve dragons from LEGO Ninjago, and eleven dragons from LEGO Elves.

My overall favorites are Elandra the Queen Dragon from LEGO Elves and the Master Wu Dragon from LEGO Ninjago. I have a hard time choosing between them. Elandra is bigger and more lifelike, while Master Wu Dragon is more posable.

Generally I prefer brick-built dragons over molded ones. A decade ago I might've had a different answer, but today there are lots of great hinge and curved slope pieces for building lifelike, posable LEGO creatures.

Feel free to share your thoughts on LEGO dragons!

I wonder why this was even on the table? Bionicle itself isn't even popular anymore.

That video for this set gives me a Scooby Doo vibe. I don't know why, but it does.

Well, it's based on that same era of animation (the movie Yellow Submarine came out in 1968; Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! premiered in 1969).

Unlikely to pass review IMO. The original project is around as big as the Helicarrier set but not nearly as attractive or iconic. Perhaps a version redesigned by LEGO might have some sales potential, but not at this colossal scale.

 

To Mate.397: I don't think Lego was rooting for it to fail.  More like there was no pitchers left in the bullpen.  In Gen 1, Lego had 1 or 2 IP that had active storylines. (A story with characters, conflicts and resolution.)  This year, there are 10 (Star Wars, Ninjago, Nexo Knights, DC, Marvel, Elves, Friends, Mixels, Lego Dimensions and of course Bionicle)  All of those (save Dimensions) have produced at least 30 min of content for broadcast.  The result, it that someone was going to get a short piece.  Bionicle and Mixel got unlucky.

You do know SW and Friends sets did co-exist with G1 sets back in the day right? Even Marvel sets if you really think about it, with those movie studio sets and G1 was still their flagship for some years, because they put effort into it. Whatever process was behind G2 clearly had something wrong, there were so many great stuff left on the floor cut out, and instead of backing Bionicle and treating it with the respect it should have gotten, since it pulled Lego out of the gutter back in 2001, they just tried to mimic 2001 watering it down heavily and not advertising it properly, to me that feels like they were not too eager to do this from the start. A reboot that could have been a glorious return of the phoenix that is Bionicle, rising from the ashes was nothing more than a cardboard cut out with some confetti in the end.

 

Friends didn't exist as a theme until 2012, and neither LEGO Star Wars nor LEGO Super Heroes had the kind of media presence during G1 that they have today. That's what Ptah was talking about — not just the amount of other themes out there, but the amount of other themes with their own animated media. 2010, the year Bionicle G1 ended, was the first year that there were any LEGO TV specials or direct-to-DVD movies besides the Bionicle movies. Themes like Exo-Force and Power Miners were lucky to get a five minute animated mini-movie.

 

 

It's almost like Lego wanted Bionicle to fail this year...

Netflix series was below average and the line was pulled a year early, Nexo Knights is probably going to start season 3 soon, Elves on Netflix soon, Ninjago a movie and a season soon.

Not gonna lie, I'm a bit salty.

 

Bionicle didn't need to fail for any of those things to happen. So I don't see why you'd think Lego would be any less disappointed with its failure than the fans are.

 

From the start Bionicle was given a shoe string budget (and most was probably blown on those gold masks) to work with and that showed from the quality of the web animations while Nexo Knights and Ninjago started off with their own TV series from the get go, and the Netflix "series", Journey to One, wasn't anything to write home about, it was heavily rushed riddled with errors. Not to mention the terrible business decision of not even trying to advertise it like the other lines but instead "leave it up to the older fans" as they put it to market it for kids.

 

Um, there's no way the gold masks could possibly have taken up most of the budget. According to the Bionicle Mask Hunt Terms and Conditions, the gold masks given as prizes had a value of $160 each. That's not even 2% of the cost of a typical LEGO mold. Likewise, animation can cost thousands of dollars per minute of finished animation even for a fairly cheap production.

Ninjago also did not start out with its own TV series from the get go. It started out with just a 44-minute TV special. Themes like Legends of Chima and Nexo Knights only started out with full TV series because Ninjago was so massively successful with one, and that gave LEGO the confidence to go ahead with full TV series for future "big bang" product lines. Likewise Ninjago probably only got the 44 minutes it did because the previous "big bang" theme, Atlantis, had done well with a 22-minute TV special the year before. Most of these themes were substantially larger in terms of number of sets per year and the net value of those sets than Bionicle G2.

Now, do you know what did get a TV miniseries its first year? Hero Factory. And that didn't do nearly as well as Ninjago's TV special did, so I think you can see why neither LEGO nor TV networks were in a hurry to give a full series or miniseries to a product so similar.

And bringing things back around to the subject of LEGO Elves, do you know what its first year story was told as? One 24-minute TV special. That's less than the full length of the 2015 Bionicle webisodes (though, admittedly, Elves also had five shorter webisodes in addition to that). Like Bionicle's 2015 webisodes, the Elves TV special was criticized for cheap-looking animation. It did have three voice actors for its nine characters instead of just one, though.

In fact, in a lot of ways, LEGO Elves seems to have had a similar first-year budget to Bionicle. It had around 18 new molds compared to Bionicle's 27, eight sets totalling $265 compared to Bionicle's 18 sets totalling $270, one mobile app, one chapter book, and one activity book. It did have a semiannual magazine in Europe its first year, which Bionicle didn't get until its second, but still has had no graphic novels, no booth at any of the Comic Cons, no Facebook page, and certainly no high-profile competitions.

All in all, Elves has had scarcely any more advertising than Bionicle (in fact, in some ways, it's had less), and yet it's still performing well. If anything, Elves is evidence that if a new theme truly resonates with its audience, then should be able to thrive even without a substantially larger budget than Bionicle was given.

Is it just me, or does Alfred seem to be wearing a bow tie and a regular tie at the same time?

 

The sets themselves look pretty boring, honestly. We've seen the Asylum and Batcave in brick form more than a couple of times now, so I can't say those sets are anything new. However, all of those new elements and minifigures look very neat. If anything, I think that's what these sets are really depending on as a selling point. I feel like the Batcave sort of takes the cake with its minifure selection though. The golden Bat-tuxedo thing and the scuba suit really stand out. As for individual parts, I think my favorite pieces would have to be the new hands on Mr. Freeze's mech. Those could have a lot of application in the future if Lego ever decided to release a theme on brick built constraction figures.

Keep in mind that "seen before" is a consideration that generally only matters to people who have already been collecting a while. After all, LEGO City puts out a new police station or prison every year and it still tends to be a top seller, just because there's a new generation of kids lining up to buy it each time. Also, chances are these two locations will both appear prominently in the movie, so if they didn't release sets of the movie versions of them, a lot of kids and adults alike might be disappointed at having to pay inflated prices for the old ones online. I think the designers did a very good job making sure the new Batcave and Arkham Asylum don't just feel like rehashes of the versions we've seen before.

I'm glad I'm not the only one excited about those new hand pieces! I've tried using the Chima gorilla fist pieces on articulated mechs but it's difficult. These should be much simpler to utilize. I hope they end up coming in more colors, particularly at least one neutral color.

Unfortunately, LEGO has tried including constraction parts on the online Pick-A-Brick in the past (they had quite a substantial selection from 2011–2014), and they didn't sell well enough to justify the floor space they took up in the warehouse where Pick-A-Brick orders are packed. The number of System builders who place orders through Pick-A-Brick simply dwarfs the number of constraction builders who do the same.

LEGO even had a trial run of CCBS parts at in-store Pick-A-Brick walls back in 2011 (partly as a measure to promote the Hero Recon Team service), with similar results. Most buyers who visited the wall didn't really understand how to use them, because they were mostly familiar with System building.

There might also be other problems with putting constraction parts on Pick-A-Brick today. Generally, Pick-A-Brick is limited to in-production parts, and so without a new constraction theme yet announced to replace Bionicle, the selection of CCBS parts available for that purpose might be very limited.

EDIT: ninja'd

 

 

 

But as hands, Y-joints often looked awkward and unnatural when a weapon was held through the center cross axle hole rather than one of the side cross-axle holes. In many cases it would look like the weapon was coming out of the figure's fingertip, perpendicular to the plane of the hand, rather than the figure actually gripping the weapon. For example, look at how Mistika Toa Tahu set looks holding his Nynrah Ghost Blaster in this picture. Even without molded fingers to indicate a "proper" way that he should hold a weapon, the position his hand has to be in to hold that weapon looks awkward and uncomfortable. The sword-hand of Phantoka Toa Lewa in this picture doesn't seem quite so bent out of shape, but it still looks more like the weapon's projecting from the plane of an open hand than like a hand is wrapped around the weapon.

The solution to that is not to re-design the hand, but the weapon. From the start, Zamor launchers and their ilk were made to need the hand to hold them that way; but if, instead, the handle was positioned so that the hand could hold the weapon in the standard "broad side facing inward" position, it would look just fine. Same with "perpendicular to the plane of the hand" weapons--the weapon should be designed so that it can be held in the normal position, as with '08 Lewa's sword.

 

So why couldn't you just as easily design new weapons similar to Ehlek's claws to work better with the existing fist piece? I don't understand blaming the hand piece for awkward weapon grip in some cases and blaming the weapon itself in others. It wouldn't really be any harder to "fix" Ehlek's claw than to do the same for the Nynrah Ghost Blaster:

 

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8523/29441850743_706450bb9e_o.png

 

A claw like this would arguably even look more realistic on either a Y-joint or a fist piece, since it'd wrap around the hand instead of just being sorta pasted onto the back.

 

I've thought about the possibility of such a piece before; however, there's the issue of removing the weapon once you get it on. Looking at the design, I'd imagine you need an axle to attach the weapon to the hand. However, once it's on, wouldn't it be stuck on the hand, with no way to get it off?

 

Since the connection points are just a half module thick and two modules apart, there should be no risk of an axle becoming stuck. Even the shortest axles (2M) would stick out by a half module, just enough to reach the built-in notch and pull them out. Same as with the shell pieces from Kalmah, Carapar, and Toa Mahri Matoro, or the Unity Piece from this year's Bionicle sets.

Not sure if my explanation is clear, but here's an illustration in case it's too confusing:

 

But as hands, Y-joints often looked awkward and unnatural when a weapon was held through the center cross axle hole rather than one of the side cross-axle holes. In many cases it would look like the weapon was coming out of the figure's fingertip, perpendicular to the plane of the hand, rather than the figure actually gripping the weapon. For example, look at how Mistika Toa Tahu set looks holding his Nynrah Ghost Blaster in this picture. Even without molded fingers to indicate a "proper" way that he should hold a weapon, the position his hand has to be in to hold that weapon looks awkward and uncomfortable. The sword-hand of Phantoka Toa Lewa in this picture doesn't seem quite so bent out of shape, but it still looks more like the weapon's projecting from the plane of an open hand than like a hand is wrapped around the weapon.

The solution to that is not to re-design the hand, but the weapon. From the start, Zamor launchers and their ilk were made to need the hand to hold them that way; but if, instead, the handle was positioned so that the hand could hold the weapon in the standard "broad side facing inward" position, it would look just fine. Same with "perpendicular to the plane of the hand" weapons--the weapon should be designed so that it can be held in the normal position, as with '08 Lewa's sword.

 

So why couldn't you just as easily design new weapons similar to Ehlek's claws to work better with the existing fist piece? I don't understand blaming the hand piece for awkward weapon grip in some cases and blaming the weapon itself in others. It wouldn't really be any harder to "fix" Ehlek's claw than to do the same for the Nynrah Ghost Blaster:

A claw like this would arguably even look more realistic on either a Y-joint or a fist piece, since it'd wrap around the hand instead of just being sorta pasted onto the back.

And where would more holes go on a fist? The fingers kind of block any other points of connection.

For the "Ehlek claw" use like you describe, the simplest I can figure would be on the back of the hand, opposite the thumb. It may need the shape of the fist to be changed somewhat so the back of the hand is flat rather than at an angle, but this is not impossible to imagine — Christoph Röttjer even conceptualized a similar-shaped hand as an early concept for the CCBS fists as seen here (bottom row, third from the left). Or you could even do something sort of like Rahkshi Lalonde's concept.