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A young Vortixx hailing from Xia, Roodaka has traveled far and wide across the Matoran Universe to lend a healing hand to those in need. With her extensive knowledge of medicine, she provides cures to a wide variety of ailments, from the poison of Lerahk to the venom of Visorak. Her staff generates a protective barrier to block incoming attacks, while her Rhotuka can restore anything to its original state. Her reputation is so great, the name "Roodaka" has become synonymous with "mercy". No one is sure why a Vortixx, a member of the race that deals only in business and profit, would go out of her way to act so altruistically. Rumors have circulated that she once saw a vision... a dark mirror of the person she could become. Perhaps then, Roodaka has adopted this solemn duty out of determination to never follow that path into darkness. ----- When BS01 announced their "Legends and Infamy" contest, I immediately had an idea for which villainous character would be fun to reimagine as a hero. Turned out it was quite the popular idea, since two other entries also tackled the same subject. With a villain as memorable as Roodaka, that shouldn't be too surprising. The canonical Roodaka is the archetypal seductive femme fatale, visually illustrated by her design that emphasizes certain features. With that in mind, my method of taking the character and making her heroic meant distancing her from her original sultry appearance, especially since there's a certain trope for associating heroes with modest clothing and villains with revealing outfits. Therefore, if the original set looked like she was wearing a silver bikini, then this MOC would be wearing a white dress instead. That's where I got the idea for a more angelic visual motif, since the good pure angel is about as far as you can get from the evil sexy seductress. In turn, interpreting the design of an angel in a series with a futuristic aesthetic led to some loose inspiration drawn from Mercy in Overwatch, as you might be able to tell from this MOC's name. I even sketched some quick concept art just to get my thoughts down on paper. I considered including more angelic qualities such as a halo or wings, but I thought this would risk taking it too far; still, I decided to keep the visual motif by incorporating the design of feathered wings into her staff and dress. Imagining the MOC in my head was the easy part. Actually building it was an entirely different story. Since my entire BIONICLE collection is currently boxed up in storage, I was restricted to using LEGO Digital Designer and its limited library. I put together an initial "sketch" model, just to establish the "bottom of the barrel" and see what needed improvement (basically, everything). As goofy and terrible as the "sketch" model looks, it was actually really useful for teaching me what I needed to focus on, such as anatomy. All in all, I'm very satisfied with the end result. I haven't done nearly as much BIONICLE MOCing since the end of G1, so the BS01 contest gave me a good opportunity to stretch these muscles. I think I've struck a ideal balance between building an original model from scratch and keeping it recognizably Roodaka, with several pieces (such as the gears in the staff) chosen specifically as a callback to the original set. It's far from perfect, and the other contest entries blow mine out of the water... but for me personally, this was a very successful MOC, and I'm happy with how it turned out. Some other images of interest: Closeup on the head Closeup on the Rhotuka Alternate model with Roodaka's original color scheme Roodaka versus Roodaka Full Brickshelf gallery Comments are appreciated. Constructive criticism is welcome.
