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Now that the new sets are out, what changes have you made?


Kid Icarus

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At some point I intend to combine master and Uniter Kopaka to get the best out of both the gearbox and the waist gear, but what changes has anyone made to the new sets already?

 

I've already taken the limbs and head off Ikir and made an Ice bird using Melum and some spare parts from Master Kopaka and Protector of Ice.

 

I've also swapped Melum's hands with Master Kopaka's shoulder armor. This gets rid of the "too much gold" issue with Master Kopaka and the "too little gold" issue with Uniter Kopaka.

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I don't have any 2016 sets but i removed all of pohatu masters spikes. Used all brown shells as his legs, all metal color shells as arm armor and i also rearranged all trans-green ccbs bones so there is one of that color in each limb. It much better to have his colorscheme like this in a symmetrical arrangement instead of the official one.

Edited by necross hordika

 

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I've used Uniter Gali's smaller blue plates to finally remove all trans colours from Master Gali.

 

I've only had the Uniters for 2 days and they're already broken up and put away, with bits and pieces going on other figures. But I applaud LEGO for attempting to meld Technic and CCBS. They came very close to making great sets.

 

I do love the new masks though, and tend to tinker with the Master sets so that I can swap the masks if I feel like it.

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I don't have any of the sets in hand yet, but I've considered swapping the Earth Blue shells from the new Kopaka for the stickered white ones from this year. I also plan on swapping the Trans. Fluor. Green shells from Pohatu with a less vibrant color like Silver Metallic or Sand Yellow (though I'll keep the bones and Bohrok eyes the same). Early on I hoped to give the new Onua the chestplate from this year's sets, but that was mostly just to see how it would look—if I make any more permanent mods to Onua, I'll probably see if his chest can be widened using other parts so I can maintain that luscious printed pattern. If the Vorox armor ever comes out in Warm Gold (maybe in the summer sets?) I'd like to give Kopaka back his gold shoulder pads. And finally, I might try swapping the Skull Villain armor on Tahu for more of the crystal add-ons he features to see if that maintains his silhouette while giving him a little more consistency as far as his textures are concerned. And maybe swap some of the Trans. Fluor. Reddish Orange Bohrok eyes for Red or Dark Azur ones.

 

I dunno. It's hard to really visualize how changes will look until I have the sets in hand, which is part of why I'm still excited to get the new sets even if I'm less satisfied with them overall than the ones from this year.

Edited by Lyichir

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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Lyichir, if you swap Melum's hands with Kopaka 2015's shoulder armour, it gives Kopaka '16 more of a '15 flair.

I never thought to switch the metru blue arm shells for the leg shells though, that's a great idea. Especially since the stickers resemble the ones on his shield-gun. It's such a shame that he couldn't have gotten a gold chestplate like Tahu and Onua.

 

Once I get an Onua, I'll likely replace the purple skull armor with his shoulder claws from '15.

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Usually I'm pretty anal about not modifying sets, but I did rotate Lewa Uniter's lower-arm bones by 90 degrees. The way the instructions show it provides extremely limited articulation, and they look really thin from the front.

 

I guess the bones could press against the Vorox armor, but not enough to break/bend them.

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Lyichir, if you swap Melum's hands with Kopaka 2015's shoulder armour, it gives Kopaka '16 more of a '15 flair.

I never thought to switch the metru blue arm shells for the leg shells though, that's a great idea. Especially since the stickers resemble the ones on his shield-gun. It's such a shame that he couldn't have gotten a gold chestplate like Tahu and Onua.

 

Once I get an Onua, I'll likely replace the purple skull armor with his shoulder claws from '15.

Yeah, but I generally like the shape of Kopaka's shoulders—the color is more what bothers me. Last year's Kopaka balanced the gold and silver in his color scheme really well, but this year's version has a lot more silver and a paltry amount of gold. I've seen some people suggest removing the gold altogether and just giving him the silver and trans-dark blue crystal details from Gali, but I'd rather add more gold to help better justify its inclusion in his color scheme. I'm hoping we see the Vorox armor in gold in one of the summer sets—maybe a new version of Ekimu or Makuta could use it.

 

The main reason I want to swap the shells on Kopaka's arms is that like on Pohatu, the color choice really does a number on their "flow". I'm super-excited to be getting Earth Blue shells, since it's pretty much a new color for CCBS apart from the Skull Spiders, but their use on Kopaka makes his arms look almost like they come from a whole different figure. I'm hoping that by using the stickered shells from this year's Kopaka on top of the Trans. Light Blue arm bones, I can create a better transition between the white of the torso and shoulders and the Trans. Light Blue hands.

 

Usually I'm pretty anal about not modifying sets, but I did rotate Lewa Uniter's lower-arm bones by 90 degrees. The way the instructions show it provides extremely limited articulation, and they look really thin from the front.

 

I guess the bones could press against the Vorox armor, but not enough to break/bend them.

Yeah, that reminds me, that's another mod I'm considering. Also, potentially swapping the Y-joints and Hordika necks in the shoulders, since based on a mock-up I've done prior to getting the sets it seems like that'd improve the posability in the shoulders.

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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Has anyone tried using the 2016 SW torso bone in place of the 2016 toa torso? It should make the hip section look more filled in and the legs should look longer. I'm not sure how you would implement the head connection, but it doesn't seem too hard. Maybe you could even use the SW gearbox design on the toa.

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The Uniters are more-or-less the same as they were straight out of the box. However, I took the original Master armor and created armor racks for each Toa. That way, instead of trying to mesh the Master and Uniter designs together, I could just switch between the two sets relatively easily. They still have the Uniter gimmick in both forms, too.

 

I slightly rebuilt four of the creatures so that the tails were actually, you know, tails instead of levers for the gear functions. Also to differentiate Melum from Terak.

 

Umarak now has hands, extra shots for his bow, and armor pieces to fill in his legs. I also redesigned his bow to have an antlered look.

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I removed one of the two CCBS spacers from each of Gali's legs, and put them on her arms. Those proportions bothered me... But now her legs seem too short for her torso, so I'll have to get a few more of those pieces and see what I can do.

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I recently bought Onua and Pohatu. Haven't found anything to tweak with Onua just yet, but I did a bit on Pohatu.

 

First off, his weapon. Like sydorak said, I just seprated his weapon, so that he now has a long-handled sword, and a flail. Two weapons for better fighting mobility. Secondly, I took off his dark tan shells from his legs and replaced them with some extra dark orange shells. Looks much better.

 

I did notice one thing with Onua, though. If you switch the '15 mask with the '16 mask, they look a bit better. The problem with '15 Onua was that his head looked to small and narrow for his massive torso. The Uniter mask is thicker and broader, and fits in with his look so much better. Uniter Onua looks okay with the '15 mask, but it feels like it's missing something.

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I've gotten a few more sets so I've been starting to make a few more minor changes. 

 

I've decided to embrace the yellow in Lewa more by changing his back gear into one of the yellow ones and by adding some yellow bohrok eyes (courtesy of Speeda Demon's bike.)

 

I also added a purple Vorox (I believe they're called) armour to Onua's left arm (the purple one) since his arms aren't the same anyways. 

 

Lastly, since I have a habit of throwing the extra spare parts on the sets, I put two orange spikes on Gali's right arm. 

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Having finally gotten my first 2016 Bionicle set (Kopaka and Melum), I've tried some of the changes I thought of earlier. First, I tried swapping the Earth Blue shells on his arms for the stickered white ones from last year's sets. It did kind of help his color scheme, but I wasn't happy with how it made his arm and shield kind of blend together (probably one of the major reasons why he did use a contrasting color there). On the other hand, I also swapped Melum's short arms and legs for Trans. Light Blue 5M bones with white 3M shells, and I have to say I did like that change—Melum just looks more bear-like with a bit more bulk, and it kind of makes me wish the set HAD been a $30 set so that Melum could be slightly bigger than the other creatures, instead of slightly smaller.

 

The other change I would've made (making Kopaka's shoulders gold) is of course one I can't do with existing parts, but I still do think it would've been a good change.

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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If you're worried about the sticker blending in, try Gali '15s leg armour. It's a darker silver, but silver nonetheless.

Another popular swap is to take Gali '16s crystals for more sliver instead of Kopaka '16s gold.

If I want to swap Kopaka's arm armor for silver, I can just use the Silver Metallic armor used on 2015 Onua's lower torso. That way it'd match his other silver armor. Two metallic colors can work well together, but three is a tougher prospect.

 

I've seen the swap for Gali's crystal armor, and it doesn't look terrible... but I really liked the gold in the 2015 set and feel like removing it entirely from his 2016 set would be a major bummer. Maybe I'll see what it looks like in the brick once I have Gali...

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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I agree, I'd like more gold in Kopaka's build as well. They should've included gold vorox armour from the get-go to keep him closer to  his '15 color scheme. They managed to give enough told to Tahu.

 

The reason I didn't mention Onua's lower torso is because he only comes with one instead of the two needed for both arms. 

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I agree, I'd like more gold in Kopaka's build as well. They should've included gold vorox armour from the get-go to keep him closer to  his '15 color scheme. They managed to give enough told to Tahu.

 

The reason I didn't mention Onua's lower torso is because he only comes with one instead of the two needed for both arms.

Yeah, but I already have extra, and if that wasn't enough I picked up an extra Onua on clearance the other day. ;)

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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I was tempted, but the only set I have two of so far is Kopaka '15. And only under the excuse that I might want the combiner and the original built at the same time. 

Target's in my town had a massive clearance and wouldn't put anything new out until it was gone. They didn't put of the 2016 sets until just 2 days ago. I think Onua was down to like, $15 but I didn't want to spend money on older sets until all the new ones were in my hands. 

 

But by having two Kopaka '15s, I have enough gold shoulder pads to replace both Melum's and Terak's hands. Actually, if I had purple or black armour cover pieces I could make a Onua-coloured version of Kopaka '15 with the drill and everything...

Edited by Kid Icarus
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I ended up modding Kopaka within his plastics budget to have a sled/riot shield. It's fairly heavy to balance but I believe it can really add to the play value of the set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkONfWp9W68

Very interesting! I don't think I've ever seen anyone create a MOD with the express intention of keeping the overall weight the same. That said, there are other contributing factors to the price of a set other than the raw material budget (some parts are more expensive based on needing more complex molds), but I don't see too many prohibitively expensive parts in this MOD that would be likely to push Kopaka's price over the limit.

 

That said, I'm not fond of all the mods here—not only has Kopaka lost a lot of his bulk, but the more complex shield seems to have come at the expense of his lovely sword, and while I'm not totally a fan of the Piece of Unification being used as leg armor in general, I much prefer it on the lower legs like Kopaka used it in the set, rather than on the upper legs like Tahu. Some of the building techniques, like those on the sword, shield, and even the shoulders feel a bit less refined than the actual set, no doubt due to having to make sacrifices to maintain the set's original weight while more than doubling the size of the shield.

 

Ultimately this just makes me wish even more that Kopaka and Melum had shot for a $30 price point like Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder, rather than the $25 price point they ended up at. Both Kopaka and Melum himself wouldn't look bad with a bit of extra bulk, and trying to add that while maintaining the same overall weight is easier said than done.

Formerly Lyichir: Rachira of Influence

Aanchir's and Meiko's brother

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