Glow-In-the Dark

[CarkaJack]

Well today I did an experiment where I took some translucent GITD paint and applied it to the 'eyes' of an Av-Matoran head.And it was quite succesful, with little to no difference between a normal piece and a 'modded' one when it came to passing through bright lights. Not to mention, the glow effect that occured when in low-light conditions really added to the coolness of the little guy.Am I the only one who finds it puzzling how TLG didn't really go very deep into the usage of glowing pieces? Although, the few times they did use them, they usually fit quite well.I'm just wondering, why didn't they use GITD pieces for eyes? Was it too expensive, or was it not possible to make a transparent, light-emmiting, hard plastic? I'm not exactly an expert on this kind of stuff.

[Sumiki]

From what I've gathered, it's expensive to make GITD parts. I have a few GITD parts - a few studs from Roodaka's mouth (I always found that strange ... did she have GITD spit or something?) as well as Atakus's two swords. (Not to mention the mini!Visorak from the playsets.) Aside from conventional GITD stuff, Takadox, Gadunka, and Nocturn from '07 all had a special kind of blue that glowed in the dark.It might be a cool gimmick, but LEGO must have figured out it wasn't adding anything to the sales - at least, not enough to offset the cost of production.

[CarkaJack]

From what I've gathered, it's expensive to make GITD parts......It might be a cool gimmick, but LEGO must have figured out it wasn't adding anything to the sales - at least, not enough to offset the cost of production.

Ah.. gotcha.Although, the Inika are the perfect sets to have GITD-whatever applied to their eyes. It's mentioned in the story, on the canisters, etc, and yet they lack it. :???:Instead, the Piraka get it in the form of glow in the dark teeth. What was TLG thinking? It's just...so goofy looking. Edited September 16, 2012 by CarkaJack

[Sumiki]

The sets and story are often thought of as two sides of the same coin, but in reality, the story was the servant to the sets. Greg would often have to rewrite the story to fit in new sets or write in changes to the sets.I think the prototype Inika had glow-in-the-dark eyes at one stage, but I'm not entirely sure of that. If not, it was just one of those details that didn't transfer to the sets for whatever reason.

Edited September 16, 2012 by Charles J. Guiteau

[Aanchir]

Well today I did an experiment where I took some translucent GITD paint and applied it to the 'eyes' of an Av-Matoran head.And it was quite succesful, with little to no difference between a normal piece and a 'modded' one when it came to passing through bright lights. Not to mention, the glow effect that occured when in low-light conditions really added to the coolness of the little guy.Am I the only one who finds it puzzling how TLG didn't really go very deep into the usage of glowing pieces? Although, the few times they did use them, they usually fit quite well.I'm just wondering, why didn't they use GITD pieces for eyes? Was it too expensive, or was it not possible to make a transparent, light-emmiting, hard plastic? I'm not exactly an expert on this kind of stuff.

Well, in some cases, like the glow-in-the-dark paint solution you came up with on your own, there are safety considerations involved. TLG puts forth a valiant effort to make sure they never need to make a product recall (as of yet there have been only two product recalls in the company's history), and that includes making sure that the chemicals used in their products don't pose any health hazard. Glow-in-the-dark chemicals are inherently more volatile than your run-of-the-mill dye used in toy production, and as such TLG tends to stick with what they've already been able to test thoroughly.Regarding the use of glow-in-the-dark parts for eyes, TLG's parts database actually does have Toa Mata eyes in glow-in-the-dark listed, which implies that such a part was produced but never put into sets. The likely reason is that kids didn't find the milky white color of the eyes (50 Phosphorescent White, the GITD color at the time, was not transparent like the one used in 2006-2011) very energetic under normal lighting conditions. Given the amount of complaints there have been about lack of diversity in BIONICLE eye colors after 2005, it's understandable that fans in general are quite attached to the vibrant eye colors of the theme.

From what I've gathered, it's expensive to make GITD parts......It might be a cool gimmick, but LEGO must have figured out it wasn't adding anything to the sales - at least, not enough to offset the cost of production.

Ah.. gotcha.Although, the Inika are the perfect sets to have GITD-whatever applied to their eyes. It's mentioned in the story, on the canisters, etc, and yet they lack it. :???:Instead, the Piraka get it in the form of glow in the dark teeth. What was TLG thinking? It's just...so goofy looking.

Some magazine features on the Inika heavily implied that the Inika's faces were in fact supposed to glow. Perhaps the reason they didn't has to do with that 2006 coincided with the discontinuation of the old glow-in-the-dark color, 40 Phosphorescent White, and the introduction of a new, transparent glow-in-the-dark color, 294 Phosphorescent Green.Or perhaps there was some kind of materials shortage. It wouldn't be the last time such a thing would happen-- many of the early production runs in the Pirates of the Caribbean theme just last year used 297 Warm Gold (Bricklink's Pearl Gold) for the gold bars and coins rather than 310 Metallized Gold (Bricklink's Chrome Gold) due to a shortage of the material used in the Metallized Gold surface treatment. Later production runs fixed this issue.

[Dralcax]

Probably because GITD plastic is rather dull unless it's actually in the dark. I guess Lego decided that light-up eyes provided better playability than GITD eyes. Also, the glow of GITD eyes is somewhat zombie-ish.

[Taipu1]

I think the prototype Inika had glow-in-the-dark eyes at one stage, but I'm not entirely sure of that. If not, it was just one of those details that didn't transfer to the sets for whatever reason.

I'm sure this was the case, in fact I recall thinking it was the case for the sets, and was pretty disappointed at the lack of glowing eyes. But I suppose the light up weapons probably reduced the need.