Bionicle 2015 Discussion

[TheOneVeyronian]

Yes, Pohatu would be better with Reddish Brown. Maybe LEGO is still against making brown constraction sets.

Perhaps they are, but in today's constraction world with far more complex colour schemes, I'd say that the opposition to including brown in constraction sets makes less sense. CHI Mungus and Ogrum both included some brown as a secondary colour (and I'm not sure there's proof that these sets sold less than the other sets in their respective waves?). But perhaps I say this while wearing rose tinted glasses since I have an extra "affinity" with Pohatu, as his Nuva form was my very first Bionicle (along with Tahu Nuva).

If LEGO was against brown because kids associate brown as yucky and as poop, then they made the wrong decision with trans neon green pieces.

Indeed they did... and now I can't un-imagine the image in my head that I imagined when I read that statement

I hate that he uses trans neon green parts, yellow would be much better.

I share that thought somewhat. But while trans-neon green theoretically fits in better with the current CCBS colour palette, I would have loved to have seen more trans-yellow. My Waspix wing shells still need a CCBS mate to join them

[Agent Fusion]

Indeed they did... and now I can't un-imagine the image in my head that I imagined when I read that statement

Poo-hatu Spew-va

[Mandate]

Poo-hatu Spew-va

I wasn't referring to vomit. Let me put it this way, when you don't eat your vegetables or drink your water the human body can make waste products all kinds of wonderful colors

[Agent Fusion]

I wasn't referring to vomit. Let me put it this way, when you don't eat your vegetables or drink your water the human body can make waste products all kinds of wonderful colors

I know, it's just that a vomit pun is far easier.

Back on topic, I'm surprised that only one of Pohatu's arms is affected by the function, especially seeing that he has two weapons.

[arc]

I wasn't referring to vomit. Let me put it this way, when you don't eat your vegetables or drink your water the human body can make waste products all kinds of wonderful colors

thank you for those wonderful images.

But beside that, I very much like the new dark orange for pohatu, the old brown was ok, but it was kinda dull. This is a little more vibrant. Although I would have liked to see more of it on him.

[Kalhiki]

Brown was always a "boring" color (I never had a problem with it, but I believe this is the reason it didn't sell well).

I like this brown for Pohatu because it's not only more vibrant and interesting, but it still allows us to have a brown colored Pohatu.

Hopefully brown's here to stay. I hated the switch to yellow/orange.

[Aethersprite]

I love Pohatu's brown. It's a nice compromise between the dark brown we got with Ogrum/Mungus and the yellow/orange of the later Stone Toa sets.

Speaking of colours, are Gali's feet gunmetal or black? Can someone who was at NYCC confirm this? They look gunmetal, but I don't think we've gotten HF feet in that colour before.

I know, it's just that a vomit pun is far easier.

Back on topic, I'm surprised that only one of Pohatu's arms is affected by the function, especially seeing that he has two weapons.

It's probably due to the fact that one of his arms is more armoured than the other, and the lone dagger he carries on his back when he's riding his Jetarangs.

[TheOneVeyronian]

I'm actually fine with Dark Orange (as I said, one of my favourites) if LEGO continues to make it the primary colour of the Stone sets so we can get some more Dark Orange recolours. But if LEGO does what it did between 2006 and 2010 and keep changing the primary colour of the Stone characters, it'll be extremely frustrating. During those years, it just seemed that, after Avak, they just couldn't decide on a replacement for Brown and so it kept cycling between Keetorange, Orange, Bright Yellow, Tan and then back to Keetorange (and one could argue Dark Orange as well with the new Pohatu and Stone Protector). And now Keetorange is being used on the Jungle/Air characters... which is slightly puzzling since one could argue that it defined many of the Stone characters after 1H 2006

Oh well, guess I'll never understand LEGO's design choices sometimes

Speaking of colours, are Gali's feet gunmetal or black? Can someone who was at NYCC confirm this? They look gunmetal, but I don't think we've gotten HF feet in that colour before.

Gali's foot piece has existed in both black and gunmetal before. I can't confirm for you since I wasn't at NYCC, but I would say they're gunmetal as well.

Edited October 24, 2014 by TheOneVeyronian

[Aanchir]

On the subject of Pohatu, am I the only one who is slightly annoyed that he uses Dark Orange instead of Reddish Brown? Don't get me wrong, Dark Orange is one of my favourite of all the darker colours on the palette, but here's what's bothering me: It's another completely new colour when there are similar colours that already exist in CCBS that, in my opinion, are in need of expanding beyond a couple of shells and one bone (and giving it greater availability). I'm talking about Reddish Brown. It's only appeared in Ogrum and CHI Mungus so far, and I really thought Pohatu and the Stone Protector had the potential to add to the amount of Reddish Brown available. I would have liked it even more even if they had some Dark Brown parts to go with the lone torso shell introduced in the Chima mammoth stomper. Just keeping on adding colours to the CCBS palette when less common existing colours could have been used just, in my opinion, makes all parts concerned less MOC-able with. I'm still waiting for trans-yellow to join Waspix's 8M shells for instance...

However... if Mungus and Ogrum had Dark Orange in the first place, well, this post wouldn't exist in this form

While on the subject of recolours actually, I'm really glad Tahu has lots of Red torso shells, as I know of at least 3 MOC's that I have that will hugely benefit from having them. And they're plentiful on that set!

Frankly, I was surprised, but certainly not disappointed. I think Dark Orange makes a prettier primary color. Frankly, brown was always sort of the "odd color out" among BIONICLE color schemes. All the other Toa Mata primary colors were so pure, so to speak. Red, Blue, Green, White, Black... and then Brown. While having more Reddish Brown might have been better for MOCing purposes, it's great to have Dark Orange back in constraction, especially since it feels like a great compromise between his bright Phantoka color scheme and his duller classic color scheme.

Hopefully brown's here to stay. I hated the switch to yellow/orange.

Yeah, hopefully starting out with a slightly brighter color like Dark Orange will also help the color stick around longer than any shade of brown did in the old BIONICLE. Brown sets had a number of factors working against them... the original 25 Earth Orange (Mata Brown) was discontinued in 2004, and then instead of replacing it with 192 Reddish Brown, the LEGO Group opted to replace it with 217 Brown... a color which could be wildly inconsistent, and was in turn discontinued just a few years later! I'm sure MOCists would have benefitted greatly if the LEGO Group had just switched to using Reddish Brown back in 2004 when it was introduced, instead of Reddish Brown being mostly constrained to two or three classic BIONICLE sets, one Ben 10 set, one Hero Factory set, and one Legends of Chima constraction set. But of course, hindsight is 20/20.

I didn't entirely mind the switch to yellow and orange — after all, they are both still appropriately stony colors, and a lot of Po-Matoran already looked yellow or orange in certain BIONICLE media anyway. This is especially noticeable in BIONICLE 2: Legends of Metru Nui in scenes with assorted Matoran. Some of the colors that stand out the most are red, blue, green, and yellow. However, I do sort of wish sets like Toa Mahri Hewkii had depended less on colors like Black, despite that too being a classic Po-Matoran color. In any case, Pohatu remains one of my favorite Toa from 2008, in both his Phantoka and vehicle forms.

[gedren_y]

On the issue of Pohatu; I would prefer Dark Flesh to Reddish Brown, but am okay with Dark Orange. I may get several of him to build a CCBS landscape.

[Aethersprite]

Gali's foot piece has existed in both black and gunmetal before. I can't confirm for you since I wasn't at NYCC, but I would say they're gunmetal as well.

Really? Maybe it's just that I don't own it in gunmetal. But my impression is that it doesn't exist yet in gunmetal - if my memory serves me right, a lot of sets that should've used it in gunmetal like Breakout Bulk and Voltix used it in black instead, so I've always assumed Lego didn't want to produce it in gunmetal.

[Agent Fusion]

No, it was used in Splitface.

[Shakar]

thank you for those wonderful images.

But beside that, I very much like the new dark orange for pohatu, the old brown was ok, but it was kinda dull. This is a little more vibrant. Although I would have liked to see more of it on him.

I agree, I never liked brown sets very much, I bought them for completition sake, and it got even worse during the Metru era, that light brown was... Still, I admit Avak did look really good coupling dark brown with dark tan and gunmetal. But Hewkii's dark orange has always been my favourite brownish shade (I guess its rarity did play a role, IMO it's also a big reason purple loved so much), so I'm really happy to see its return.

On the subject of Pohatu, am I the only one who is slightly annoyed that he uses Dark Orange instead of Reddish Brown? Don't get me wrong, Dark Orange is one of my favourite of all the darker colours on the palette, but here's what's bothering me: It's another completely new colour when there are similar colours that already exist in CCBS that, in my opinion, are in need of expanding beyond a couple of shells and one bone (and giving it greater availability). I'm talking about Reddish Brown. It's only appeared in Ogrum and CHI Mungus so far, and I really thought Pohatu and the Stone Protector had the potential to add to the amount of Reddish Brown available. I would have liked it even more even if they had some Dark Brown parts to go with the lone torso shell introduced in the Chima mammoth stomper. Just keeping on adding colours to the CCBS palette when less common existing colours could have been used just, in my opinion, makes all parts concerned less MOC-able with. I'm still waiting for trans-yellow to join Waspix's 8M shells for instance...

However... if Mungus and Ogrum had Dark Orange in the first place, well, this post wouldn't exist in this form

While on the subject of recolours actually, I'm really glad Tahu has lots of Red torso shells, as I know of at least 3 MOC's that I have that will hugely benefit from having them. And they're plentiful on that set!

Still, I can see where TheOneVeyronian is coming from. In fact, I was almost sure that Pohatu, before we got the coloured display image, was going to be reddish brown given its sudden return in Chima.

It's true, there are too many colours in CCBS that have been abandoned: Reddish Brown, Tr. Yellow, Medium Azure (that's easy to forget, but the IfB Beasts used the same parts from Thornraxx, only the longer jaw piece from Splitter Beast was a all-new recolour), Olive Green, Dark Red, orange (the last new orange piece we got was the 5M shell in 2012! Again, save from the jaw piece in SP), etcetera.

Some colours do make a comeback (Onua is introducing the first new lilac shell size since 2012 and the Jungle sets are reusing bright green and keeotorange), but still, the fragmentation is getting a bit ridiculous.

Now Gali and Water P. are introducing Dark Azure in constraction despite the fact Medium Azure would've looked fine as well, and so I'm worried: sure, it's a very pretty colour (closer to Kongu's teal than Medium Azure is, actually), but is it going to stick around as the primary colour for Water characters or is it going to be abandoned? I'd like it the two azures stayed around while "Mata blue" disappeared for a while (I admit, I'd love if it were replaced by the Metru blue the Skull Spiders brought back.. I miss Metru blue so much ), but we'll see on that.

And only marginally related to the topic, but HOLY CRAP that Age of Ultron trailer. Now I REALLY wish for a new Ultrabuild wave as unlikely it might or not be. Ultron and the Avengers as mid size sets + a new Hulk (in bright green this time) and the Hulkbuster as large sets? Oh man I'd love that.

[TheDesuComplex]

Really? Maybe it's just that I don't own it in gunmetal. But my impression is that it doesn't exist yet in gunmetal - if my memory serves me right, a lot of sets that should've used it in gunmetal like Breakout Bulk and Voltix used it in black instead, so I've always assumed Lego didn't want to produce it in gunmetal.

I have a ton of the foot piece in gunmetal. Here's a list of all sets containing it.

On the subject of Pohatu, am I the only one who is slightly annoyed that he uses Dark Orange instead of Reddish Brown? Don't get me wrong, Dark Orange is one of my favourite of all the darker colours on the palette, but here's what's bothering me: It's another completely new colour when there are similar colours that already exist in CCBS that, in my opinion, are in need of expanding beyond a couple of shells and one bone (and giving it greater availability).

I don't think that's why. It's just that brown sets didn't sell quite as well as other sets.

Brown was always a "boring" color (I never had a problem with it, but I believe this is the reason it didn't sell well). I like this brown for Pohatu because it's not only more vibrant and interesting, but it still allows us to have a brown colored Pohatu. Hopefully brown's here to stay. I hated the switch to yellow/orange.

I'm all for Bionicle using Dark Orange in place of Brown. It's a middle between Brown and Orange and it works quite well as a more vibrant color that still fits as an earthy tone.

And only marginally related to the topic, but HOLY CRAP that Age of Ultron trailer. Now I REALLY wish for a new Ultrabuild wave as unlikely it might or not be. Ultron and the Avengers as mid size sets + a new Hulk (in bright green this time) and the Hulkbuster as large sets? Oh man I'd love that.

Oh man, that sounds amazing, but I doubt it based on the low performance of the Chima sets. If only, if only...

Edited October 24, 2014 by TheDesuComplex

[Aethersprite]

Shakar, you forgot to mention dark green! That and Metru red are amongst my favourite CCBS colours, I was so happy to see them being used a bit more often. It's disappointing that they've been left out completely; hopefully we'll see them again in subsequent waves of Bionicle.

I have a ton of the foot piece in gunmetal. Here's a list of all sets containing it.

That's a lot of them! Thanks for the link. But like I said, I hope Lego doesn't go the way of Breakout Bulk and Voltix and give Gali black feet instead of gunmetal.

[Aanchir]

On the issue of Pohatu; I would prefer Dark Flesh to Reddish Brown, but am okay with Dark Orange. I may get several of him to build a CCBS landscape.

You mean Dark Flesh as in 217 Brown (Metru Brown)? That color's been discontinued for years, and frankly I'm glad we're rid of it. It was a weird color to begin with, and extremely prone to inconsistency.

That's a lot of them! Thanks for the link. But like I said, I hope Lego doesn't go the way of Breakout Bulk and Voltix and give Gali black feet instead of gunmetal.

No need to worry. Gali's feet are Titanium Metallic (gunmetal).

[TheOneVeyronian]

Oh dear, it seems that my original comment has opened a bigger can of worms than I thought it would... never mind. I'd forgotten about the Brown change in 2004 to the Metru brown (one of the worst colours if I'm honest... I'm glad it was discontinued) when I mentioned the constant changes in base colour for Stone characters. I understand they were going for the darker shades with the Metru and Hordika, so that's most likely why they used the Metru brown rather than the Reddish Brown.

Now Gali and Water P. are introducing Dark Azure in constraction despite the fact Medium Azure would've looked fine as well, and so I'm worried: sure, it's a very pretty colour (closer to Kongu's teal than Medium Azure is, actually), but is it going to stick around as the primary colour for Water characters or is it going to be abandoned? I'd like it the two azures stayed around while "Mata blue" disappeared for a while (I admit, I'd love if it were replaced by the Metru blue the Skull Spiders brought back.. I miss Metru blue so much ), but we'll see on that.

This comment reminded me of just how much I am desperate for a range of the Metru Dark Blue shells. My sigfig which I usually use as an avatar (okay, not at this moment as I'm showing off some artwork I'm proud of) is always depicted as Dark Blue in any artwork of him I do, yet his constraction model has had to be Mata Blue. Why? Because we have no Dark Blue shells whatsoever. We have Dark Red, Dark Green, even Dark Brown... but no Dark Blue

That said, is it too much to hope for a Titan set in the summer that has a sea of Metru Dark Blue shells in it? (pun not intended). LEGO, you've done almost all of the current colour palette in CCBS, apart from Dark Blue. So if you're expanding CCBS colours to almost all the opaque colours on the colour palette, you may as well do them all (no, just doing Skull Spiders in the colour doesn't count)

[Darking]

I understand they were going for the darker shades with the Metru and Hordika, so that's most likely why they used the Metru brown rather than the Reddish Brown.

But the problem here is that Brown (Metru Brown) was actually lighter than Earth Orange (Mata Brown)! Thus, not only was it ugly, but it didn't fit at all with the whole "darker colours" aesthethic. As Aanchir has mentioned, using Reddish Brown from the start would have been a much better solution.

[TheOneVeyronian]

But the problem here is that Brown (Metru Brown) was actually lighter than Earth Orange (Mata Brown)! Thus, not only was it ugly, but it didn't fit at all with the whole "darker colours" aesthethic. As Aanchir has mentioned, using Reddish Brown from the start would have been a much better solution.

My bad... I made a bit of a mistake there (you won't believe how much that happens to me even after triple-proofreading!). Agreed on everything though. Problem was though that even Reddish Brown is marginally lighter than original Mata Brown (but having said that, Reddish Brown would have been a much better choice than what they went with). The only shade darker is Dark Brown (a colour not introduced until 2008, so would have been completely useless anyway).

I do wonder how things would have turned out if only they'd used Reddish Brown since the Metru though. Would we have had the enormous primary colour variation that resulted on the Stone characters? And if Reddish Brown had been the prevailing colour for the rest of Bionicle's 1st run, would we have a Dark Orange Pohatu now?

However, as Aanchir said, hindsight is definitely 20/20 in this case.

Anyway, this is probably getting a little too off-topic...

[Nekchir]

So...Yet another question from Monkey! What would ya'll do, if you won one of the 14k Gold Masks? Personally, I would keep it until someone offers me $$$$ I can't refuse, lol. Sad to say, but I'm not into 'mask collecting' as I am into the sets themselves.

[arc]

So...Yet another question from Monkey! What would ya'll do, if you won one of the 14k Gold Masks? Personally, I would keep it until someone offers me $$$$ I can't refuse, lol. Sad to say, but I'm not into 'mask collecting' as I am into the sets themselves.

by the highly unlikely chance that I do, I'll make a glass case for it and put it on display for all eternity...

[Agent Fusion]

As would I, although I would temporarily place it on my winning MOC, just to take a picture. After that, into a glass case.

[Kalhiki]

Glass case or some other type of display. Keep it dust free. Also display my winning MoC with it.

Speaking of cases, I hope the stand/pedestal comes with the mask and can double as a storage case. You could open it up and pop the mask in there for safe keeping.

[Nekchir]

I heard that Lego is trying to make the stand 'safe for kids' so as of now, the Skull Spider head/mask is going to be put into a velvet box by the jeweler.

[Mandate]

Look, if I win, I'm selling it. I'll display it for a while, but I'd rather have the ability to purchase every LEGO set I want for the next few years than keep a piece I'm never going to use. Is it an awesome thing to have? Absolutely, I would love to display it. But I'd rather be able to purchase LEGO and still be known as the winner of that comp. forever