VBBN

Hello! It's time for a veeeery long overdue update. I first announced this project back in 2018, initially revealed my first creation in 2021 (the delay being a result of there not being enough fanmade parts at the time to do what I wanted), and have been dragging my feet ever since. I hate to see Bionicle projects fading into nothing, and unfortunately, my project was falling down a similar path. If any of you saw the initial reveal of this project, you'll know that the goal was the highlight as many customer, fan-made Bionicle compatible parts as possible, using them to drive forward new LEGO set-styled years of sets. Each year would have two seasons, with a normal distribution of matoran-sized sets, canister sets, and titans/vehicles, and perhaps some other surprises along the way. A key aspect of this project was actually 3D printing those pieces, to have tangible new characters joining my shelves. Initially, the printed sets were a fun idea, but quickly became more trouble than they were worth. Printing issues, parts breaking, not to mention extra time, money and space to make it work. The silence for the last two years was largely a result of my losing interest - not in the project itself, but in the effort required to make it work on the 3D printed side. With that said, I have a number of major changes to announce regarding this project, starting with this: moving forward, all designs will be made and rendered in Studio. Maybe I'll return to the 3D printing aspect one day, but for now I have no plans for it. Instead, with the digital route, I've been able to do almost twice as much in a matter of weeks as what took me years beforehand. Next, I've finished year 1's sets. Not just season 1, but season 2 as well. The first post of this thread has been updated with individual images for each set, and I've summarized them below with design commentary. An accompanying story is still in the works. As plans for this project have shifted around, the story has as well, so this continues to be a work in progress. It's being developed along with future years of story as well to ensure a cohesive story, but this slows down the process overall. With that said, here's my first glimpse of the Year 1 story: "As the Toa Nuva work to rescue the inhabitants of Bara Magna from increasingly devastating natural disasters, an ancient visitor heralds a new adventure, new mysteries, and the greatest threat ever faced in the BIONICLE universe." As far as the story plans and length of this project, that has been increased dramatically - currently I have this planned out to 8 years of sets/story, with groundwork for even more. It sounds like a lot, but with Studio, this has become far more viable. Only the story remains as the most time-consuming piece, but once it's off the ground, it should move at a good pace. Small Sets: Starting with the small sets, I wanted to introduce a new evolution to this build after the 3 years of Av-toran builds (2008-2009-Stars). Using the smaller Inika torso and Matoran limbs from KingSidorak, I chose a new template that was similar in size to the Av-toran build of prior years, while being more involved, customizable, and with better articulation. From a parts budget perspective, there are a lot of new elements here, but most of them are reused numerous times and will be used further in the many years of small set builds to come. As well, some choices were made to conserve budget, such as only one new weapon (Macku's shield), and some minor mask reuse (Balta's mask, which I liked as it kept it unique from Macku's more feminine Huna) and Korhin's recolored helmet & Beltok's remold (which, by the way: there's a serious lack of Glatorian-head compatible helmets out there, so expect a lot of recolors on that front.) I also wanted to start having waves with numerous "races" in them. In this case, we have three Matoran (Ehrye, Macku & Balta), two Agori (Beltok & Korhin), and a newcomer in the form of a Kestora (Jarkha, who's largely relevant to the greater Red City plot that the Year 1 story will explore). Some design fundamentals were chosen to differentiate these characters, such as the Matoran featuring a rounded chestplate while the Agori utilize a more angular one, giving the Matoran classic tohunga-styled feet while the Agori get Stars feet, and of course, mixing both masks and helmets. Jarkha is a bit more unique, with trans red elements, metru feet and a recolored Stars chestplate to add further variety. Furthermore, while I love the various generations of Matoran builds that are out there, I wanted to start "standardizing" the Matoran into a consistent size format, something we had been seeing with canister-sized sets from 2006 onwards, and with Matoran from 2008 onwards. Therefore, I have a mix of characters in this year of the story, both old and new, with the Matoran being from a variety of different regions. They share some design motifs, like the tohunga feet, and updated masks for Macku & Ehrye to move away from the pre-2004 mask style, but color blocking and tools are more evocative of their origins. Canister Sets (Season 1: The Toa Nuva) The Season 1 canister sets take us back to the Toa Nuva. In the original Bionicle story plans, 2010 and onwards would have continued along with the Glatorian. Instead, they chose to end the series and rush to an ending. I don't love it, but it's what we got. I don't care to try to retell the story they were telling, but instead to use 2010 as a soft launch point for my story, which integrates bits and pieces of concepts where it makes sense. With that in mind, I chose to launch G3 with the Nuva. In truth, I didn't really want to do the Nuva. We saw three waves of them in G1, two waves in G2, and 95% of every fan project out there uses the Nuva. I'm tired of them personally, but given the vast amount of fanmade parts that are out there for them, I decided to launch the story with them. I see this as a sort of "redo" of 2008, choosing to portray the Nuva in un-adaptived forms of their armor. Going with that "definitive" idea, I chose to have these versions of the characters serve as a blend of everything we've seen before. Mata-styled masks and tools, blended with some Nuva-inspired armor, and the Phantoka/Mistika colors. Yes, they use the 2006+ canister build, there was no chance Lego was going to move away from that, but rather continue to add new elements to the catalog, as it was really the Bionicle era version of CCBS. This year would introduce a good number of new elements for the Toa; new masks, new chest/shoulder/thigh armor, and new Nuva-inspired limbs. I also used the Matoran limbs here, and even utilized the Matoran torso to give slender builds to Gali and Lewa. Budget wise, these parts are offset by some reuse - all Toa share the same legs and arms since they all have silver as a secondary color, I opted against using the Phantoka gray for Lewa, Kopaka, and Pohatu. Plus, some tools are reused, with only Kopaka and Onua featuring truly new weapons. My original concept had these builds in 2001-2003 inspired color schemes, but that would have been a lot worse from a parts-budget perspective. Plus it didn't really reinforce that this was a continuation of the original Bionicle universe. Something I don't love about these characters is how cloney they look, but it was needed from a parts budget perspective. I think it's refreshing after years of the same reused armor/limb pieces and ties back to how similar the Nuva looked in the old days, but maybe it's because I've been staring at these too long. IMO, if this had been a new year of sets, I'd have enjoyed getting such a quantity of these newer pieces all at once. The builds aren't all the same though - Lewa and Gali have narrower builds, Tahu and Kopaka are more sizeable, and Onua and Pohatu have especially unique builds to give them stouter builds (and in Pohatu's case, wider hips). Canister Sets (Season 2: The Element Lords) The second season of year 1 introduces the Element Lords. This is another fairly common G3 trend that I see a lot of people doing as the main villains, especially since we knew they'd be villains soon in the Bionicle story. Again I admit it felt a little stale to also try my hand at these, but it just made sense as a starting point for this story. Most people tend to design these as titans, but realistically, they would have been mostly canister-sized sets, so I had fun trying to scale them down while also adhering to the typical LEGO set styling on that time. The builds here are more unique and use far less new molds than the first season. A few quickfire comments; ELO Water: Like many others, I chose a design that keeps the "fishbowl" around their head. For the weapons I chose to go with recolored and flipped Malum claws, it felt like a near reuse of the piece and isn't too bad with clearance issues since they also utilize the new Matoran limbs as forearms. ELO Ice: This was the first Element Lord I had thought of as far as designs go. Most of the build is being carried by those Strakk shoulder pads and helmet by Rothanak, the rest is super simple, but I think it really captures the general silhouette we saw of the character while staying in canister scale. Also, I've been dying to use pridak feet as weapons, and there was no better place than as giant ice spikes here. ELO Rock: This one was tough, mainly because "Rock" is largely defined as the Skrall aesthetic, and there aren't many fanmade parts out there that fit that bill. I went for a build that was taller than the others, choosing to use the strength of a warrior to define their look rather than something overly elemental. The EL of Rock here is the only one of the bunch to technically include a new weapon, and the feet are of a recolor of a piece first introduced in Artahka from season 1 (discussed more below). These are obviously feet from Hero Factory, but in my headcanon, this line of sets comes after the Stars. Anything introduced in Hero Factory or later - including short double sockets, these feet, friction extenders etc, is considered "new". Also note the reused Onua chestplate. ELO Sand: Not much to say on this one, some reuse from Vorox, but a good excuse to introduce tan ankle guards and utilize the Agori chestplate in a new color. My original plan had this set as a titan with a "large hand of sand" fighting another Toa, but ultimately that was scrapped as I decided against doing the official/unofficial Element Lord of Stone as the sixth canister. ELO Fire: All I will say here is that there's a surprising lack of fire-related Bionicle elements, and that made doing a canister-sized version of this character quite tricky. ELO Jungle: By far my favorite. I loved bringing some brown into this build - the biggest issue, again was a lack of pieces that fit the motif, but I was able to find some good reuse of Gresh Stars armor pieces, Kalmah tentacles and mini piraka spines, and I suspect he'd be one of the most desirable parts packs of the wave. I really wasn't sure about that (comic-accurate) helmet, but it really worked in the end - and what's more, I have idea for how to use it again in the future. Titans/Vehicles Artahka: The Season 1 titan is Artahka, finally brought to Bionicle set form. One confession: my physical build I had started of this set had a cape, which I couldn't figure out how to find or use in Studio, so unfortunately, he's capeless here. Anyway, he has an absolutely wacky set of proportions, but I figured as an early creation in Bionicle lore, his build would be more experimental and strange - these are biomechanical alien beings, afterall. I went for a dark gray and sand green color scheme here, with some recolors and a fairly limited set of new pieces - the Toa's chest armor, new feet that are again used on his shoulders (see my note on the Element Lord of Rock on why I consider these "new"), his hammer and of course the Mask of Creation. The legendary Masks play a huge role in the first four years of my story, and I opted to go with drum lacquered gold to make this one truly stand out - notice the difference to Takanuva's pearl gold armor. Oh yeah, and I adorned him with all six OG Mata masks. Why? idk, I wanted to do it, and he feels like the type to wear his history and creations in a literal sense. Anyone with keen eyes might notice that the mask matters are laid out in reference to the Toa Kaita. Takanuva: In season 2, Takanuva is a "vehicle" set, thought obviously a smaller vehicle more like Vultraz than a Skopio or Axalara type of thing. I wanted to do this set for two reasons; 1) it was a great excuse to milk the "new parts" budget from season 1 further, with Takanuva being mostly the same build and parts. 2) I absolutely hated the gigantic Titan set he had in 2008. It was a great set, but it wasn't Takanuva IMO. In a year filled with flying vehicles, we didn't get him with a new ussani? This aims to fix that a bit. The vehicle itself has moveable landing gear (including the back leg which can recede up into the vehicle) and a firing Midak skyblaster. Kopaka's shield is also reused here. See the first post for a shot of Takanuva off of the vehicle. Anyway, that's a wrap on year 1 of builds. Story coming soon. But since I'm extremely excited for Year 2, I figured I'd leave this post with a teaser banner for what's up next - I don't want to give too much away, but for those who wanted to see Glatorian, or perhaps something more prehistoric, this may be the year for you. Find out more in....

More modern artisan figures do have genuine leather elements, wool hair and now seamless jointed figures use medical grade silicone, InArt has been leading the charge on that front. It’s dependent on where you live though, any figures I have with faux leather are still pristine, some of those over 10 years old. not to get off topic there though, my point was moreso that the added cost of a HT figure for example means using far more realistic looking materials than some like like say, a Hasbro action figure. But the rising price floor of massive Lego sets do not offer such improvements to quality in any way, be it printing, materials, mini figure detailing etc.

Having a fully enclosed gray ball would be boring no doubt, but it would also make the most sense to add to an existing shelf of UCS sets. You could easily add in some panels that can open to reveal interior scenes; or, have gone the half sphere route, allowing you to either display an interior cross section, or the exterior half, best of both worlds. When I saw photos of this set for the first time, I thought that was the route they had gone; because surely, 9k pieces would have been enough to accomplish that, but seems I was quite wrong. what I see here isn’t necessarily an ugly piece; I quite love the concept of cross sections and have some books from the Star Wars universe that explore that very concept, from vehicles to notable locations. But this is likely the only DS that will grace our shelves for a long time to come, and they’ve chosen something that doesn’t at all feel like it can live alongside your other Star Wars sets without seeming quite out of place. It’s neat, but in no reality is it $1k neat. Nor does it feel special or grand enough to be THE $1k lego set. It’s not nearly the same level of awe inspiring that the Falcon conveyed when it came out; how does this set revolutionize what’s possible in Lego other than being obscenely expensive? I’m quite involved in the high end collectible fandom, pieces like Sideshow, Prime 1, Hot Toys etc that very commonly have products that cross over the $1k price tag, many cases far exceeding that - and while expensive, the pieces absolutely exemplify that value, with unparalleled materials, details, and artistry that place them leagues above other products. But this set does not; it’s just a big LEGO set. It’s uninspiring in design compared to many LEGO sets at a smaller scale. It offers nothing but size, and the consistent issue of overvalued mini figures. In fact - I’d say that as the price of sets increases, the value in said sets decreases from the “playability of Lego” perspective. I’m happy to buy a cheap set and eventually cannibalize it for pieces. But why would I ever do that for a set of this size and price? It’s either going to take up an enormous amount of space on my shelf and gather dust, or I’m going to sell it; parting it down would just be a waste in reality, IMO. Anyway, I’ll gather more thoughts on specific details when more photos are out.

Oh yeah, I’m super hyped for this. I’ve held off on the Mega sets, they’re neat but Mega just doesn’t have the level of refinement that the “LEGO filter” provides, not to mention the terrible distribution and overall lack of care for the brand that’s evident from Halo. I’ve grown up with Pokemon, it was a huge part of my childhood and could easily see myself going all in on this line, as long as it’s “normal” and not subject to some stylistic restraint that Mario been under (but based on what Mega was doing, I don’t think that’ll be an issue).

Done!

Oh good, I'm glad I wasn't the only one struggling to drive the buggy in a straight line Great review as always! Overall it's not so impressive from a performance standpoint, I do hope the theories that this is a transition while a new system is developed are accurate - Lego has really been creating a lot of new elements lately, many of which IMO are very hyperspecialized and this definitely feels like it fits that bill, no doubt we will see numerous other cars that use a similar base set of functions as this one. I think my favorite development with this system is the fiber optics, not sure that we've seen those used since Exo-Force and the execution here seems much better with the brighter lights. hopefully, they can find some ways to expand the possibilities of that with some kind of standalone modules in the future

These are both incredible! I love the scaled environmental objects surrounding Merlin, something you don't see enough of in large scale figure builds.

As evank said, the World Map is technically the highest parts count at 11,695. Granted, it’s a mosaic set and so a large majority of those pieces are 1x1 round tiles, so it’s not exactly a traditional set. Plus - like many of the other art sets - quite a few of those pieces are extras that aren’t used in the official configuration, so it’s not truly all 11.6k parts being used at once in the build. There is one other non-traditional set that beats the Eiffel Tower, the extremely rare Chima Ultimate collection clocked in at 10,004 pieces, but obviously this is just a big collection of existing sets and to my knowledge was only a giveaway prize, never available for retail sale https://brickset.com/sets/BIGBOX-1/The-Ultimate-Battle-for-CHIMA

If you'd like to make more posts about custom Minifigure designs, I'd recommend to post your new thread over in our Minifig Workshop forum https://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?/forums/forum/90-minifig-customisation-workshop/

You can directly show the photo here on the site if you so wish. When making a post, on the bottom right of where you are typing your post you should see "Insert other media" option. Click on that and from there the option "Insert image from URL" Then, paste in the link you just shared: https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/eee0e8ab-d755-4737-8c37-380ef93ef3fa.png And the result is this-

Well, I didn't want the shadowbox Batcave initially, but after seeing it in person at the Lego store yesterday...sigh, I want it. It has an impressive footprint, if a bit shallow. it's not exactly what I wanted from a D2C Batcave, but it's certainly something I can use as a starting point. Definitely not grabbing it until any VIP promos pop up, though.

What an absolutely incredible alt-build/improvement of this set. Fantastic work!

Great review Jim, and a fantastic-looking case! It's pricey, but it's also quite a large case - unless you have a shop nearby that can get you wholesale prices on large pieces of acrylic, I anticipate building one custom won't save too much or have quite the fit and finish this has. Is the background printed on the plexiglass? It's definitely the star of this display and truly elevates the displayability of the AT-AT (that MF case with the hyperspeed effect also looks insanely cool)

It's not the Bionicle that we remember, but I have to say, this is a pretty fun-looking set that really packs in a decent amount of content into such a small size. A nicely articulated-looking figure (to be honest I was almost worried they'd be using the new, less articulated mech limb system), a detailed smaller build, plus extra accessories in the form of the throwing disk and Makuta/Mata Nui stones. I'm sitting on $50 VIP points at the moment, so I'll probably use that to cut down on the minimum purchase. GWP's have been getting stuck behind some rough paywalls lately, but this one is somewhat manageable at least. Anyway, I'll review it when I get it. Excited to have an actual Bionicle set of some form to review in 2023.