Shakar
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Everything posted by Shakar
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That's true, yeah. These aren't even that bad, though the brown lines (belts?) bother me. Still getting the set Just some old, stubborn trolling, move along just make it through.
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They're four, only that the ones on his legs are stickered (hopefully) or printed (more likely, as it's custom for 6M shells).
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Ooh boy, it's really sand blue! Also, nice silver recolours. Definite buy for me.
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Oh boy, I forgot about the 8M shells. I was really surprised to see them reused in Lavertus's outpost last year. Too bad they're very hard to use. Silver should be the only colour we have a full set of shells of. White, black and titanium metallic come close.
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^ Indeed they are. Thanks to these and Kopaka, we now have white shells in all sizes.
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Less orange than what I hoped for, but still a good, full armoured figure- they're really putting a lot of effort in these. At least we finally get an orange add-on piece. And he has the new dark bley forelimb bones like Vader and Obi-Wan! Also, these guys are all pretty tall. Cody and Luke are as tall as Tahu and have almost the same number of pieces. For Star Wars sets, they're not that overpriced- as far as USA goes, at least. I still fear European buyers are in for a bad price hike. EDIT: And yeah, forgot about Grievous, I couldn't access the video on the phone (not sure if it's normal or not). Nice back armour and very good leg design. Looks like I really have to get him- like Vader, both for the parts and the build itself (which I already found a use for).
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Don't take the bait guys.
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Set wise, everything except the lightsabers blades (which are simply too recognizeable) and maybe the torso shell should be fair game.MOC wise, aside from the torso shell, which I really don't like much, I see myself using ALL these pieces. The new shins and shoulders are obvious. As for the lightsabers, I think the weapon could work really well to equip a Toa of Light or Plasma with; but the individual parts look very useful too- the blades can mimic energy attacks, while the hilt parts look like they could be very good..well, hilts, replacing 6538f (and its older variants) to spice up the look of a weapon.
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First off, a note on the price and parts count before getting to the sets themselves. BZP's TF report: Speakeasy's article: Apparently Grievous has 4 more pieces compared to BZP's report, but that might or not be accurate. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the 25 dollars set is Obi-Wan: the parts count matches and, compared to Luke, he's better armoured and includes a cape. Obi-Wan Kenobi DESIGN: I kept my expectations for fully human characters (no armour, etc) to a minimum, but he's actually pretty good. Very surprised to see a loincloth-like design on him- it's meant to represent his robe, I know, but I don't remember a set doing this before so it's nice. PARTS: It's good to finally see a cape that is not brown (though I still really want a white one..). The new shoulder pad element looks good, it seems more compact than the Breakout one- hope we get it in more colours. And white 4M shells, finally! General Grievous DESIGN: Very imposing and cool figure, in my humble opinion. Very interesting torso that tries to do something different, like Vader's. Seems like the arms actually connect together in pairs like on the original character. The legs actually look complex, which is more than what I can say for..any constraction set in the last 4 years (except Evo XL). Shame about the lack of cape, but I can't say I didn't expect it. Overall I think the figure looks very good and accurate to me, and I can't wait to see more/better pictures. PARTS: oooooh booy. Tons of tan (I wish that was dark tan, I actually like it more. But it seems unlikely) including a third colour for the new leg armour (hoping we get it in silver with Jango) and a new colour for the hands! Also, TWO new sizes of dark bley bones and the BIONICLE Skeletons torso in black. Also, another cool chest print. As for the final two, I don't think we're going to see anything groundbreaking. I'm pretty sure Cody is going to reuse a lot of parts from Obi-Wan, with Jango mostly being a Cody redeco with a jetpack. As for the parts, it's clear they're pulling all the stops with these sets, so I'm confident we're actually going to see sand blue on Jango, and some orange parts on Cody (I sure hope so, they've always been stingy with orange pieces in CCBS for some odd reason).
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Thanks! I really hope we get more printed chests in the future. Sure, a new chest armour element would be more than welcome, but I just love the print designs we're getting this year. They add a lot of character and use some really beautiful colours (those metallic lines!).Yes, that is what I meant. Also, Takanuva's story could happen in G1 because it estabilished that Matoran could become Toa. That element is missing from G2- Protectors might not even be related to the Toa at all this time. Not that it prevents a Seventh Toa plot from happening on a more metaphorical level. He can still appear as a fully developed Toa without a physical transformation occuring, while the "path to become a hero" theme/plot can still be carried out from a characterization perspective (e.g. A powerful but immature and/or amnesic hero who manages to fulfill his potential). Agreed on the Takanuva name. It always feels awkward, to me at least, when a character decides to permanently change their name like that, especially when the new name is so odd sounding. I just prefer to think of him as (Toa) Takua... Those are fantastic. Off to write a more detailed post in the right thread..
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If I designed Takanuva as a set, I'd try to homage Takua the Matoran too, so I agree with your idea in bold, but those are a lot of colours. I think the best way would be keeping it simple (white, gold and a trans colour- maybe even skipping white?) and using Takua's classic colours on his "tribal chest decoration" (sic).That's not an idea I came up with on my own: the Toa Okoto have some colours on their chests that are mostly or entirely missing from the rest of their body (Tahu's orange and metallic pink, Pohatu's tan, gold and dark red, Lewa's lime, etc), some of which are actually neat homages to their previous forms. Only problem I can see with this, from a story perspective, is that Takanuva followed the widely used "young character (audience surrogate) turning into a great hero" like Lloyd from the insanely popular Ninjago; while Ekimu is more akin to a mentor/big good character like Sensei Wu, and those rarely get the protagonist treament. Mata Nui in 2009 is arguably an exception, but he himself was a "newbie" when he landed in Bara Magna, only later gaining respect and leadership like Takua/Takanuva did.If he stays in the story, I can definitely see him and Makuta getting a rematch, but I don't see that as the final fight. It'd be like ending Ninjago 2013 with a Wu vs Garmadon and/or Overlord battle, or like ending Bleach with Yamamoto defeating Yhwach (or whoever the final villain is). Mind you, the idea of Ekimu's design cues (tr. blue/gold colour scheme, regal looking armour, hammer..) getting translated into a larger figure sounds very cool to me, and Lego is perfectly capable of releasing such a set. But sets and story are separate things- a large and/or heavily marketed set doesn't always get a matching role in story media.
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That is roughly how I'd do a G2 Takanuva. There are a number of elements the MOCer (intentionally or not) wisely used to prevent him from being a Kopaka clone. I reckon the ideal secondary colour on an official set would be tr. yellow, which I hope we can get in the future- tr. neon green doesn't always cut it, as this MOC shows. Teridax is impressive at first glance and I agree with the colours and the wings, but he seems a bit weak around the torso, as if it were too small for his limbs. Still I like the MOCs overall, and I think they're fairly good updates of the original sets and characters. I wonder if the treatment they got (being displayed in a Lego store! Wow!) means anything. Surely Lego must have an idea of how iconic the final battle is (I'd argue they tried to redo it during Ninjago 2013, but I'm venturing into speculation).
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The difference is quite clear, but I also found this which is just as red and looks pretty final (though I've never seen it before). Dunno what happened behind the scenes.I think that the Barraki were on average more daring than most BIONICLE villains. In HF, I think that the only ones who came close were Core Hunter himself and Scarox. The Piraka looked very sinister but they were too "in your face" evil for me (I'm talking about the sets, not the characters), while the Barraki were so odd and otherwordly (just like deep sea creatures are!) that they managed to be far creepier- the bead-like, dead looking eyes made them even "worse". I guess this is why I'm comparing them to the Skull villains: both are reminiscient of two different things that most humans find alien and scary, deep sea creatues and death.
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You might be onto something. I remember that the sky in Core Hunter's preliminary box art was blood red but was changed to a much more ordinary blue sky in the final art. I can't think of another reason other than "blood red is too scary", but I might be wrong. By the way, I think the Skull villains' are pretty daring as far as Lego figures go, I think they're the scariest looking Lego villains since Mantax. Eh, I won't, thank you.
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Honestly I agree. It's too dark and tr. reddish orange is still orange, no matter how much they try to pass it as red. Something more vibrant, like the red on corrupted!Makuta, would be ideal. Like tr. bright green is for the much darker and less vibrant tr. green (Onua's classical eye colour).
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If I had to guess, it's because orange looks lively, while tr. red is closer to dark red, so it reminds you of blood. I think that tr. reddish orange is better for eyes as it's more vibrant, but I don't see why we can't get tr. red shells since we've already gotten parts in tr. blue and tr. purple (which are just as dark).
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Bit late, but most of the sets I buy are constraction, ever since BIONICLE started in 2001 (Though I did buy some medieval/fantasy themed sets during 2005/2007). These days I buy HF (then)/BIONICLE (now), some sets from the "secondary" constraction theme from that year for parts (the so called Ultrabuilds) and some small sets I like (mostly CMFs). Likewise, this year I'm getting most BIONICLE sets, some minifigs and some Star Wars figures (Darth Vader for sure, the first time I buy an Ultrabuild for its design rather its parts).
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I have two Protectors and 5 Toa.I'll complete the Toa with Onua for sure, but I'm not too interested in the Protectors for now..
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I don't think you're overthinking it, it makes sense.For the Hau? Including import and shipping fees, I spent 59 Euro. I justified it as a Christmas present for myself, but I don't think I'm spending so much for a single Lego piece again. :S Yes, my bad. I was talking about the constraction sized lightsabers. I'm pretty sure we're not seeing them outside SW since they're one of the franchise's better known elements.
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That is true. Lego never sells capes either, like Furno XL's for example (I assume it's the same for Fangar's). I guess it's a bit too troublesome to ship them.Also, I found the left wing on BL. Now I'm wondering if I should buy them both or wait for a better price.. 22 Euro for two pieces (non-exclusive ones that is, I spent a small fortune on the clear Hau ) is a bit hard to justify. As for the SW shin armour piece, according to that 4chan anon who supposedly saw the sets, the "Toa Ekimu" set is using it. It looks like a cool piece so I wouldn't mind it appearing again, and the "we can't use pieces from licensed set" policy might not apply: it's certainly not a distintctive element from the franchise, unlike, say, the light saber. And, completely unrelated but: is anyone else curious to try the silver torso bone from the Skull Guys on the Toa (well, except Onua of course, though there's the dark bley torso from Stormer XL that might suit him)? Kopaka and Gali, for example, have far less black in their builds than the other 4, so I'm wondering if a silver torso (which matches the heads, among other things) would suit them.
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That's really odd.. back when they were still in stock, you could buy all of Green Lantern's exclusive bright green parts. Still, I know that rule exists, otherwise I would've already bought from them a few licensed minifigs I really want (and probably a small army of LOTR elves+Thranduil )... and those awesome Smaug wings that I can't find from Bricklink (there's the right one available for 12 euro, but still).
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I got Kopaka last Friday, and wow he's great. My favourite Toa so far, though I'm still missing Onua so that might change. I was planning to mod him a lot, but in the end I just tweaked the weapons, added some details, gave him a white torso shell and made him leaner and taller. There a lot of things that bugged me and I wanted to change but ended up liking once I built the set: the white piston add-ons over the gold shells, the big upper leg shells, the lower legs. Another nice surprise are the stickers: I thought they were grey and black, turns out they're silver and dark blue instead! It's crazy how many concepts the figure manages to combine together flawlessly: a Roman hoplite, a Space Marine, an Inuit hunter and.. well, Kopaka. Honestly one of the best constraction sets in years, or maybe even of all time.
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Gotta say, I might be biased but I think the Italian VA (if that's who I think he is, he's a pretty famous one over here too!) is a lot better than the English one. I originally thought the opposite because he seemed to lack the English narrator's hammy fun in his tone, but he's since grown on me and now I think he sounds more natural and puts emphasis on the right lines (like he did for Kopaka in Ep 7). Also, his Onua lacks the "dumb brute" tone the English VA unfortunately gives him and instead has a more father-like tone to his voice that suits Onua well. Italian Lewa sounds more mischievous and trollish too.
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My Pohatu's boomerangs aren't floppy, but it a lot of it depends on the friction of the pins (which tends to vary quite a bit). Yup, Lewa's skeleton is the best organized one because it perfectly balances black and grey. I like to think of the grey bones as being covered by organic tissue (similar to the purple/gray parts on the movie characters' bodies), while the black (lower limbs, gears, etc) and silver parts (their "skulls") are pure machinery. It's arbitrary, sure, but in my mind it helps conveying the techonorganic nature BIONICLE characters are known for, so I've been modding my sets to follow this idea. In case of transparent limbs, they replace the black ones, like with Gali's and Kopaka's arms. I actually did both things! Tr. bright green on Lewa looks very vibrant and actually pretty close in spirit to his classic lime- what Lewa loses in contrast compared to keetorange and lime (the colour I initially wanted to use, for obvious reasons), he gains in looking more lively and powerful.As for Gali, I went with that mod instead of using one of these in dark bley because I have very few of those as it is- it doesn't help that Lego stopped producing them after Worriz and Gorzan, due to their policy you explained in an earlier post. Also, her and Pohatu are the only Toa without any friction joints, and since I had to use those on Pohatu to make him taller, I thought "why not?" and so I figured using them on Gali would've been nothing but positive. EDIT: Welp, as usual I read my post a few times to check for mistakes, yet I end up having to correct some dumb mistake I had overlooked anyway.
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Isn't he mostly a palette swap of Kozu, minus the extra arms? Still, a cool minifig I'd like to own.
