Aanchir
-
Posts
11,930 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Everything posted by Aanchir
-
Yes, it's the same Dark Orange color from the 2001 and 2003 Huki/Hewkii sets. And the same dark orange from the 2003 Gukko and Pewku sets, for that matter.
-
The biggest inaccuracies are ones they mentioned in some of the annotations, specifically forgetting his armor on his right shoulder and having his gearbox raised one module too high. Still, it's a pretty good likeness. And the video shows us that yes, his limbs do look pretty much yellow under certain lighting conditions, and the LEGO Group doesn't just use a yellowish color for Tr. Fluorescent Green in renders because they like to trick people. If they thought people would respond better to Tr. Yellow they'd have just used Tr. Yellow to begin with — it's not like it's any more expensive than Tr. Fl. Green.
-
I usually refer to the ones like that with a knee/elbow joint as "upper limb beams" and the ones with a regular ankle/wrist joint at the end as "lower limb beams". Even though some sets like Pohatu use "lower limb beams" for their upper limbs, and some sets like XT4 use "upper limb beams" for their lower limbs, I find that when I use those terms people usually know what I'm talking about (the same way people will know what you mean by "Rahkshi lower leg" even though it's been used for upper arms on sets like Makuta or Roodaka). Officially, the LEGO Group calls the style with a ankle/wrist joint "Beam A 5M" and the style with a knee/elbow joint "Beam B 5M". The one with a ball cup on each end is Beam C 5M. These kinds of terms are kind of unwieldy, so I sometimes rearrange them a little and call them "A" beams, "B" beams, and "C" beams. But using terms like that, average LEGO fans still won't know what you're talking about unless you provide a link or description. So it's not always too useful in online discussions.
-
It's kind of funny you'd say that since Lord of Skull Spiders offers the best price per piece of any of the new sets. I can see where you're coming from, though. Comments like this highlight the difference between people who enjoy BIONICLE sets as Technic parts packs and people who enjoy them as characters or action figures.
-
That is incorrect. It's possible that the old joints don't crack as often on CCBS parts as on older parts — no easy way for me to test that — but it certainly hasn't stopped some of my Glatorian heads from the Breakout series from cracking from ordinary assembly and disassembly.
-
Pretty much, though it's not really that unusual when you think about it. The sets are priced according to their complexity. The new Toa are around 20 cents per piece, same as the original Toa Nuva or Toa Inika were. It's just that their designs have gotten more complex, and thus use considerably more pieces than Toa used to. Also, in the past few years of Hero Factory, heroes and villains would mostly be split between the $10 and $13/$15 price points. But Hero Factory didn't really have any secondary characters like Matoran or Protectors. Putting the Protectors at the $10 price point pushes the main heroes (the Toa) up to the $15 and $20 price points.
-
The Mata Nui Online Game is the only BIONICLE game whose soundtrack ever really stuck with me, but then again, it's also one of the only BIONICLE games I ever really enjoyed extensively. I much prefer adventure games to action games in general, and even so there are not too many games that I've enjoyed playing all the way through multiple times. Mata Nui Online Game is one of those. In general, I think there are plenty of directions that a BIONICLE soundtrack could take. All I hope is that whatever soundtrack we eventually get will have a uniquely BIONICLE flavor, and won't just feel like generic orchestral adventure story music. Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, and LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu have all had beautifully distinctive soundtracks that use Asian rhythms and instrumentation to define their universes. And The LEGO Movie had a soundtrack with a sound that suited the slightly "janky" stop-motion look that defined it. The music of the BIONICLE movies was definitely memorable, but it never felt as perfectly suited to its universe to me as any of these did. It was a sound that could perhaps have belonged to any number of fantasy adventure stories such as The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia. Back in 2001, BIONICLEmusic.com offered us this beautiful description: "The music of BIONICLE is a mixture of the mystical and the mechanical. Like the Toa, it blends the power of high technology with a raw elemental force." This inherent dichotomy between fantasy and futuristic science-fiction, immediately visible with just a glimpse of the robotic-looking heroes amidst naturalistic island settings, was hardly noticeable in the BIONICLE movie soundtracks. I can't help but hope that the BIONICLE media for 2015 can carve out a musical identity right from the beginning that it will then be able to stick with for the long haul.
-
I don't see anything that's "unquestionably a lighting setup". The only reflections I see are reflections of other parts of the model, like how her left knee is reflected on her right foot. Anyway, that image is DEFINITELY a render, because the axles of her weapon are attached to her right hand at an impossible angle.
-
And now he also has a silver spear. My point is that colored tools weren't something that just disappeared as soon as silver became the standard, and that Kopaka's shield in particular is a tool that's basically always been white.
-
I don't exactly see what's wrong with his shield. It's definitely not a very traditional-looking shield, but I still feel like it is hard to mistake for anything other than a shield. If you want to make it even more realistically shield-like in shape, there's an easy solution — just assemble it the same way as Tahu's Lava Surfboard. This results in an ovoid shield rather than his traditional circular shield, but it's still pretty effective IMO. I suppose the main reason the designers didn't do this is to make Kopaka's shield and Tahu's lava surfboard feel less repetitive. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the shield being white either, since it is the only new tool in a character's primary color, but bear in mind that Kopaka's shield stayed white even after his Toa Nuva transformation, unlike all the other Toa Nuva's tools which became silver. So it's not like the Toa Mata were the ONLY Toa with colored tools — rather, Kopaka had one even in a series when silver tools were still a defining gimmick! I definitely like the spear, since a spear and a shield feels every bit as natural as a sword and a shield, and yet this way his tools and Tahu's feel less redundant than if they had both been sword-wielders. In general, I think that the tool choices for the Toa are quite good, and I like that some of them use the same molds as one another. It forces the designers to both design the molds with more versatility to begin with and use them more creatively than if each tool mold had been custom-tailored for a particular use and a particular character.
-
The shield connection could be fixed without much difficulty just by using one of these.
-
To me that looks like Brick Yellow (regular tan). Dark Tan is Sand Yellow.
-
It's those for sure. You can see in some of the pics from this album. I was just trying to build Lord of Skull Spiders on LDD, but it has an insane amount of confusing pivot points as well as a lot of interior detail that is hard to infer from any of the photos I've seen. So I've hit a bit of a dead end for right now. A little bit frustrating, since with what I've figured out so far I'm "only" 20 or 30 parts from the set's part count! Lord of Skull Spiders continues to prove something that has been sort of a given since the BIONICLE theme began — the more basic Technic and fewer specialized constraction parts a set uses, the better its price per piece tends to be. There are exceptions, of course — the Toa Mahri had the best PPP of any Toa team on average, more on account of their Cordak ammo and other small detail parts than using a lot of basic Technic (and also that they were underpriced, all things considered — there's a reason that the 2009 canister sets had a three-dollar price hike despite not being measurably larger or more complex). But there's a reason why the larger BIONICLE sets (and now, Lord of Skull Spiders) came close to that AFOL-preferred value of ten cents per piece, while canister sets were usually pretty lucky to hit a value of twenty cents per piece.
-
This isn't necessarily all that new, and it's definitely rarer than it used to be. The Toa Mata and Toa Nuva back in 2001 and 2002 often had articulation on the package art that the actual sets lacked, such as articulated knees, elbows, hips, waists, and necks. Obviously this kind of creative license is OK in animations, and I'd even argue it's sometimes OK on a product's package — but not necessarily as the main image. They're great posters! I only have the Gali and Onua ones. They're not that small... 17 inches tall by 11 inches wide is not huge as far as posters are concerned, but it's bigger than the "posters" that came with the Toa Mata sets back in 2001, and depending on how many you get, they could take up quite a bit of space on your wall (there were seven or eight posters total). It's up to you if you think you want them. Not sure what kind of price they go for online. To be honest, that was one of my big questions when I discovered that the sets would be different sizes and price points. But to be honest, I think the LEGO Group should be able to give the characters similar relative sizes without necessarily keeping them all at the same price points they're at now. I mean, as far as proportions are concerned, Tahu and Kopaka are not THAT much taller than Gali or Lewa. Changing their armor could allow you to raise or lower their price point. Onua's a slightly trickier case, but it's not like there's never been a $15 set with similar proportions. CHI Gorzan had a longer torso and shorter legs, but his chest and shoulders were around the same width as Onua's. He lacked a complex gearbox, so did the other $15 Legends of Chima constraction sets, but that didn't stop the 87-piece Gali from having roughly the same price and proportions as the 55-piece CHI Laval. Also, on the subject of the Legends of Chima constraction sets, I think those do a good job showing that the LEGO Group can "upgrade" a character in a meaningful way without raising their complexity or price point. The 2014 versions of CHI Laval and CHI Cragger feel like a definite upgrade from the 2013 versions, despite slightly lower piece counts (mostly due to Laval's simplified claws and Cragger's simplified weapon), slightly reduced height, and the CHI Laval set already having elegant gold armor in the 2013 version.
-
Pohatu and Onua are roughly 23 modules tall (slightly shorter than a Toa Metru, and close to the same height as most of the original Toa Nuva). They are the shortest two members of the team, in accordance with the 2001 and 2002 sets. Gali and Lewa are both roughly 25 modules tall (taller than most of the Toa Metru, shorter than Nokama and Nuju). Kopaka is 26 modules tall (roughly the height of Toa Metru Nokama and Nuju, or Toa Mahri Hahli). Tahu is 27 modules tall (roughly the height of Toa Iruini, slightly shorter than a Toa Inika). The average height is only slightly taller than the average height of the Toa Metru, and if Tahu were one module shorter they'd have exactly the same average height.
-
Not entirely. A news outlet should not expect perfection from their audience. If people are not understanding those kinds of disclaimers, they need to be clearer or be given better emphasis. Repetition helps. There's a reason many TV news stories will say before AND after that it's a developing story and details are still a bit unclear. News reporting is an imperfect science, but accountability is key. I'm impressed with how receptive the TTV members here were to my criticisms right away. Listening to your audience and reacting accordingly is a sign of integrity. But, as I mentioned above, correcting mistakes after they go to press is harder and less reliable than taking greater care to avoid them in the first place.
-
Don't get me wrong. I admire TTV for their role in bringing information to a very large part of the fan community. I just think they should hold themselves more accountable for the accuracy of their reporting. I'm frankly getting fed up with having to correct misinformation that originates with them. If you think "misplacing some gears" and then talking at length about how much friction the misplaced gears add isn't misleading, you are wrong. I've already seen a comment on BZPower specifically talking about the tightness of the gear function as reported in that video. Everybody makes mistakes. But mistakes made by a YouTube channel with a huge and trusting audience have a much bigger impact than mistakes made by an average joe on a message board. And as such, people running extremely popular YouTube channels that people rely on for news have a much greater responsibility to their audience than a typical message board commenter. Especially since it's much easier to prevent misinformation in the first place than it is to clean up the mess. Adding a footnote in the video description is closing the barn door after the horses have bolted. For starters, I am fully aware of the many disadvantages of YouTube videos as a news source. I prefer providing information (and OBTAINING information) in text form whenever possible, which is part of why I don't like watching video reviews much in the first place. Besides that, I'd much rather be the last person with a scoop than beat everybody else to the punch with incorrect information. My brother has been working on LDD models of the sets for weeks now, but the main reason he hasn't shared them is because he hasn't worked out all the faults with 100% certainty. Some of you might remember how delayed my New York Toy Fair coverage was in 2012. Journalism is in my blood, but timeliness is not. EDIT: One more thing. I am not competitive by nature. I'd much rather report news to an established news source like BZP News, The Brick Fan, The Brothers Brick, or yes, even TTV than try to compete with them.
-
I have to sort of agree here. I understand that TTV exists in large part for entertainment. However, considering how many people evidently DO go there expecting reliable news, I think it would be best if TTV in general were to work on improving their journalistic standards. It's inevitable that misinformation will still spread through other channels, but a single random comment on a message board is a much smaller problem. When you have an extremely large and trusting audience, you bear some responsibility for earning that audience's continued trust. On TTV, information and misinformation alike spreads a lot faster than it often does through other channels. Some of the TTV interviews at NYCC, for example, included somewhat leading questions that resulted in somewhat misleading answers. Asking if the BIONICLE reboot is like the Star Trek reboot assumes the interviewee knows the twist in the first rebooted Star Trek film, and not just that the movie depicts a new continuity with new versions of Spock, Kirk, and the rest of the crew. People on various sites such as Facebook, deviantART, Tumblr, Twitter, etcetera are now telling others that the new universe is a soft reboot/alternate universe with ties to the old universe, even without any solid evidence to suggest that. Also, it's worth noting that YouTube is not like a text-based review or news report on a site like BZPower or BS01. If you make a mistake, it is very difficult to correct it effectively. A written addendum on a YouTube video is only a half-solution, because a lot of YouTube viewers might not read the descriptions out of habit. This means it is that much more critical to get the details right the first time.
-
I really dislike all the errors... I know they acknowledge that possibility at the beginning, but it still feels a bit disingenuous treating this as a "set review" when there are both minor and major inaccuracies to the actual set. Specific flaws: the small gears are the wrong design and color. The way they have his back armor/tail attached should use this piece, not a perpendicular connector and friction pin/axle like they used. The Dark Stone Grey 2M Technic beams in this picture should instead be the new 1M circle pin bushings also seen in Medium Stone Grey in one of the Ultra Agents sets next year. And consequently, the connectors should be this new 3M pin from this year rather than regular 2M pins and axles. Worst of all, they complained at length about the gears rubbing up against his neck, which is NOT a real problem because there should not be ANY small gears behind his neck! That's the entire reason he has the small gears in his shoulders — ones behind his neck would INEVITABLY collide with the neck joint, so they were moved. The same applies to Kopaka, whose gearbox is also raised (albeit not as high as Lewa's). All the other Bright Green constraction parts can be seen in the inventories for Green Lantern and The Joker. Flame Yellowish Orange has been in more sets, but not a lot of constraction parts overall. 8x5 torso shells, 6M shells, 8M shells, and Savage Planet "paw pieces" are the main shell designs to exist in this color prior to 2015. Other Flame Yellowish Orange pre-2015 CCBS parts include 7M beams from Jetbug and the 2.0 Hero head, 3M spike details, and curved claws from Stringer 3.0. I think that's everything...
-
To be honest, the 2.0 Hero feet don't bother me much. Certainly not as much as the way so many later BIONICLE feet had giant protruding heels. I think they're a great fit for many figures, especially larger ones (26 to 28 modules tall) like the new Tahu and Kopaka. If we get a new foot that can replace the 2.0 hero foot then that's all well and good, but in most cases I'd prefer parts that satisfy a new niche versus ones that simply take the place of current parts. The feet from the Invasion from Below beasts were a good example. Both designs had a more "creature-like" look than the basic hero feet, plus the potential for articulated toes. And the smaller feet in particular provide an option for Matoran-sized models like the new Protectors. An option for smaller feet that are less creature-like could be cool, but preferably one that complements (not completely replaces) the current feet.
-
What you talkin' 'bout? Strakk was one of the best Glatorian. He had a delightfully non-traditional posture built mostly from existing pieces. His shoulder armor and weapon were indeed ridiculously overspecialized (faults he shared with Vastus from the Glatorian Legends series), but as far as his build was concerned, he was brilliantly creative. Strakk's interesting design is actually one of the things I kind of liked about Tarix, since Tarix felt like what a Glatorian with the same armor style but a more conventional physique would look like. Admittedly, being the more "normal" version of a set that was chiefly impressive for breaking from the typical design standards isn't much of a selling point, but speaking as an artist it was kind of cool to be able to draw Tarix and Strakk as "variations on a theme".
-
Well, you can sort of see on my MOC from the event. It doesn't really cover the toe at all (though, in fairness, I don't think kicking with your toe is good form in most sports anyway). I definitely don't think it looks awful, but it's up to you whether you think it'd work for Pohatu. The Brain Attack head is slightly different than the Glatorian head. It has a handle in the back that you can clip things to (which was used in the Brain Attack sets for the heroes' visors), it has a cross axle hole in the front (too high up to work that well for most Kanohi masks, though), and its "face" doesn't stick forward as far. I put "face" in quotation marks because as with the Toa Inika head, there really isn't any actual molded "face" — it is a mostly smooth design. This makes it more useful than the Glatorian head as a general building element (makes great toes or fingertips), but less useful as a face for MOCs that don't have it covered with a helmet. Anyway, there was a discussion going on on BZPower about the possibility of Toa Kaita. A lot of people seemed to think it'd be a tremendous challenge to make a really large or imposing Kaita with the parts of the Toa sets, particularly since the new sets are based on the CCBS. It was a challenge I was willing to embrace. My brother and I spent the past two days putting together concepts for Akamai and Wairuha. They each stand about two inches taller than the tallest Toa used in their construction (Tahu and Kopaka, respectively), and their physiques are inspired by the hypermasculine build of Akamai Nuva and the more effeminate build of Wairuha Nuva. Wairuha uses two gearboxes, Akamai three. Once the sets are actually out I'll be able to get these designs to more of a finished state, filling out the back and sides and using the new parts for weapons and beefier armor.
-
One of the things I've wanted for quite a while would be some type of symmetrical shell that can snap to the lowest ball joint on a torso beam and act as a "codpiece" so that it's easier to create custom armor for a model's upper body without leaving the lower body completely bare. A shell like that could also be used on other parts of a model, such as arms or legs.
-
This would definitely be pretty awesome. I can do without it, but I wouldn't complain one bit if articulated hands were introduced. I know I should get my mind out of the gutter, but when I hear "male–male bone" I don't think of LEGO pieces. :P JayWalker, that's a great torso concept! There are definitely a lot of ways to integrate waist articulation into a set or MOC with current parts, though I can sort of see why the LEGO Group doesn't bother. Waist articulation can make a model more expressive for sure, but it also means the upper and lower body have to be armored separately, and sometimes it gives a model a hard time supporting its own weight (Pridak, the sole BIONICLE canister set with waist articulation, has been heavily criticized for this). Also, if the waist itself isn't armored, the resulting model can look kind of scrawny. In general, it's easier to avoid it — I don't think it's something that the younger builders in the LEGO Group's target audience are clamoring for the way they would have been for knee, elbow, and neck articulation in the early days of BIONICLE. I should try coming up with some articulated torso designs of my own. I have done a lot of doodles like that on LEGO Digital Designer in the past, though I've never gotten a result I'm totally happy with, in part because I'm a bit preoccupied with making it work with current torso shells (which probably shouldn't even be on my radar at this point).
-
Fluorescent colors are called such because they glow brightly under ultraviolet light. Since most natural and artificial light includes some ultraviolet light, this means they glow under a lot of different lighting conditions. Colors that aren't fluorescent generally only glow brightly when lit from above or behind. The orange and lighter green eyepieces from the Toa Metru were indeed fluorescent — their official names are Transparent Fluorescent Reddish Orange and Transparent Fluorescent Green. They're the two oldest transparent fluorescent colors, originating in early 90s Space sets. The light blue ones were Transparent Light Blue, which is not a fluorescent color. This is the same color that will be used for Tahu, Kopaka, and the Protectors of Fire, Ice, and Stone in the 2015 BIONICLE range. There does still exist a fluorescent light blue color called, appropriately, Transparent Fluorescent Blue. It was used for sets like Kopaka, Turaga Nuju, Kopaka Nuva, Kazi, and Toa Inika Matoro. The blue Glatorian heads and the visors of the Toa Mahri and Phantoka are also Transparent Fluorescent Blue. Back in 2001 BIONICLE, all the Toa and Turaga except Onua and Whenua had fluorescent colors for their eyes. I've even discovered some Element IDs in the LEGO Group's replacement parts database that suggest Onua's Transparent Green eyes were the last color the LEGO Group introduced for the Toa Mata's eyes — before that, it seemed like the designers might have been considering Phosphorescent White (classic glow-in-the-dark) as an eye color, which would have made sense for the tunnel-dwelling Onua and Whenua. Unfortunately, Transparent Fluorescent Red (Tahu's original eye color) and Transparent Fluorescent Yellow (Gali's original eye color) have both been discontinued for many years, and were never used for much other than BIONICLE eyes. But on the plus side, two newer colors (Transparent Bright Orange, introduced in 2004, and Transparent Bright Green, introduced in 2010) are both fluorescent, even though it's not mentioned in their names. So there are technically still as many fluorescent colors on the palette as there were in 2001 — it's just that now, two of them are orange and two of them are green, so there's not as much to be gained from using all five as eye colors. For me, the best way to sum up the difference between fluorescent and non-fluorescent LEGO colors is that fluorescent ones look more "glowy", while non-fluorescent ones look more "glassy". I think a "glowy" look is preferable as far as eye colors are concerned, especially because with the shadow of a mask over top, the eye colors don't really stand out at all unless they're glowing.
