Aanchir

Wouldn't make for very exciting sets if the heroes didn't have any larger vehicles, would it? Brickset has posted their reviews of the wolf and lion Legend Beasts! Like the other reviews, the impression seems to have been overwhelmingly positive. Quite a turnaround from the initial reactions to the pics! The Wolf Legend Beast remains my favorite and the one I'm looking forward to picking up first.

I kept the shoulders Silver Metallic for two reasons. First of all, I tried Titanium Metallic and everything ended up flowing together far more than I wanted it to. Visually, I felt it was better if the more heavily textured handle pieces and angular shells of the chest area were a different color than the smoother armor that flares up from the shoulders. And Silver Metallic was one of the colors already in the color scheme (just barely, in the visor print) that did not already represent something else within the context of the build. Second, I ran out of Titanium Metallic torso shells. I considered sprinkling some Silver Metallic accents elsewhere in the build as well (like the lower legs), but decided it looked better with just those shells on the shoulders in that color. Your comments here and on deviantART made me curious just how this set measures up to other XL heroes. Naturally it is taller than them in terms of height and weight, but where exactly does it fall relative to other sets in terms of height, weight, and likely price point? It turns out that in terms of height, it's almost exactly the same height as Witch Doctor (if you ignore his spikes) and slightly shorter than the 2008 Takanuva set. Figuring out a likely price point was a trickier challenge. I had initially estimated costs for a model of this sort at between $40 and $50 (based on Pick-A-Brick costs for the individual parts, assuming the cost of a packaged set would be around 1/2 the Pick-A-Brick cost of its components). But it turns out that this estimate might have been high. It turns out that the weight of a model is a very good predictor of its price point, at least in BIONICLE and Hero Factory. While there were three years between the release of Takanuva and the release of Witch Doctor, they have not only the same price point ($30) but almost exactly the same weight. The weight of the $35 Jet Rocka set is not much different either. Therefore, if I had to guess, I'd say this model's cost would be between $30 and $35. "XL" hero sets have always weighed considerably less and been at either the $20 or $25 price point, so it's no wonder they tend to be smaller. Anyway, I've made some slight changes to this model recently. I shortened the lower arms by one module and added a 5M "C" beam between the hand and wrist joint. This not only increases the posability of the hands (which previously collided with the forearm shells at many angles) but also gives the model the ability to easily grip a weapon — it just needs to have Technic handle built from a Technic axle with a ball joint somewhere along its length. This change brings the piece count for the figure itself up to 188 pieces. Now, actually designing a weapon has been a lot more difficult. Designing weapons has never really been my strong suit, and designing a weapon for a figure so tall is an even more daunting challenge than usual. I created an 18-piece giant axe for the figure, but I decided it didn't really suit the character design, the magnetism motif, or the Hero Factory universe. It felt a little bit too "medieval fantasy" and not enough "science-fiction". I came up with a cool 18-piece repulsor shield for her wrist, but I'd still like an offensive weapon for the opposite hand. I don't know where to even begin designing any kind of firearm, like a railgun or EMP cannon, though those would probably be the most suitable sorts of weapons for this kind of character in the Hero Factory universe. I'll take and upload more photos of the complete model once I have some weapons I'm marginally happy with. Sorry I didn't have more to share this time!

It's because that character list does not feature ANY of the figs from the Legend Beast sets. One possible reason for this is that the figs from the Legend Beast sets are just slight variants of the 2013 versions of the characters, rather than brand-new 2014 designs. Seeing what characters have been omitted from sets in the first wave, I'm starting to formulate some guesses about what to expect in the summer. For starters, note that not counting "nomad" characters like Skinnet and Furty, there are now exactly five tribes in the sets that have not gotten Legend Beasts: ravens, rhinos, spiders, scorpions, and bats. So it's possible we might see those five species as Legend Beasts. Additionally, I expect to see Razar and Worriz in playsets in the summer. We have not yet gotten a new design for Worriz, and I guarantee that there's going to be one — especially since the 2014 Laval and Cragger minifigures share a torso decoration with one another, and Worriz and Razar could do the same. All they'd need is a new set of legs.

Yep! Brickset member margot was kind enough to provide pics in this post on the Brickset forums.

Even if so much of the face is exposed and there are no printed eyes, at worst it'll look like a large visor. Also consider the possibility that this helmet in the game trailer might be like the helmets in BIONICLE: The Legend Reborn or some of the other helmets from the HF television series, in which case it would have sections that retract outside of battle scenes.

Could be none of the above. After all, Rocka and Breez also have blue eyes in the trailer, even though Rocka has green eyes and Breez has red eyes in the sets. I think in the episode, all the heroes are likely to have the same bluish eye color. Not sure how this exactly pertains to Hero Factory. Naturally it is a very "boy-oriented" brand, but there was never any issue where a "girl-oriented" brand went to any special lengths to set itself apart from Hero Factory, since there haven't BEEN any girl-oriented constraction sets. Meanwhile, the article manages to miss the point that the new figs for LEGO Friends were created in part because a lot of girls weren't interested in playing with traditional minifigure-based sets, and the LEGO Group NEEDED to create a special figure to convince girls and gift-givers that the toys were "for them". But at any rate, that discussion belongs in a completely different topic.

Neat design! I feel like the way you armored the legs, it will severely hamper the posability of the knees. I could be wrong, of course.

Well, from an in-universe perspective, the lack of immediate follow-up isn't a big deal. But from a storytelling perspective, it makes a much bigger difference. The longer you wait to follow up on an unresolved plot thread, the more fans from back then will lose interest in the theme, and the more new fans will join who weren't around to witness the setup. It was AMAZINGLY ambitious and risky of BIONICLE to wait until 2008 to reveal the answer to its biggest mystery, the true nature of the Great Spirit Mata Nui, and even in that case, the mystery was kept fresh by keeping the Great Spirit a central element of the story in each and every story year. That's a lot different from establishing a mystery/cliffhanger and then not even mentioning it for two years or longer. Not saying I mind the style of storytelling generally used in Hero Factory. It's neat to get a brand-new adventure each year, especially when they let the story dabble in tropes that wouldn't have been applicable to previous story arcs. But at the same time, the story has its share of weaknesses, and the failure to follow up on the mild cliffhanger in "Breakout" in a timely manner is certainly one of them. Only time will tell if that ending WILL be resolved, and if it will have as much of an impact as if it had been resolved more promptly.

Are we still talking about the little gold one with the chainsaws? I think it's unlikely. Surge's set already seems to include Surge, Rocka, and two blue vehicles that combine (a flying machine and a four-legged walker). The smaller, gold Rocka mech is probably going to be an individual $10 set like Evo Walker.

It's an Exo-Force robot arm with a minifigure chainsaw attached. Were you watching the video in 720p? It was very clear to me what part it was when I first watched the video, but maybe I'm just more familiar with that chainsaw part than you are.

Here you go: http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=30286 http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?P=30342 They're four studs wide, about the same size as a Tridax Pod or the boulder from the original Pohatu set. There's no way the jumper will fit in there unless its legs are far more flexible than I think.

Not sure if everyone has seen, but Brickset is steadily reviewing all of the new Legend Beasts, which have apparently showed up for sale in the UK. They have already reviewed the Gorilla, Eagle, and Crocodile Legend Beasts. All three look to be quite nice sets! The Wolf Legend Beast is still probably going to be my first purchase, though. It's maybe my favorite design and has the new joints in quite generous quantities (even though it only has two of the four new joint elements).

I agree that a constraction theme, even a Technic-based constraction theme, would be entirely possible using the Mixels joints. There's no reason that the LEGO Group couldn't design Technic elements based on ball joints this size — in fact, they have already done so. The only things that don't exist currently are Technic parts with the new ball cup design. With that said, I don't know if it could replace the CCBS. There are a lot of things the CCBS gains from its scale, things that I don't think the new ball cups could really match. For instance, these beams each have a ball with guides centered on the beam, with a Technic pin hole running through the center. This is something that the smaller balls used in the Legend Beasts and Mixels will never be able to imitate, whether in Technic or System — they're just too small for any meaningful additional connection points to be added to the ball itself. The structural integrity of the part would be compromised. Naturally, there are some of these advantages of the CCBS that MOCists and designers alike could do without. After all, we did without them for about twelve years before this building system was even introduced. It could also be argued that we have ALREADY seen functionality in constraction sets decrease with no ill effects plenty of times. The Slizer, Roboriders, and Toa Mata sets all had this unique piece in which the ball joint connection could "lock" onto an axle. After this part was retired, no other part was ever introduced to restore this functionality. Still, I think some of these useful features of the CCBS are more valuable than any of those that we've lost over the years. I do not think the CCBS and the Ø10.2mm ball on which it is based are going anywhere anytime soon. But at the same time, it is entirely possible that a new constraction theme could emerge based on the smaller Ø5.9mm ball and ball cup. Or that a constraction theme could emerge using BOTH styles of ball cup, though I doubt that — a video of a workshop involving ADVANCE and the Hero Factory design team had multiple sizes of ball joint listed on a post-it note under the strongly-worded heading "How to f*** up the building system", along with other ideas like "New Shell System" and "No fun elements". In any case, there's no rule that there can only be one action figure building style at a time.

Believe me, I understand that a HF torso beam's neck is often too short for a figure this size. I added an additional joint to the neck of both Kit Martello and her male counterpart. But I feel like attaching a short bone to the current neck joint would make the neck too long relative to the size of the head, and attaching it to either ball joint would make the neck look even skinnier, which is the issue I thought people were referring to when they mentioned concerns about the size of the neck. It's one of the reasons I'm disappointed that the friction joint isn't compatible with the Brain Attack head piece... there are not a lot of ways to increase the length of a figure's neck by just one module when the neck joint is built into the torso beam. In any case, I do not feel like the neck needs to be significantly longer with this current head, and I feel like even if I could make the neck longer, I'd need to come up with a larger head to help compensate. I'm going to keep that possibility on the table, of course, since designing a custom head with a longer neck is much easier than increasing the length of the neck when using a prefab head piece.

I sort of get the gist of what you mean with the chest plate, but it doesn't bother me much. Moving the leg connection to be further forward would require some radical changes since a big part of this skeleton design was based on having a significant bend in the waist. However, the amount the upper body is thrust forward in this first batch of pics was a mistake; the entire body was leaning forward and I didn't notice until after I had posted the pics. You can see if you think my new photos at the bottom of this post make it look any better. It's great to get positive feedback and suggestions from a MOCist of your caliber. I will do my best to keep those suggestions in mind in future MOCs! I don't understand why the legs would need to be longer. I scaled the torso to them very deliberately. A lot of BIONICLE sets and even some Hero Factory sets have ridiculously long legs, and I try to avoid that in my MOCs. I generally use the same rule of thumb that I learned from figure drawing, that being that the crotch should be around the halfway point on a figure's height. Moving the head forward would be rather difficult (believe me, I've tried), and the amount of space between the neck joint and shoulders would look rather awkward when the figure has its head tilted up. The easiest solution would be to simply use a head with a chin further forward than the Brain Attack heads and masks, but I can't manage to find or create any of those in shapes I like and colors that suit this MOC. The "villain core" wouldn't work here; I'll explain why further down in this post. I've experimented with a lot of color schemes for the legs (originally, I had the "kneecap" and the launcher pieces colored the same color as an outer layer of armor), and this is the one that ended up looking the best. If I remove the red from the lower legs entirely then they start to look flat and boring. I've gotten some feedback on Facebook that the red launcher pieces look better in some of my pics of my most recent update/revamp. A black or gunmetal head with red accents was my initial intent, but I wasn't able to cook up anything sufficiently expressive. My most recent update uses a red head with a visor that has silver/titanium metallic printing. I'll post pictures and links below; feel free to tell me what you think. In any case, I'm glad you like the model overall. It really means a lot to hear that from someone who's explored this building system as thoroughly as you have. I do have it constructed, but instead of taking new photos you can see it in this picture I posted to Facebook earlier this year. This is the "first draft" of this model, if you will. Looking at it you can probably see why I didn't consider this design "finished" enough to post on Flickr or Eurobricks. I'm not usually a big fan of elaborate backstories for my MOCs. Usually I come up with a name and maybe a few details like personality and powers and then let people's imaginations handle the rest. If the viewer can visualize a situation where a hero might need claws, after all, then that's probably a lot more convincing for you than any example I could pluck out of my mind and apply to this MOC. The "villain core" piece wouldn't actually work for this. The 8x4 "engine block" shell has some ridges that protrude from the front which would collide with the "side fins" of that piece. The two pieces can only really attach if the "point" of the villain core is facing away from the center of the piece, and that would collide with the shells I used for the chest. I don't mind sets that use that hand style, personally (CHI Worriz is an incredible design), but it wouldn't really work for this MOC. The forearms are just too long for that. The silver Barraki eyes didn't end up working unfortunately. Even if I had enough, they look fine for the fingers but incredibly awkward for the toes (since it makes the toes themselves seem longer rather than just having long claws at the end). And it looks even more awkward to have the tips of the fingers and tips of the toes be different colors, or to have blunt fingertips and pointed toes. Maybe I'll find another solution in the future. Anyway, on to the new pics I kept mentioning! All pictures link to Flickr, where you can find more detailed descriptions: "Oh, look, a mouse" "There, there, mouse" Running Sitting Hope some of these changes make a difference. This almost certainly isn't going to be my last revision, but I feel like adding additional armor to the shoulders made a big difference, once I found a design that worked. I also added some armor to the back of the legs, but I can't take credit for that design — it's shamelessly lifted from the MOC Christoffer Raundahl made that inspired this model's skeleton in the first place.

To be fair, this is probably because reusing simpler faces with neutral expressions is more economical than designing new faces that are more specialized in design or facial expression. A collectible minifigures series has much more of a budget for new parts and decorations than a typical line of sets, so the designs wouldn't have to be borrowed from existing figs or designed with similar reuse in mind. More faces and facial expressions would definitely be a good thing. And I think that's an evolution in fig design we're going to see in time, just as was the case with the development of alternate faces and expressions for traditional minifigures.

Thanks for the feedback! This wasn't originally meant to be a hero character or even a Hero Factory character, but I chose to swap my earlier custom head made from two hero feet with a more expressive helmet. And since I also had a gap in the chest that was the perfect size for a Hero Core, I figured I'd call it a hero. I've contemplated a couple possible solutions for the bestial look. The first is naturally to change the figure back into a villain or neutral character that doesn't necessarily even have anything to do with the HF story. All it'd take is a custom head and something else to place in that small chest cavity. The second is to come up with alternate hand and foot designs. The issue here is that I wouldn't want to lose the articulated fingers and toes. But I've considered possibly changing the color of the hands and feet and swapping the claws for something less bestial like Silver Metallic Barraki eyes. The only thing stopping me from doing that kind of thing right now is that I don't have the parts I need in the right quantities. A tool/weapon is another good suggestion. I tried making one but it was hard to find a design that could be convincingly held in the hand. Perhaps I should try exploring different hand designs. The suggestion about the shoulders is definitely one I'd explore. I had avoided adding any additional armor to the shoulders because I was afraid it would look less feminine, but I suppose raising the neck joint up would solve that problem. And since the main criticism I've gotten of this MOC on other sites has been that the neck is too thin, I could kill two birds with one stone! Thanks so much for giving such detailed suggestions!

Caitlyn Gauss, a magnetism-themed Hero. She stands 12 inches (30 centimeters) tall and uses 168 pieces. Her skeleton is heavily inspired by this MOC of Christoffer Raundahl's which I reverse-engineered back in Spring and has been a work-in-progress for about that long, though it was Pate-Keetongu's Zero-Suit Samus that inspired me to rebuild the model (which I had scrapped for parts) and bring it to a state of completion. All images link to Flickr. Caitlyn has an impressive amount of articulation, as you can see in the following photos. Her shoulders, hips, knees and elbows can all bend well beyond 90 degrees, and she can even stand on her tiptoes. Full Flickr Gallery Since building her, I have swapped the mask for Furno XL's based on feedback from other MOCists, but I don't want to take new photos unless I make some more substantial changes. Anyway, thoughts? I'd really love to get as much feedback as possible because I certainly intend to continue refining and perhaps even completely re-imagining parts of this model. It's easily the largest humanoid model I've ever designed, and I'm sure that in the coming months I can improve it even further.

Wow! Lavertus's Outland Base looks awesome! I love the use of Hero Factory shells and beams. Naturally it's not as big or formidable as the Lion CHI Temple, and it shouldn't be. "Outland Base" to me suggests a smaller, less fortified outpost, and this set delivers on that. Spinlyn looks crazy awesome! Gotta be one of the most elaborate minifigure builds of all time! Interesting though that Scorm seems to be the ONLY character to use that new armor piece.

Well, Hero Factory's story has a much less top-down approach to storytelling in general. In BIONICLE, the story team put a huge emphasis on ensuring everything was part of the same overarching story, with just a few exceptions like certain online games and video games. In contrast, Hero Factory has one main story (told primarily through the TV episodes), and other media like the books and comics are purely supplemental. The comics have contradicted the TV episodes before, such as the sequence of events and the portrayal of the upgrade in the "Ordeal of Fire" comic.

Ah, OK. I understand now. Kind of gets confusing since this year introduced even larger bags for the $20–25 titan sets! I typically refer to sets as small/medium/large, since that can describe the HF sets both before and after the switch to bags (so the classic heroes would be small sets, XPlode and Drilldozer would be medium sets, and Von Nebula/Rotor/Drop Ship would be large sets). Or if I'm referring to a specific year I'll just specify a price point.

The large bag sets ARE titan sets, technically speaking. After all, they're higher than BIONICLE's "canister set" price point, and not just from inflation or price hikes. Splitter Beast, as small a set as it seems, has nearly the same piece count as Nocturn, the smallest BIONICLE "titan". Evo XL Machine has 193 pieces, a higher piece count than Tuma, Icarax, Hydraxon, Gadunka, Umbra, or Nivawk. Of course, these sets ARE each priced $5 higher than comparable BIONICLE titan sets. I imagine the "Queen" will have a piece count somewhere in between, so I think it'll be a large bag set priced at either $20 or $25. Of course, I could be wrong, especially since we don't know what the contents of each set will be — with a "battle in each set", there's even less reason before that each set MUST be just a single figure.

Ghost also used the same character models as Tinseltown Toons/CGCG in the CGI portions of all the 2010/2011 TV commercials. Making things look incredibly different has never been their goal. And that blue hand in the trailer is holding a GOLD hand -- Rocka's. All in all pretty much any sightings of Stringer in the trailer could just as easily be a case of mistaken identity. And no reason to think the flying machine will have clashing colors. Both the upper and lower parts clearly use blue. There's no rule that EVERY machine has to match the pilot. Though blue and gold would have probably looked cool.

But do we KNOW he's in the trailer? We saw some figures that MIGHT be Stringer but never a good enough look at the faces to be 100% certain.

Good point, but personally I have doubts about that. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to make such characters exclusive to a set where they're not the focal point.