If you can trust in one thing then it’s people being around who don’t.
Of course this entire thing will only affect Helryx, Artakha and Tuyet (as far as I’ve understood it). The thing is, though, heads are important, the most important thing in a MOC. So I’d expect a good-looking head/mask, even if one knows it won’t become definite canon, to still subconsciously influence votes. A good head can distract from other things enough to influence the average voter, I believe.
From what @Racie02 just pointed out again, I kinda find it unfair that regardless of what the MOC does, the drawing will be the definite canon, though. Like, I’m not against 2D artists also be given a chance to do something, but if the most important part of the MOC isn’t defined by the MOC, why even build a MOC?
Of course you could again say that an artwork keeping relatively close to the MOC’s head design might have better chances due to it feeling more familiar, but basically there are only two outcomes here:
a) MOC and artwork look completely different (at least on first glance a simple head design will manage that) - why have a MOC then?
b) MOC and artwork look similar - why have artwork then?
Honestly, rules for this contest could be so simple - only MOCs, only official unmodified Lego parts, go.
Has it officially been said that only 2D artwork is admissible for the mask contests? I can’t recall if that’s true or not…
I sympathize with your point, but I do think it is necessary to separate mask contests from MOC contests. Since, as you say, masks are such an important aspect of a character, and these characters in question have no official design for their masks, combining the mask and MOC contests means that when you vote on a Helryx MOC, you’re voting both for what Helryx looks like and what the Mask of Psychometry looks like, meaning that the winning entrant is “deciding” two important aspects of the canon at once. Which isn’t ideal.
Honestly, even though I’m mostly concerned with undesigned masks, I wouldn’t be opposed to having polls for characters whose masks we don’t know, just so the community can have a say in that as well. But we do run the risk of expanding things too much, as @Ghid has said, and drawing out these contests interminably.
There are always going to be things that aren’t perfect, but I think it’s important that masks of unknown shape be kept separate from character MOCs.
The rules on colour and decoration seem inconsistent.
If a piece can be painted a different colour but not cut because cutting is irreversible, then why the prohibitions on stickers? Stickers can easily be removed. If it’s to maintain any custom coloured/decorated pieces being kept to one tone (8e. only monotone paintjobs are allowed) that makes sense, but does that also mean official Lego stickers are also excluded?
If a piece can be painted a colour it’s not available in or made that colour in LDD/stud.io then why is photoshopping a piece into a different colour not allowed? How is someone using photoshop to change some colour any more an expression of artistic skill, as alleged, than someone’s ability to paint a piece well or their ability to use a program like stud.io?
This is exactly why the order should be reversed. The mask contest should come before the moc contest so that it can’t be a factor for the moc itself. I thought this was the one thing that was unanimous among all the various arguments for breaking up the contest into this and that in the last thread. So I’m surprised that TTV bothered to break up the mask from the moc, but then reversed the order. Is there an official explanation of the intention behind this?
I had to take a break for a day because I suppose when you give an inch, you lose a mile.
The MOC contest and the Mask contests are separate for characters with known masks but unknown mask appearances… You will choose what Helryx looks like first, then what the mask looks like afterwards. As per the first post:
For the sake of satisfying my own curiosity, and not to start another debate, was there a particular reason you guys chose to hold the MOC contests first and then the mask contest, rather than the other way around, as discussed above? Or was there really just not enough difference between the two options for the order to matter?
Yup, it was because of feedback from different fan groups and the many posts. We didn’t want to go that direction, but we’re not reversing it at this point.
Sorry again for asking another question, but is it alright if we change the colour of a character slightly? I don’t have any teal coloured CCBS armour shell piece for Arthaka so I wanted to use translucent blue pieces. Is that ok?
I’ll echo what Var said earlier, which is the general stance:
As an update, we are going to be discussing a few key points brought up over the last few days, so expect updates on 2D art vs. 3D art and MOC entry instructions. Things are a tad slower since Meso and I are still pretty busy trying to work with folks, and I still have a video due for release on May 1st that will demand a lot of work and attention.
Personally speaking, I think any entries not adhering to the given description of a character should be automatically disqualified - because the description is already canon, so we shouldn’t even consider an entry that doesn’t follow it.
That being said, though, there’s of course a certain tolerance in that regard. Artakha being sand green only means that the depiction needs a certain amount of sand green on it. What’s there beyond that is entirely up to the builder and what the voters like.
As an example, take Ancient:
There’s not actually that much gold on him when you take his whole build into account (6 pieces plus Rhotuka?). Yet if someone described him to me as a “golden armored being” I’d nod and say yeah, that’s fair enough.
Just to give my opinion on aesthetics, and making it fit into the G1 visual style:
I completely agree with the fact that the G1 aesthetic is quite inconsistent as a whole, but each phase of the story did kind of have its own style. In my opinion, depictions of these chosen characters should adhere to the year it was introduced. For example, a character first introduced in 05 should look like it could have released in 05. Using occasional parts from later years is fine if you want to use a weapon from say 08 (that can easily be put down to Lego designing one or two new molds for this character), but it definitely shouldn’t be an inika build if it was a character introduced before 2006.
That’s just how I feel about it; I don’t expect many to agree, but I think these are the kind of restrictions that give contests more of an interesting challenge and the Bionicle world feeling that little bit more coherent.
Just saw the update to the rules regarding masks, thank you for reconsidering your position on this. I think what you’ve implemented so far are fair and sensible conditions and will definitely benefit a lot of potential entrants into these contests.
I really see this as a positive move, so thank you for taking my and others’ feedback onboard. I’ve had my reservations but I hope this is the beginning of a series of engaging and fruitful contests for all involved. Thank you.
EDIT: Also if we need to declare it before June 1st, I’m in the early stages of producing some mask designs myself. While they’re still a way off they will likely be available for some of these contests, so I would like to state that I give full permission for them to be used in entries.
Any modification of retired parts contributes to making the stock smaller.
Also 3d printed parts in one way make limitless creativity, but on the other it’s an easy shortcut, while designing a mask and weapon from existing pieces really shows craftsmanship.
Also, winners should be obliged to provide an instruction, we don’t want a situation, where we have to build canon DH, or Miserix purely from a picture…
I suppose that existing descriptions should be consider as clues rather than restrictions. For example Artakha, which we know from descriptions is gray and green over 3m tall giant so to me if someone build mostly green being or mostly gray beeing or use silver insted of gray, or add some red accent pieces to make his creation more visually interesting everything is perfectly fine. Also sometimes you have a great shape designed but there is no existing piece in that particular color (green or gray in this case) it is better to me to use it even in orange and later add some orange accents to the armour (accents, not making whole Artakha orange of course) than painting pieces, which is kind of fraud and sign of lazyness (according to situation like this: the competition, or similar) because there is always a way to circumvente the problem.
I don’t know if this is negotiable at this point, but as one of the earliest Bionicle fans to 3D print and distribute custom masks I take some issue with the rules of this contest. The rules state that if a 3D printed piece is to be used by someone “they’ll need to provide a link to the free source for the piece. If one does not exist, the piece may not be used”. I think this is a mistake and will greatly limit the quality of the submissions. For example, I’ve had several people approach me about using my toa Hagah masks (pictured below), but in order to do that I would need to forfeit selling their masks on my Shapeways, which I have been doing for years. This is a silly requirement in my opinion, because even real Lego pieces cost money. Even if I made the 3D model free, that still requires someone to purchase a 3D printer and filament. Having the model for sale on Shapeways is simply providing that service for a price which actually allows access to the models for more people who can’t afford their own 3D printer.
I propose a slight modification to the rules. As I see it, I should be making the design be creative commons, NOT the model. In other words, I would be allowing anyone else to use the mask designs in their own art or even allow them to make and sell their own models. That way the design can be given to the community, while still allowing 3D modelers to continue selling their models as they always have.
