What about the Usage of masks from characters who aren’t established to have “masks”? For example, say i use Hydraxon’s mask piece as Bomonga’s mask of Growth; would that mean Hydraxon now wears a mask of Growth?
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Not necessarily, there’s such things as certain masks being shaped like other masks, right?
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Well if you look to Krakua, he is supposed to be wearing a Suletu but only wears a Hau because we didn’t have a substitute. There are times in the past where we have had to do substitutes and it doesn’t retroactively change anything, it just means we have to use our imagination.
Gonna have to strongly disagree with you, chief (as well as the other guys who were arguing the same).
I’ve already argued in a prior post (linked down below, you can examine it for the full argument) why I think using such distinctive pieces such as G2 or HF masks or distinctive armor, or certain weapons pieces would be a disservice to those themes since it would be raiding them for pieces for the sake of supplying G1 for parts. But let me explain why aesthetically it wouldn’t work.
From the beginning, the whole argument against CCBS has been centered around a central fear that integrating CCBS or non-Bionicle pieces would result in models that don’t feel like they belong in G1. This is a very valid concern. The Mask of Creation, much as the Mask of Control, for example, has G2 runes and language inscribed on it that has no place in G1.
Your argument is that using the Hero helmets would be a fun way to fill out more masks for Agori/Glatorian tribes. To that point, the helmets, at least for the first wave of heroes, attach the same way, and are colored similarly.
But that’s really all they have in common with the Agori masks. Closer inspection indicates that there are distinctive differences between the HF first wave masks (differences that are expanded upon in later waves) that would not lend themselves well to representing Agori or Glatorian masks.
The 2009 helmets all have an aesthetic derived from Greco-Roman military or gladiatorial designs, inspired by ancient helmets of ancient Mediterranean or Middle-Eastern origins. Much like the names of the characters themselves (Stronius, Metus, Atakus, Malum, etc) the distinctive pieces themselves are intended to evoke a particular feel, one of a civilization which, despite having once been a civilization of technology well beyond our own, somehow it has reverted to a state of seeming antiquity.
Further investigation reveals similar comparisons. Often, the helmets have extensions or spikes that point backwards. Often the mouth-guard is absent. There is a reason why the designers did not build any sets with Kanohi or helmets from prior years; the wave was meant to be something completely unique.
On the other hand, the HF first wave was likewise attempting to do its own thing. Only twice out of all the heroes and villains released that year were helmets reused from G1–Von Nebula and the Drop Ship, and that was out of simple necessity since they’d already designed so many new molds, as well as the fact those were two masks that were generic enough and broke away from their years’ standards that they could pass for helmets in this new world.
But if you look at all the hero masks, you get your own set of common themes–similar mouth guards that can come down or be rotated above the head; antennae on the sides of the head; mechanical, metallic shapes; robotic expressions; aerodynamic vents; and whatever else. Not to mention the helmets are intended to highlight the personalities of the Heroes they’re associated with–it’s why their appearances reoccur throughout the line.
If you take any of those helmets out of their context and apply them to 2009, it completely upends the feel and environment the designers were going for.
I don’t know if you ever watched the designer videos they released when promoting the Toa in G2 (or the G2 artbook for that matter), but on the walls behind them there were many iterations of designs for the respective masks of the Toa–some centered around cyber feels, primitive feels, etc. Each year, they do it again and again, brainstorming exactly what they want each of these helmets to look like. Helmets for Heroes or Toa, especially, get thorough consideration, and every detail on these masks or helmets is a deliberate design choice. I don’t know about you, but I strongly recommend seriously considering whether such design clashes are worth sporting in Bionicle.
I could make the same arguments about the other examples you list.
My prior argument on the subject, defending the same argument from a slightly different angle:
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Fair enough
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Will entries made before the contests be allowed? Regardless of what the verdict is, I intend to change some of my mocs but it would be nice to know the goalposts in advance, especially since there’s been some debate over the matter.
Hope everyone’s doing alright, especially with the coronavirus outbreak still at large! 
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Personally, since it seems that this movement will almost certainly pass, I think the next logical step would be to take all these individual points of contention and put them in separate topics and polls for people to discuss and vote over. Heck, some people voted yes on an assumption that whatever they’re envisioning as the rules would be automatically instituted. I think it would be foolish to arbitrarily apply rules without letting the various sides hash their discussions out for a little while to the point of hammering some sort of compromise. (Doesn’t have to be another whole month, just enough that those who have vested interests have had their say and hopefully have reached an agreement–having one big topic like this with points getting buried under shifting topics doesn’t lend itself well to that, unfortunately.) Without any sort of discussion, and by just letting a small group of people apply rules over it, I think that it is inviting further contention.
And I very much respect TTV and what they’re doing here, and am content to let them facilitate this (they’re very clearly gauging public opinion and hearing out all the sides, and at present, I’ve come to trust them to do it well), but I fear that if they’re too hasty or premature in making one decision or another, it will hurt a lot of feelings.
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Here is BS01’s list of (significant) characters without visual depictions. Sorry guys, the Winged Female Member isn’t important enough to make the cut. 
Anyway I’m curious to learn which characters in that list people would find interesting, relatively uncontroversial subjects for a contest. (Of course this topic will close super soon, so this is too late for people to actually respond…) For example The Recorder could be cool.
And just a little late…
Nah I don’t think so, but from what I remember a lot of people (myself included) pictured Tobduk with black and gunmetal armor.
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I, for one, would like to see.
- Orde or Varian, preferably Varian
- Artakha
- Naho
- Charia
- Helryx
- Tuyet (though she will probably be just like the rest of the Mangai and be metru builds)
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I wanna see:
- That av-matoran who made the Toa Canisters
- That po-matoran on the Mahri Nui council who had Defilak make the submarine.
- That Toa of plasma Zaktan ate.
- That Toa of sound on lesovikk’s team.
- That one Toa from Jovan’s team who wore the Mask of life.
- That Vortixx who helped The Shadowed One find Kojol’s viruses.
- Bingzak.
- And of course: winged female Order Member. If she isn’t given a contest, I’ll unsubscibe from TTV.
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I’ve got some bad news then. =P
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Nonsense. The Toa Nuva needed her message to progress the plot.
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Winged female Order of Mata Nui member id definatey more significant than Kabrua or Naho yet they still make the cut for BS01’s list.
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Just letting everybody know that we’re going to be extending the poll for another week. We don’t want there to be any room for doubt, so feel free to share it around and remind people to vote even if they’re not a part of our community. We’ll be promoting this some more in the next week.
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Alrighty! Another week works for me.
Especially since I got into bionicle at the tail end of 2009 and I never new about these contests till recently. I personally can’t wait to see a resurgence of Bionicle mocs and see how cool they are. Besides, I think a lot of g2 fans are becoming g1 fans more and more as time goes on, so I can’t wait to see what the more… fresh fans have in store!
Also, ccbs really does need to be included imo. Especially the smaller ccbs parts. The shear pose ability ccbs provides is great, especially for smaller characters such as Matoran/Agori. And for Toa, the smallest ccbs joint is perfect for giving them pose able necks. It also allows for the designer to be much more capable of showing personality without using system as much imo. Plus, normal ccbs shells are quite similar to inika leg armor. Two peg holes at one side, sides that move downward, and an attachment in the center. In addition, ccbs shells fit way to snugly into metru and visorak legs to be a coincidence, granted as long as you use a t bar. But I have a feeling that older versions of the part had pin holes for testing, given that g1 parts were still being made during ccbs’s development. Anyway it’s is all just my opinion though.
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Wow, I have not checked this in a while.
I guess the last thing I want to be let known before this comes to a close, and this is an expansion on a few points I made earlier, is that there are two types of characters I think should not be involved in MOC contests.
a. Characters who we practically already know the look of outside mask and colors. This pretty much applies to the Hagah and Mangai. Mask design or art contests would be fitting for these characters, but MOCs would end up all looking pretty samey if we wished to keep them in line with the other members of their teams.
And on the opposite end of the spectrum:
b. Characters we know hardly anything about when it comes to physical details. This includes Marendar and the Great Beings. GBs I’m less worried about because people seem to agree they shouldn’t be touched but the Marendar hasn’t been treated the same and that worries me. Marendar we pretty much only know that he’s somewhat taller than a toa, and even that’s really vague. If there’s a contest for him, whoever wins is given a lot of power over his depiction, more so than any other character, as we have at least a little bit of solid detail on everyone else, even if it’s just what species they are.
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I would argue that those will give us some of the best contests because they’ll have the most varied results.
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Leading to the likely obliteration of most headcanons and making a lot of people very unhappy.
I mean, I agree that normally contests without limitations give the best results, but not in this case given the lore, the fanbase and the time since G1.
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Here’s the thing though, there’s so many thing Marendar could be. Whoever wins will affect canon more so than any other character. We can all agree Helryx looks like a toa, even if her armor or mask is something people disagree on, the things the contest winner would have control over are not things that would really affect canon in any major way.
Marendar on the other hand could be anything. He is humanoid, but he could have multiple arms, he could have animal features, he could be anything that fits what little we know about him. For just about every other character these kinds of details are hammered down, even if there’s other details we don’t know. The person who wins the contest, assuming Greg agrees to canonize it, has power over things that would affect canon more than the winner of any other contest.
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Well, here’s another thing.
People are going to vote for the incarnation they think best fits the character. They’re likely not going to vote for a googly-eyed, lumpy purple monster because nobody actually considers that to be Marendar’s canonical appearance. Yes, the guidelines are so slim you can literally put whatever, but when given to the general public there’s only so far you can deviate from the common conception until people don’t want it as canon, no matter how well built it is.
And even then, if the purple googly-eyed monster somehow makes it to number one, Greg will forever reserve the right to give a thumbs-down.
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