The once generous if ornery child of the great beings, Artakha now lives a secluded life burried deep in his fortress–his mind only for his craft.
I ended up with stronger opinions about Artakha than I originally thought, and I think some of them end up being a little bit left of centre, so I look forward to hearing what people think! My main to focuses for this build were that, as a craftsman, he could be ornate but definitely not over-designed. Also, while a ruler, he never seemed like an opulent king. He’s a craftsman first and foremost, after all, so my goal was clean, attractive design with that tall and imposing vibe.
I settled on sand green and copper for the colour scheme. Since the mask of creation was won and not something designed specifically for him, I kept all of the copper accents as a second layer of armour, the idea being he crafted it for himself to match his new mask. The mask is also copper, and I went with the Huna instead of any extant mask of creation design for a couple of reasons. First, I’m not a big fan of the crown look for aforementioned reasons. Second, in the same way the original Toa Kaita had masks of valour and wisdom that were a metallic-toned Hau and Miru respectively, I’ve always associated Vakama and Onewa with a “spirit of creation” if they were ever to kaita together in any way. Because of that, I wanted to use either a Huna or a Komau as the placeholder, and those just so happened to also be the copper masks of victory. Kinda esoteric for a placeholder mask, but I think it fits the model really well.
In total, Artakha stands almost exactly as tall as Tobduk (a little over 26 cm or 10 inches), which puts him solidly in that 10 foot tall scale against the ~7.5 foot tall toa.
Turn-around images:
While building him physically would require painting most of the large armour pieces either sand green or copper, nearly all other small structural elements and joint pieces are available in the colours used (which, for the most part, is black).
Breakdown images:
The torso uses a couple flex tube pieces in order to attach the Glatorian leg armour to the front, but they’re in a size that can either be acquired at the appropriate length or cut down from a larger piece–whichever you prefer. It also has some articulation, allowing him to rotate at the waist.
The warhammer versus blacksmith’s hammer debate that’s gone on is close to my heart, and so making sure he didn’t end up with a totally oversized hammer was paramount. Along with the larger hammer he brought with him to Metru Nui, he also has a smaller hammer and a chisel hanging from his waist. While I’m happy with pretty much the entirety of this build, the main hammer is maybe my favourite part. It took a lot of little pieces to get the foot extension and the Hydruka armour piece to play nice, and it was so worth it. Also, there’s an empty clip at the back of the belt from which he can hang the larger hammer, should he wish.
I didn’t use any custom elements in Artakha’s build, however the parts pack that gets a lot of Bionicle elements into Bricklink’s Stud.io is the Biopack, put together by SwampKryakwa and downloadable through this link: https://www.reddit.com/r/bioniclelego/comments/i74vqw/biopack_update_is_there_happy_810nicle_day/
The emissive materials used for the main pose were created by Tyfighter77 over on the Stud.io Discord server, and can be downloaded here: File on MEGA
And lastly, the original Stud.io file for this model can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ouf2xazbTXbfQdvvFn0kLpg7u2PXwSMB/view?usp=sharing
It’s been lovely seeing everyone’s entries, and good luck to you all!
