That’s really sad, something does need to be done.
We ought to have a Marendar contest. I want to see some interesting takes on the character, and it’d be a much more significant input from the fandom to come up with different takes for a character who we know nothing about in terms of appearance. There’s already some great mocs and art out there of really bizarre looking Marendars and I’d like a chance for stuff like that to become canon rather than dismissing the whole thing because ‘oh nooo greg didn’t give us an incredibly vague description that boils down to ‘humanoid and a colour.’’
There were never guidelines or a requirement for a previous storyline role for stuff like Rahi Beasts, Dark Hunters or the Makuta contest. We have more to go off with Marendar than in any of those so I don’t see why it shouldn’t get an appearance.
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So I got bored and calculated the number of votes of the top three entries in each poll
Poll Nueve
Entry 10, #1 - 219
Entry 2, #2 - 216
Entry 9, #3 - 215
Poll Diez
Entry 3, #1 - 220
Entry 7, #2 - 178
Entry 1, #3 - 152
Poll Once
Entry 6, #1 - 281
Entry 9, #2 - 278
Entry 1, #3 - 243
Something important to note: I thoroughly combed the votes for Entry 6 and skimmed over the votes for Entry 9, and the cast and crew has weeded out six members from 6 and one from 9, for various reasons.
I highly doubt this is the only amount they’ll find and due to people voting on multiple entries across the polls there’s going to be some shifting of placement with extremely close entries.
Regardless, as it now stands, Entry 9 is the highest in Poll Once by a difference of two votes.
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We’re working on evaluating all the votes behind the scenes.
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I know the first eight polls were by submission date, they were in the same order as they were on the entry list topic. Dunno about the second trio of polls.
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I hope they do marendar. I don’t want the model I made for the contest go to waster. I don’t see the problem with it either. At least the winning model will give us some detail about a character with zero background and appearances.
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Even though I actually didn’t like entry 9 in poll Nueve, I’ve got to admit that getting eliminated by a single vote is pretty rough. If that does happen, my condolences extend to @TheUnderscoredDouble
That’s kind of my issue with it, actually - if you shot the entire Bionicle story as a movie, Marendar would never even appear visually. That’s an issue for me - if only because certain other characters should also appear/not appear in the contests by the same criteria.
But if it does go ahead, I won’t be too bothered. It’s just that I’d probably prefer if it didn’t.
How would that even work? Unless Marendar never really did anything, it’d be hard to just…not show him. Even in horror movies where you don’t see the killer/monster for most of the film, there’s often a reveal at the end anyway. If Marendar were involved in any action scenes, we’d have to see what the Toa were fighting.
Snow’s point was that if you took the entire story thus far and made it a film, Marendar wouldn’t show up because he never appeared in the story.
For the sake of this conversation, I’ll reiterate my stance - I’m not in support of a Marendar contest. However, the reasoning for potentially including him is that he was planned to appear. There is no mystery in what he looks like, we just didn’t get that far.
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I suppose that’s a fair point. By the same criteria, though, shouldn’t The Recorder also have a contest? It appears, it has a speaking role… the only difference is that it’s subjectively a less interesting character. 
We’ve already said there will be a second list. This list was not about getting every small character that didn’t have an appearance.
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So have the final polls started or do they start later? I’m having trouble finding them
With regards to “Hoseryx” making it into the final round I felt this post I made back in april has new found meaning:
While I fundamentally agree that the contest have been running smoothly for the most part. I hate to have to be the guy that said told you so when and if “Hoseryx” wins. In my personal opinion most of the final entries to me doesn’t work with the g1 canon, there is one I think should win but any of the other mocs wont be a deal breaker for me if they win except for the case of “hoseryx”. Because in the case of a meme entry win there is no real reason for these contests to have any real credibility and when that happens the contests lose its point. That’s why I’d like to reinstate my proposal of limiting or reducing the parts poll or the design freedom not to hinder people but to stop meme entries from ultimatly become canon. I know from last time that your answer still might be no however I think also the following should be considered:
Greg has said before that the canon designs are the sets designs and thats period.
So respecting that shouldn’t be something to be just shrugged off
Its not only disrespectful to canon striveing to far from that look and cohesiveness but is also disrespectful to previous winners of previous contests and the set designers who gave it their all to make the sets fit together.
Do I believe in more strict rules will be needed for future contest yes, do I believe anyone will listen to my rant and do anything about it no. Because I’ve tried before with a no.
However I do want to make it clear that I want these contest to be the best they can be because it and its result affects the entire community not just canon.
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Oh yeah, It’s gonna be a nightmare when we get to Nidhiki and the Toa Haga, which really only need a few details about their appearances ironed out, and everyone goes hog wild. We can extrapolate like 90% what Nidhiki looks like, and It’s going to be real frustrationg when everyone votes in the most Brickfair, AFOL’s flickr account looking G2 scupture because its the most “skillfull”
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Make your suggestions. We’re listening.
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To pin point an appropriate rule I think this is the most important thing to consider.
While it should be okay to use ccbs or system parts there should be a minimum usage of them I’m thinking a 15-20% of the moc can be ccbs/system while the remaining 80-85% should be slizer/bionicle/technic.
Appropriately a 30 piece limitation could also be implemented as a baseline but could be raised to 40 or even 50 to really elimnate potential meme mocs.
These are 2 suggestions that wont restrict to many people. However if you really want go overboard then a rule that says “entries must hold the same style as the winning dh/rahi mocs.” would definitely work too.
Edit: phone at 1% so going offline for awhile very soon.
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Toa Haga basically only need these details decided:
Armour colour for each
unique chest armour for each
Mask for Each
Spearhead for Each
And I guess what kind of shins they have?
Every other detail can already be extrapolated from Norik and Iruini.
Metru build, with the same primary colour as their rahaga form. Metalic coloured armour and sheild. The sheild has one Rhotuka in the primary colour, and an extra one in the sheild’s colour. Black gears. Some kind of extra armour on the chest. Long spear with a relatively small weapon on the end as a head.
Lots to decide still. Who gets what metalic armour colours? Are they six different metalic colours like the Krana Kal, or three silver and three gold? Maybe two and two and two gunmetal? What shins and forearms does everyone have? Which masks are custom to go with the unique mask, and which are other shapes like Norik?
For the Toa Haga, what I would suggest is seprate polls for the details. Mask, armour colour, etc, and then an art contest. based on the details provided.
I feel mostly the same way about Nidhiki. We know what mask and weapon he has. We know is was on a Team with Lhikan. We know the Iruini set was originally designed to be Nidhiki. What everyone’s specific version of Nidhiki is varies a little, but unless your own personal Nidhiki is a consciously defiant interpretation, you’ll come to something pretty close to the same as everyone else.
I don’t feel this way about Artahka, the TYQ Toa, etc. Characters with basically nothing to go on are a great opportunity to let your creativity run wild. But Nidhiki and the Haga don’t need inventing. They just need some of the details worked out from what 90% of us are already imagining based one what we do know.
TLD;DR: There are lots of characters who lend themselves well to unique original designs, but Nidhiki and the Toa Haga have a lot of evidence implying approximately what they look like. Let’s not fix what ain’t broke, and either make the rules to those contests more specific, (i.e. must use the metru build) or seek alternatives, such as voting on the Haga’s Masks and armour colours first, and then doing an art contest after.
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I’m not sure what you mean here. Characters are not made of LEGO pieces in-universe and set designs are only approximations of how they actually look in the canon.
Artwork and text descriptions can convey more of the in-universe detail so can be closer to the canon appearance than the sets. Greg has stated in the past that the movie 1-3 designs are closer to the “actual” character appearances, for example.
(It’s also worth pointing out that in the case of this contest, it’s the artwork that’s being considered the “canon” appearance for BS01.)
I’ve seen this said a few times, but I disagree. It seems some people think “similar to a Mata build” means it must use a Mata torso piece.
But plenty of the entries have carefully replicated the aesthetic, components, proportions etc of the Mata build using other pieces, while also following the other canon descriptions.
The thing is that if you want to build at '08 scale, you can’t just slap bits on a Mata torso piece because there is no '08-scale Mata torso piece.
(And since you’re only approximating the appearance of a character anyway, personally I feel there should be no need to worry about which subtheme the pieces come from if it fits the in-universe aesthetic. If anything, I think the use of System to make components that don’t exist in “constraction” is a good compromise for the fact that LEGO would be free to mould new pieces, were they designing this set.)
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We don’t need new policy regarding parts ratio. This is not a parts problem.
We DO need policy preventing joke entries ruining these contests, for serious contenders and community at large.
This is a MOC contest after all. I was happy to see that the whole process was going smoothly, Eljay even said in one of the videos that those who didn’t originally want these to take place at all, may be convinced after seeing how well this one goes. But then the whole “Hoseryx” situation started.
If this goes on in the future, these contests will loose all the credibility and nobody will take them seriously ever again. We have this wonderful (maybe last) opportunity to contribute to G1 canon in a major way. And this is how we value such chance? By promoting the obviously worst possible representation of Helryx out of all the other amazing creations that made it into the contest, just because it was funny at first?
People should be more responsible with their votes.
And policy restricting joke entries should be established.
Or else these contests will go down the drain.
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What would the wording on such a policy look like? How does one easily determine a “joke entry” from one that isn’t up to the quality of experienced MOCists? Who decides which entries are and are not allowed? Do you trust us with that?
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