Nice that’s how my Mawrendar is set up currently. I really really dont want clarifications on color from Greg. Color is such a restrictive parameter, which is already in every contest and for a good reason. Mawrendar is different, he has no comparison in the lore or canon counterpart and I want his character to be a more free for all. Living weapon, humanoid (two legs two arms), and slightly taller than a toa that is enough for anyone to build off so long as it hits those three points.
Remember Greg has Veto Power, meaning if a Mawrendar wins and he is adamantly against the design he can reject it and provide more details then to follow his artist vision for the character. and the contest would have to be redone.
One other thing they could do for Mawrendar is narrow the entries down to the top three and then let Greg pick from those, since the character would be vague it gives him the ability to select the one of the three that he feels is closest to what he was envisioning.
Not sure how unorthodox this might be, but for the longest time, my headcanon for Marendar has been a silver/gray multi-armed being with each limb having a different secondary color. That way he contrasts brightly colored Toa but still visually incorporates their varying elements as well.
Here’s a quick, simple build to showcase a the concept.
Now obviously an actual Marendar moc will need to be more involved than a basic piraka build, but if anyone wants him to look like he walked straight out of 2008, have at it I guess.
Well that could still work, the humanoid clarification would have to just state, no less than two arms and two legs but no more than say 6 limbs total. meaning its a more liberal definition of humanoid, but allows for four arms two legs, or three arms and three legs, or Two arms two legs and a tail. The definition of humanoid might be a viable question for Greg to answer.
Eh, I’d rather not have too many restrictions with Marendar, especially since so little is known about him. As long as it’s an upright biped with human-like proportions or, y’know, clearly not a rahi, it should hopefully be in the clear.
It’s spirit-of-the-law rather than letter-of-the-law. If multi-arms crossing the line, I’ll drop the concept, but I’m worried if we go too far down the later, we’ll get takes like “Keytongu and Core Hunter aren’t humanoid because they have different numbered eyes.”
The only set-in-stone restrictions based on Word of Greg are that Marendar is a) humanoid and b) taller than a Glatorian. “Humanoid” can be interpreted in a number of ways so it would be up to TTV to define the term for the sake of the contest, but other than that just about everything is fair game.
The more I read about Marendar, the more I’m just picturing “Toa 2.0”.
Obviously this would fit the “heroic” part of the design, since the Great Beings already designed the Toa to also be heroes. Its resistance to, and (potential) ability to use, all Elements would also work well with this design, since Toa are also immune to, and can use, their own Element. My idea is that the Great Beings just took the technology and techniques they used for the different types of Toa and combined them into a single creation.
I’m just not sure what its “specialized weapon” would be.
This type of creativity is the exact issue I have with a potential Marendar contest, as discussed here. These are both really good ideas, and I have seen many others like them, but unless the contest is restructured to also allow for “power-explanation” canonization, none of it would be canon. Even if you build your model to include these colours, the contest would simply require that the art use whatever colours were included in the main image and leave it at that, with those colours being “standard”.
It seems a little random to specify any number of limbs besides 4 (since that’s what actual humans typically have).
Just to be clear, I’m not saying we should specify 4 limbs (I’m actually saying we definitely shouldn’t), but that we shouldn’t specify any number unless that number is 4 (but again, we shouldn’t do that either).
In my book, “humanoid” means upright torso, a number of legs at least 2 attached at the hips, and a number of arms at least 2 attached at the shoulders, with at least one head at the top of the torso.
I mean, regarding the definition of “humanoid”, this isn’t a hypothetical discussion. there’s precident in Bionicle specifically.
Is Nocturn humanoid?
Is Voporak humanoid?
Is The Shadowed One humanoid?
Is any of the multiple characters with wings humanoid?
Is Gorast humanoid?
Are Vorox humanoid?
Basically: we don’t need to think about any hypothetical Marendar MOC. We have enough precident in bionicle right now to come to a conclusion.
It’s mostly irrelevant though: I cannot imagine TTV mandating any part of the “humanoid” definition other than, like, maybe “must be bipedal, and have some arms”, but I doubt they’d even do that. Nor should they.
You say that but there are scientists who want to talk about the heat death of the universe and that’s scheduled for only two weeks before the Marendar contest so obviously it’s not too early
Question: What are the rules on giving characters tools that they are not described as having? For example (I don’t plan on doing this), could I enter a Tuyet moc with a shield?
EDIT: yes, I meant in addition to the BB. Sorry, I definitely should have specified that.
Weapons would be mandated, which means your entries would be required to feature them. And since there are specific weapons mandated, it has to be those. This has been an instillation of the previous contests.
I’m not sure that’s the question Atobe’s asking. I think they want to know if, for example, they could enter a Tuyet wielding a shield in addition to the barbed broadsword.
For the sake of full clarity/plugging any “Tuyet wields a sword” style loopholes here:
1: This means that, the only weapons/equipment/tools that a toa could be depicted with are the ones we’ve previously known about in canon (IE, Nidhiki’s scythe, and only nidhiki’s scythe)?
2: Does this extend to all (currently known) future toa contests (at least, as of now)?
Nitpicky, but it’s a nitpick that is inevitable, so may as well get a firm answer early.
