Cause and Effect: Eyestalks and Light-piping,

LEGO BIONICLE
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Hello, as you may know a con listed with the 2016 bionicle winter sets is that the eyes lack proper light piping, making the figures seem dark and soulless, I have observed that the con is mainly blamed on the new, shortened eyestalk, after listening to the TTV podcast episode 180, where this issue is discussed, I decided to do a bit of research with the Bionicle sets I have in my possession. I have found that the problem is not with the eyestalk, but with the new masks introduced in the winter wave.

Now let me explain.

As many have noticed, the set Umarak the hunter has fine light-piping, it has been said that it is due to the trans reddish orange eyestalk catching the light better than the trans bright blue seen in the Uniter sets. But the color of the eyestalk has little to do with this, while it is a brighter color that catches the light better, the main reason is Umarak’s mask, it covers the face, and only slightly covers the top of the head, as to allow his antlers to mount on his head. The mask is also melded with trans bright green on the top, allowing light in even better, and when used on a head with a bright trans blue eyestalk, it can even make a gorgeous bluish green color. Now when Umarak is wearing the mask of control, his eyes can seem a bit darker harder to see, seeing as the mask of control’s design curves and covers the top a bit better than Umarak’s mask. also seeing as this mask is not melded with any transparent plastic, also contributing to this factor.

now what about the Uniters?

Notice something about the Toa’s masks. the Toa’s masks cover almost everything but the back of the eyestalk, murdering most useful light piping. I have noticed that unless your light source is directly behind the figures, the eyes are dark. now for people that use a display area with only an overhead light, you are doomed to have dark eyes on most of your sets.

How do you fix that?

Many have suggested swapping the eyestalk to the older version from 2015, cause that must work, right?

Wrong.

Swapping the eyestalk to the older version does nothing but hinder the unity function and cause the mask to fly off.

But what about those “worthless” melded masks that came with the uniters? As not many of you have noticed, the eyes light up great with those masks on, because even though the top of the head is covered, the light can shine in and make a wonderful glow. all thanks to the transparent plastic, even in unity mode these masks work decently to provide better light piping.

TL;DR

The uniters eyes do not lack light piping because of the eyestalk, but because of the masks.

14 Likes
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I do like how the new eyestalks look like with the new head molds in comparison to heads of old (its a vast improvement, so much so I dont even mind the characters not having their masks up, which was mandatory with previous heads, because of how well these current heads and eyestalks look). I do have to note I much prefer the longer eyestalks, always had, which is why I am not a big fan of the 2008 and 2016 smaller cut versions for both head molds.

However, the light blue eyestalk doesnt get a lot of light in it, and depending on the masks it can get really dark. I even swapped The Trans Neon Green with the 2015 Tahu mask and it makes tons of improvements to his light piping, also strangely enough Galis 2015 mask makes it so that the light blue eyestalk is still visible as oppose to it being on Tahu. Just fun notes for you all.

The fun side is they use the trans light blue on all the Toa now. I do not like how we only have two eyestalk colour choices now in a time when we need more and more of them when even armour pieces are getting tons of different trans colours these days.

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It’s both in a way, the mask design in both the small eyeholes and covering the back do hinder light piping, but it also has to do with the color. Tr. Light Blue is not fluorescent like TrNG, and as such it performs poorly in both versions. I’m not sure why they made all the Uniter’s eyes TrLB when it could have been TrNG or even Tr. Dark Blue.

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they dont make trans blue eye stocks, and I think they chose not to use trans neon green because of the summer wave featuring that color as 'the bad guy color"

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Yeah. It’s pretty simple to figure out.

It’s definitely both.

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Ekimu uses a trans neon green eyestalk though, does that mean he’s evil?

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of course ekimu uses the green eye stock and not the blue one you know the one that makes more sense and doesn’t stick out like a broken ankle.

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Actually, the old eyestalk doesn’t interfere with the unity, and it doesn’t really knock the masks off as much – the 2016 masks have a tighter connection to the head.

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Or is he?