Ackchyually, it wasn’t Greg who wrote No one gets left behind, it was a fan story.
But yeah, I also think it was just a case of flowery language. Lego didn’t even have an official “azure” color in its palette back when that story was written.
2 Likes
Alrighty, I’m gonna resuscitate this thread and add my two cents. I’ll be first to admit my earlier MOCs from the early 2000s and 2010s had a few… discrepancies, but I personally enjoy the challenge of adhering to Canon Color Schemes for the Matoran species. For the most part, the Wikis are relatively ambiguous as to what exact shade of particular colors is considered canon or not. Pohatu and Hewkii for example had swapped palates drastically between forms and the outcome of this resulted in six colors being attributed as canon to the Element of Stone. My Quarantine Toa Team Project had me make one Toa for each MU Element barring Light and Shadow. The only liberties I had taken for these fourteen builds is what shade of the color I used (based on literally what color bricklink decides to call it) and if it was the primary or secondary color. With all this said, I want to make it clear that I personally don’t take offense to those who create MOCs with non-canon color schemes especially if it makes sense and looks awesome.
3 Likes
No. It refuses. Asphyxiation is a potent killer.
Yeah! Took all the wind out of the thread to write that dissertation of a post.
1 Like
Well…that’s technically wrong.
Azure is the color between blue and cyan on a color wheel, cyan being a secondary color and blue being a primary color. It’s no more blue than orange is red. In fact, when we consider color from a standpoint of physics, we run into the practical issue of culture and color perception.
This is the true color wheel, based on the physics of light and including “fake” colors like magenta. The primary colors are red, blue, and green, and the secondary colors are magenta, yellow, and cyan. In between, and unlabelled on this diagram, are the tertiary colors. Clockwise, from red, they are: orange, chartreuse, mint, azure, violet, and rose. If we go into the colors between the tertiary colors and their neighbors, we just get into the quaternary (like keetorange, or “amber”) and then quinary colors, but then we’re splitting hairs with colors we can barely tell apart.
All of this matters because it reveals that our culture shapes color perception more than our actual biology. We think of red, orange, and yellow as so distinct that they each belong on separate chunks of the color wheel, and we lump blue, azure, and cyan together; yet each of these trios of colors are equally distinct. By contrast, the Himba people of Namibia categorize and distinguish color far differently from Western cultures, and this greatly impacts their ability–as well as our own–to discern them.
If you’re wondering what the hell this has to do with Bionicle, go back to Metru “blue.” We categorize it as blue, but as we just established, it’s not really blue–it’s azure, which is as far from blue as orange is from red.
(For comparison: pure, fully-saturated blue and azure–essentially, Mata blue and a hypothetical “Mata azure”)
Moreover, different people perceive color differently in general. Not everyone sees colors as vibrantly (or at all), and I distinctly remember my parents arguing several times over whether some car was white or blue. All this means that trying to argue what colors should and shouldn’t go to a certain element is kind of a futile process.
Culturally, we’ve been conditioned to think of azure as blue. Let’s concede that, and let’s agree that Toa of Water have to be blue. Only…where does blue end? Even with the concession that it extends to azure, where does azure end? And where does blue become violet? Or does blue include violet? Or is this all wrong, and blue is only the pure, primary color blue–in which case, where does that end, and azure begin? Now try to set hard limits for what Toa of Water can and cannot be with all of these logistical problems in place.
Azure is not blue. Or, maybe it is, and orange is red. Or, it is, but orange is not red, and the lines between colors are completely arbitrary. However you cut the color wheel, elemental color schemes are a scam.
5 Likes
How about we don’t over think some writer’s shakespearean word choice and just give Varian a blue mask?
3 Likes
I thought you were going to write a dissertation, the final point of which was going to obliterate every argument I’ve ever made with facts and logic.
Thankfully no.
Blue or azure?
That’s kind of the problem: what is blue? Because we can’t know what the author was thinking of when he wrote “azure.” Maybe he just meant regular blue, or maybe he was specifically thinking of actual azure. We can’t know, so there’s not really any benefit to arguing what specific hue the mask was.
Well, uh, you see, hypothetically theoretically, let’s say, as an example, that Varian was azure. You would say she was blue, right? You’re wrong. Actually, liberalism has completely destroyed color. Even God has abandoned his Judeo-Christian values and painted his house blue.
1 Like
i’m more of a knowles guy really
… until someone tracks down the original authour.
Atleast weknow his Bs01 username (or was it BZPower)
Edit its BZPower. Last online 2012. 2014.So pretty slim chances contacting him on there
Oh yeah I can’t wait for another 1000-posts-long discussion about what color Varian should be, that will end up with TTV sending Greg a pointlessly long email asking him about that since we obviously couldn’t reach a consensus, and him not replying
5 Likes
final answer for varian debate:
just canonize gali master
2 Likes
This is a mindset that I like to use when I’m creating. I paint masks, and its always interesting to play around with unconventional color schemes.
I just recently put together a series of matoran for elements that I had already built, but in different color schemes.
Here are my interpretations of alternate color schemes!
This group of photos are 3 different Po-Matoran variants. The left is a more conventional color scheme, and the other two are what I would refer to as more regional variants, maybe coming from the mountains or a desert canyon.
This is a trio of Le-Matoran. The one in the middle is what I would consider the “standard” color scheme, while the other two experiment more with the Dark and Sand greens.
One of my favorite variants that I have done so far is an alternate version of the Ta-Matoran color scheme. The standard color scheme is on the right in this photoset. I imagine the variant Ta-Matoran would live near lava fields or other areas of volcanic activity.
This next group is a couple possibilities for Ce-Matoran. The left is a more typical color scheme, with brighter colors, while the right has the much more muted Metru Blue. Both are valid, but the possible combinations are interesting!
I also did two different variations of Bo-Matoran. Same concept as the Ce-Matoran, with the left being the more standard Plantlife colors, and the right being a brighter, more colorful variant. I imagine matoran of that color-scheme might live in a tropical rainforest setting, where their armor would match the surrounding colors better.
8 Likes
I’m one of those people who prefers to follow the defined colour schemes, though I do like to, as you said, push the limits.
However, this can also lead to confusion, since certain colour combinations can fall under the description of multiple Elements (blue and white could be Ice or Lightning, black and tan could be Earth or Stone, etc.). Additionally, the open-endedness of the colour scheme definitions can also cause problems; for example, is a blue Matoran a Ga-Matoran, or just a monochrome Vo-Matoran?
To that end, I’ve kind of come up with my own ideas for Elemental colour schemes. The biggest change is the requirement (rather than option) of certain colours on some Elements, eliminating the possibility of monochrome confusion mentioned above. Some are more restrictive than others, but I think I’ve balanced restrictive with open colour schemes, while also staying close to the originals:
- Fire: Any combination of red, orange, and/or yellow
- Water: Blue
- Stone: Brown, with the possibility of orange
- Ice: Primarily/entirely white, with the possibility of blue or silver secondary colours/highlights
- Air: Green
- Earth: Black, with the possibility of brighly-coloured highlights
- Lightning: Approximately even split of blue and white
- Magnetism: Primary gunmetal, secondary black; Toa have symmetrical blue/red highlights
- Plasma: Approximately even split of white and orange
- Gravity: Primary purple, secondary black
- Sonics: Approximately even split of gray and silver
- Plantlife: Approximately even split of green and brown (yeah, I changed this one)
- Iron: Any combination of gold, silver, gunmetal, and/or copper, with the possibility of highlights of other metallic colours
- Psionics: Approximately even split of blue and gold
- Light: Any combination of white and gold
Hopefully this set of colour schemes eliminates any opportunity for confusion without resorting to the specification of certain shades of colours; this should leave plenty of room to play around with the limits of each colour.
EDIT: I just realized that, with liberal definitions of certain colours, a purely teal Matoran could be either a Ga-Matoran or a Le-Matoran. Maybe mandatory white highlights for Air? Or yellow for Water?
3 Likes
i like
Or one could say that making a build with a color scheme that would leave it vague as to which element the character was would just simply not be allowed in the system, and the builder would have to accent the build with more obvious colors (such as bright green being added to the teal to so as to signify air, or bright blue being added, so as to signify water).
I considered that, but then decided against it, since I wanted to avoid policing exact shades, as well as leaving room for creativity within the system. Also, where do you you draw the line? Teal might be the only official Lego colour with this problem, but Bionicle characters don’t necessarily have to stick to that palette. There’s no set definition between blue and green.
Besides, Water and Air are already the two most monochromatic Elements, so it wouldn’t hurt to give one (or both) of them another colour.
(Also, they’d be different genders, so there wouldn’t be as much confusion. Not in-universe, at least.)
1 Like
My Toa of Plantlife uses green, dark red, and brown, like an old thorny plant.
This one’s not so far out there, but my Toa of Psionics has blue, black, and silver rather than blue and gold.
1 Like
Going off of some other ideas I’ve seen here, previous set color schemes, and some of my own ideas, I’ve devised a suggestion for a color guide. I will be adhering to this for my own alt universe storyline, as I believe it has distinctive color scheming potential with some that may be previously unseen. The rules are simple. One primary color MUST be selected, a secondary color can be either from the secondary color options, or an unused primary color. Tertiary/accent colors can be from either pool. Black and dark grey can be used structurally regardless of scheme as long as it’s not dominating the color scheme, similar to the way sets from 01-05 use them. Additional metallic colors in the context of armoring, similar to the Hagah and Nuva, is exempt from the coloration rule when used as a tertiary color. On to the colors.
Fire: Red/Dark Red Primary. Orange, Yellow, Burnt Orange, Keetorange Secondary.
Air: Green/Dark Green Primary. Lime, Teal, Sand Green Secondary.
Water: Blue/Dark Blue Primary. Light Blue, Yellow, Orange Secondary.
Ice: White Primary. Light Grey, Sand Blue, Light Blue Secondary.
Earth: Black Primary. Purple, Orange, Keetorange, Dark Green Secondary.
Stone: Brown/Onewa Brown Primary. Orange, Tan, Dark Tan, Burnt Orange Secondary.
Lightning: Blue/Dark Blue Primary. White, Purple Secondary.
Magnetism: Gunmetal Primary. Black, Dark Grey, Dark Blue Secondary.
Sonics/Sound: Dark Grey/Light Grey Primary. Silver, Red, Light Blue Secondary.
Gravity: Purple Primary. Dark Red, Red, White Secondary.
Plasma: Orange/Keetorange Primary. Yellow, White, Light Blue Secondary.
Psionics/Psychic: Yellow/Gold Primary. Blue, Dark Blue, Light Blue, Purple Secondary.
Iron: Burnt Orange/Silver Primary. Gunmetal, Gold, Dark Red Secondary.
Botany/Plantlife: Teal/Keetorange Primary. Lime, Brown, Onewa Brown, Green, Dark Green, Dark Blue Secondary