Ferrus, Toa of Iron

MichaelBT-7474 · April 21, 2019, 1:00pm

Hell there again, TTV Community! This time, for the very first actually, I created a toa self-moc. Well, that is not without reason, the real reason why I did this was that @MaxinePrimal and our other friends have decided to make a Toa Team to which we agreed and everyone got their elemental power and I got Iron.

So I challenged myself to create a Toa of Iron which represents me in the Bionicle Universe and well I think he turned out to be great, also I am not a huge veteran when it comes to Bionicle G1 lore so yeah, that’s a thing, and if he doesn’t really look like a toa because of his mask, well, sorry, but I don’t own any G1 parts, only G2 and even at that, I am very limited.

Also thanks to @BlackBeltGamer98 who gave me a few names and I’ve chosen one which was Ferrus, and yes he is also a part of our Toa Team…which for the moment, doesn’t have a name, but we are working on that!

So without further ado, enjoy!

He’s known to have a cold heart just like the Iron itself, only those who truly got to know him, know that is not always true for he truly is inside a sweet guy and a softy…his name is, Ferrus, Toa of Iron.

To get this out of the way, yes, he is posable and stable. If his poses are generic, sorry, sometimes I lack the imagination to pose my creations properly.

So as you’ve noticed, he has a cloth piece on his neck which acts as a comforter and there is his cloth hip piece.
Also, all of his weapons are stored on him, his combat knife on his back, his lightsabers on his armor hip pieces and his cannon guns on the back of the armor pieces.

So you think, those silver sticks, are sticks? Really? Well…szwum!

Guess they aren’t just sticks, now are they? Now I have an explanation of how he found them. So as he traveled and was searching for rare metal minerals, he stumbled upon two red crystals and with his powers over metal he created a lightsaber hilt and well he went through the process of creating his lightsabers and this is the result and yes he is quite skilled using them…Darth Vader would be quite jealous.

Now, if two lightsabers weren’t dangerous enough, he carries around a combat knife he created and trained himself in close hand-to-hand combat knife fights.

And even if, two lightsabers and a combat knife weren’t enough for him, he’s got guns…and powerful ones at that. As expected he’s skilled with them and when he fires bullets at a target he can even take control of the bullet and aim it so that he’ll never miss.

Also, he likes to use his weapons in different variations in a very unorthodox way. These are just some examples.

Ferrus’s Personality:

So being my self-moc I also based him mostly off of myself, so he might appear to be a very hard guy to read at times, and at first glance, he might appear to have a cold iron heart but when you get to know him, he is quite caring, sweet and a good guy, that is if you manage to crack him up.

If he doesn’t like something, he can easily get annoyed and even pissed, and when he does very few can stop him from lashing out in anger, so one might say he is quite hotheaded so the best way is to not annoy him, also he isn’t that big of a team player and may seem to be distant at times.

He also doesn’t like a forced authority in a rude fashion way, he doesn’t like when people bark orders at him and force him to do what he doesn’t want or like to do, for he then becomes quite aggressive and takes self-defense to the literal point, so at first glance he might seem a bit complicated, but he really isn’t, one must be careful how he approaches him and if he’s approached the right way, he will open up more than usual.

The things he likes to do is to hear music and dance, it calms him down and makes him happy for a while, music is his thing and he can’t live without it, so you’d better not take his music away from him.

Hist Theme: Now since I am a huge fan of music, I had to give him a theme, I just had to.

Final Thoughts:

Okay, so Constructive Criticism is appreciated, I want to know if this does look like a Toa, and if he is well built and if it did catch the representation of a Toa of Iron and so on for I put a lot of effort into it and for me, I liked how he turned out for he is the very first Toa I’ve created it and a self-moc at that.

Toa_Radrix · April 21, 2019, 1:24pm

The torso is too long, But it’s a nice MOC overall.

Did you use this effect from Microsoft Photos?

MichaelBT-7474 · April 21, 2019, 1:35pm

Actually, his torso ends right about where that lower silver piece is (I forgot the name of it) and that brown armor size 5 piece think of it as skirt armor.

a master never reveals his secrets at once Yeah, I think so.

Omega_Tahu · April 21, 2019, 1:56pm

It’s still a bit too long. I think if you made the torso and arms a bit shorter and made the legs a little longer the proportions would look a little less strange. I’d also recommend trying to move the shoulders up some because there’s a pretty unsightly gap.

MichaelBT-7474 · April 21, 2019, 2:02pm

I don’t think it’s really that long, if I shorten it even more it would look stubby.

If I did that, then the proportions would definitely look out of place.

I can’t really, that’s much what I could do and if I did fill in the gaps then possability will be hindered a lot which I do not want, I prefer a posable figure with a bit of gap than no gaps figure but not posable one.

SonicBionicleMaster · April 21, 2019, 3:12pm

Torso is a tad to long, but the limbs look cool and the colors are consistent

Hafynx · April 21, 2019, 5:15pm

The torso doesn’t look too long, until you realise where the hip connection is, in the picture where he has one leg up at a right angle. I think that besides from this pose, having the long torso is fine, because of the armour that covers the hips.

The problem to me, however, is the torso is too thin, especially the upper torso. Because of all of the other armour add-ons elsewhere on the MOC, places like the upper arms, and upper and lower legs are the same width, if not wider than the mid section. I think in general it all just needs some filling out, and possible bring the chest piece down a tad.

Solid start though for a MOC. I haven’t seen any of your other MOCs, if they exist, so on the assumption that this is your first post, it’s not bad at all. It does seem like you’ve really though it through, especially character wise. Good job.

Haf

MichaelBT-7474 · April 21, 2019, 5:31pm

Thanks but actually, this is not my very first post. You can go on my profile and see the topics I have done.
What I really meant ,was that this is my very first toa and self-moc at that, because I have never made a Toa before and no self-mocs either, so if you are interested in my other mocs then I do encourage you to visit my profile and see the mocs that I have built and give your feedback on the mas well, so thanks and have a nice day.

Hafynx · April 21, 2019, 5:38pm

Yeah I wasn’t really talking about you saying that this was your first Toa and that, but either way, like I said, it’s not bad. I think a good idea though would be to take in feedback and act on it. Out of the 2 people that have commented on the torso, the one you’ve replied to, you’ve said that you don’t think it is. That’s fair, it’s your MOC after all, but because it’s yours, you can often become blind to flaws that other people can pick out easily. Believe me, I do the same, and I’m sure plenty other people do too.

Ozkabot · April 21, 2019, 5:45pm

Torso is a little long, but I really like the overall aesthetic, and the occasional use of brown gives a really nice almost medieval look.

BlackBeltGamer98 · April 21, 2019, 5:46pm

The cloth pieces really complete the look for me. The lightsabers and guns are a welcome surprise in his design and they look like they fit the overall aesthetic of Ferrus. If there was such a color, rusty orange would be his blade color if only to keep to the theme of iron. However, that is a nitpick and a stretch of one at that.

All in all, Ferrus looks great and alive. Very well done, @MichaelTheLightBringer.

MichaelBT-7474 · April 21, 2019, 6:02pm

@Hafynx yes, probably, but as of right now, I am happy the way he is. If I’m going to do changes is when I really am not happy anymore with his look and fix the so-called problems with it.

@BlackBeltGamer98 Thanks man, glad you liked it and because of you I was stuck with the idea of cloth pieces, as I searched for cloth pieces I was always thinking about what you said earlier.

meepinater · April 21, 2019, 6:19pm

Looks good! The only gripe I have is that the lower torso seems too thin, but that might just be me.
Good work!

MichaelBT-7474 · April 21, 2019, 6:20pm

Thanks and well, it isn’t just you, by the looks of things people have the same opinion, though to be frank I don’t see how thin is his torso…like…maybe it’s me, I don’t know.

BlackBeltGamer98 · April 21, 2019, 6:35pm

Thanks. I’m glad to see that you’re happy with how this build turned out.

Omega_Tahu · April 21, 2019, 6:48pm

Yeah, often people are less likely to see the flaws in their own creation

MichaelBT-7474 · April 21, 2019, 6:54pm

Well, sorry, then.

Hawkflight · April 21, 2019, 7:18pm

minor gripe, but I feel like for a self-MOC, you shouldn’t choose a derivative of the most common Toa of Iron name ever. (Ferrum is the Latin for iron, if you didn’t know.)

With that said, the MOC is pretty alright. I dig the color scheme, it meshes with the Skull Basher plate pretty well, and the dark red breaks up what would otherwise be a fairly bland metallic color scheme. The lightsabers are pretty good, although personally I’d expect a Toa of Iron to wield a fully metallic weapon, which he could manipulate mid-combat. Though you covered that concept with his guns.

As others said, he is on the skinny side, but otherwise his proportions are alright. I’d suggest you replace that silver shell with a skull chestplate and build a wider torso around that - including a transition between the lower part of that and the wider hips. Also, replace the forearm bone + extender with a single bone of that length, if you have any to spare, and consider upping those forearm shells a size or two.

Comparing a character’s proportions to human proportions is a good way to see it (to say nothing of those special few people that insist that BIONICLE characters don’t need to follow human proportions because). I’m a pretty skinny guy, but my ribcage - as skinny as you could go, if you don’t have significant body fat – is just slightly thinner than the width of my hips, and that’s also the width of my armpits, or where the edge of my arm rests. With more muscular men the armpits would be a bit wider apart than the width of the ribcage. With Ferrus’ current proportions, his ribcage would be about half the width of his hips - probably less than the width of the waist in a feminine ‘hourglass’ figure.

The way he is now isn’t the worst you could do with the torso, tbh. But it does detract from his appearance, if only because, if it were wider, you’d have a better chance to make it great.

MichaelBT-7474 · April 21, 2019, 7:40pm

I did say I am new to this Toa and G1 lore didn’t I? Well, I asked one of my friends and he gave me that and well sorry if it’s too generic, but I’ll be sticking with it, if that’s okay and yes I know that ferrum is the latin word for iron.

Other than that, I’ll the feedback and by the most of things I think he is okay received, and you said skull chestplate? You mean the one which Umarak the Destroyer has? Well I don’t have that and secondly the way the torso is built it’s meant for it to be wrapped around the toros and fills it in, if I choose that then it would look gappy.

But from what i have gathered is that I should actually build around the armor and not the torso first, because that’s what I do, build the torso first and see what fits but I should do it the other way around and I’ll try that, I’ll see if I’ll go again in the workshop and make his second version, key word, might.

Hawkflight · April 21, 2019, 7:42pm

That’s the way I do it, the body naturally forms to fill in the gaps.