“The universe has grown quite dark, hasn’t it.”
It wasn’t a question, something had been eating up his ram. But what response was he looking for? Where was he trying to lead? Perhaps…
“I suppose it has. . . Can’t say we didn’t play a part in it.” He paused for a moment, seeing his friend’s frown increase in the reflection. “I guess the stories aren’t true, heroes don’t come out of nowhere to stop evil.”
“No,” his friend finally spoke again. “They don’t come from nowhere. No one is born a hero, they’re built into one. We’ll - build - HEROES.”
He almost reeled back, arms lifted in surprise before chuckling so soft that most mics would fail to pick it up. So that’s what was on Akiyama’s mind. Which meant only one question was left to ask.
“So where have we started?”
Akiyama turned towards him with that old schemer’s smile and said, “Have you ever heard of a world called Quatros?”
Hello!
I am The Lego Roleplayer, the AZT of ajtazt, The Eidolon Actor, or one of a few other names you may know me by and what you just read above is a snippet from an early draft of one of my background projects. A project you might have heard me slip up in chatting about here and there as HF: Rebranded or HF: Rebadged; a story series following the origins of the Hero Factory, its creation, the early years of its existence and foundation events, a rewrite of the later years seen in the sets, and beyond. A project that I’ve been working on, in some form, for at least since 2016
. . .
And it’s not done or good enough for release yet. So why am I here today telling you about it? That would be due to the MOCing portion of the project.
During lockdowns, I had a new mission. One to eliminate my excuse that I lacked the parts to do whatever Hero Factory builds I wanted to make. And with extra free cash, I finally had a good enough excuse to spend the money to do it. So during the lockdowns, I was amassing my CCBS collection and trying to hunt down better equipment. It took all of 2020, and several months of 2021, to receive the minimal amount to begin. And with my new lightbox, figured I was ready.
. . . Except I didn’t get a new camera. Despite how it looked in person, the photos were super bright and colors were incredibly washed out, despite having the lowest amount of light in the box that I could. The problem was my camera, it couldn’t adjust for the amount of light. I wouldn’t get a new camera until early spring of 2022 and I didn’t figure out better balancing until near the end of that year.
So that has left me in a conundrum. Do I continue with the original plan, start releasing the story when most of it has been completed to a satisfactory level and the MOCs along side it? I write slow, this has been taking a lot longer than expected due to life being a bother. By the time the story comes out, the current photos I have of the completed MOCs will not be of acceptable quality. But can I afford the time, or even bother, spending the effort of rebuilding them all and redoing all the photoshoots?
As you can guess, I have decided that it will be better to release the photos in their current state now. This topic, unless for contest or event MOCs, will become my repository for my Hero Factory MOCs. And I will be posting a MOC, or a group, each day until I reach the latest release. Along the way, I’ll include the dates of when these photos were taken, the camera used, and whatever other progress notes I can remember.
Though to avoid potential spoilers, or if things get significantly changed in another rewrite, my typical flavor text and/or character profile stuff won’t be included this time. Apologies in advance for those who read and enjoy that but hopefully it will be worth it in future.
But before I get to the stuff you haven’t seen yet, we begin our timeline with Blazen Beast and Spyrix, my duo built for the first HeroFebruary. These particular versions are not canon to my HF story series, but they were the first to make use of the lightbox. And while I did receive a decent number of parts by then, I was waiting to sort them until I had all of them. . . Which is another thing, how I sort and manage parts had changed quite a lot since 2021. You probably noticed I built in a lot larger batches in 2022 and that is the result of the many evolutions my storage and part sorting went through the course of 2021 and 2022. I can now get and find parts faster IRL than digitally, which amazing.
But right right, enough stalling. New stuff!
All photos were taken with my Nikon Coolpix S3300, which outside of digital builds and the photos for the original “Silhouette” MOC, all my other pictures from 2011–2022-ish were taken by this camera. I got a lot of use out of that Christmas present.
Pictures were taken on August 5th of 2021.
Thorn ∅ Team
Other team photos
I never could decide which one was best, so if you would, let me know which group shot is your favorite.
Previously known as the Defenders Team, these are a revamp of my first, and technically only, Hero team I made. Built the originals back in 2011 on LDD with the intention to order them through the Design by Me program. I didn’t use the Hero Recon Team service as I thought it was too limiting and I could get more parts through the LDD service. Though I only managed to save up enough to snag half the team and half the villains before the service shut down.
The team did receive one revamp in 2014 called the C-Upgrade (Custom Upgrade). But that was a forced revamp. Unlike a lot of my online peers, I didn’t do the revamp thing. Others would build the same character over and over and over again, but with me, I built it once and that was it. I found no need to build them again unless something happened in the story that would require the change. But I thought there must have been something to it since every other MOCists I saw does it, so I did.
I hated it. I pretty much hate the C-Upgrade versions and find them to be significantly worse than the originals, which aren’t even good to start with. Since then, I have never forced myself to do a revamp, I only do it when I feel like it. This is why there are massive year gaps between MOCs when I do finally build a revamp. I finally feel that it’s necessary, have more parts, and hopefully improved as a builder so time to see what I can do. Like with “Disarm,” who has an eight year gap between versions. But as you’ll see below, while the team is closer to their 2011 versions, they have taken some elements from their 2014 counterparts.
Oh. And now their team name roughly follows the rules/naming conventions of the other teams, that being a letter (e.g. Alpha, Zed, etc.) and a number. Names of the Heroes are still placeholders for now.
Although since I’m running out of characters, and time, I’ll only do half the team today. Which is fine, it’s the original three members.
Magnus Blastor:
General Body:
Multi-Tool Shields folded away:
Headshots and Action Poses:
Close Ups and Skeleton:
Behold the secrets
If you’re looking at this torso and wonder why it’s built like that, it’s due to using this torso armor and the regular one. Yes, he uses both. Why? Because I think it looks cool and more filled out. Though the torso I whipped together in a hurry isn’t the best. The two balls sitting on top of each other puts a bit too much stress and it’s a bit wabbly in places. I would do some major restructure work if I were to attempt this again.
Version Comparison
Magma Blaster | Original Description: Magma Blaster is the l… | Flickr
Magma Blaster C-Upgrade | "Our greatest mission is to defend… | Flickr
As you can see, he keeps the general look of his 2011 version, with really the only part of C-Upgrade being the rifle. That fit better with his character, but wanted to keep his dual-blasting shields. But also still wanted him to have hands, but thankfully we got a new pneumatic piece to help with just that. Which comes in black now. That would have been nice to have had sooner. Not the strongest connection though.
Niki Scorpia:
Headshots and Extras:
Version Comparison
Scorpia | Original Description: Scorpia is one of the many f… | Flickr
Scopia C-Upgrade | "If one tail is good, then two is better.… | Flickr
The most obvious difference between all the versions is the tail. Her new version doesn’t have a tail, that’s a pet snake. It’s wrapped around her chest, which is what those other small lime green shells are for on the front of the chest, they’re parts of the snake. Her other weapon is also a bird drone.
Figured that Hero Factory probably wouldn’t give a Hero a tail. They didn’t give their Heroes wing wings, so they probably wouldn’t give a tail. She only had it in the original is due to me liking scorpions and that being an unused connection point. Borrows a few weapon elements from the C-Upgrade version.
Goliath Resquer:
General Body:
Headshots and Action:
Version Comparison
Giant Rescuer | Original Description: Giant Rescuer is the b… | Flickr
Giant Rescuer (XXL) C-Upgrade | Giant Rescuer (XXL) C-Upgrad… | Flickr
The giant banana. His original version was to use all the limb options and shell sizes available. Everything at least came in yellow, so he was yellow and tall. And ugly. Which only got worse with the C-Upgrade version, which was a Toa Mata Nui-esque attempt. It didn’t go well.
So his new version adds Keetorange to hurt the eyes more and, while no longer as tall as he used to be, he is buff. You’ve seen this design before, I used a variation of it for Sunkwrecker (Depth Charge Gang). I don’t think I ever took pictures of what it all looks like behind the scenes. If I remember, I’ll show what I did for him, Scorpia, Sunkwrecker, and others.
And that’s all I can do for now. See you tomorrow!
