Kopaka GWP MOC Contest Entry: Taikaha, Toa of Gravity

[Tahu-SupremeToF]

My entry for the Kopaka contest is Taikaha, Toa of Gravity!

So first things first, clearly I don’t know how to take good pics, and have even less of a backdrop, so please excuse that.

That aside, a bit of background about myself, I’ve been a Bionicle fan since all the way back in 2001, collected a ton of those sets as a kid, and when I was at my old retail job at Toys R Us I was collecting G2, excited to have Bionicle back. But, since G2 ended I’ve not thought too much about Bionicle, and even less about Lego as a whole. Then the rumblings of a Bionicle GWP came out and my ears perked up. When we finally saw it I actually liked it a lot, and thought it looked like a wonderful tribute set.

I enjoy articulation in my figures quite a lot, and I happened to have quite a few Mixel joints from my time at TRU, so I figured if I just bought a random box of parts I could make other MOCs in that GWP style, and that’s how I reached that GWP threshold. Anyways, I got Tahu and liked him quite a bit and wanted to build more (the bricks I bought were quite chunky though… making it quite hard to build figures with a silhouette like Tahu). I was at a Walmart recently and saw a Zurg for pretty cheap. For anyone familiar with that set, you may recognize a lot of parts in Taikaha.

I mentioned my ears being perked up about Bionicle’s return, but it was a lot more than just that. I basically got back into Bionicle in a big way, and have started reading/rereading the books, thanks to Biomedia. I reached the first mention of a Toa of Gravity that Lariska fought and got interested in the idea. I looked it up and saw that their colour scheme is purple and black, and who’s got that colour scheme? None other than Zurg. I broke Zurg apart and with basically just those parts I put this guy together blindly (just randomly throwing parts together until they formed parts, is what I mean).

Since I’ve heard of the TTV GWP Contests I’ve been checking out all the entries for inspiration on new building techniques and other ideas I could implement into my own creations. There are so many talented MOCists here, and I’ve been really enjoying the creations. When Kopaka’s came around I saw that it was for self-MOCs or other original creations, and I had just recently built this Toa of Gravity, so why not give it a go!

A brief bit of Taikaha lore, he’s armed with his primary Toa tool, a hammer he wields in his right hand, using his powers over gravity to accentuate every swing.

His left hand carries a ‘gravity cannon’ designed by an ally for him, allowing Taikaha to concentrate the gravitational force he generates into tremendous amounts of physical force that he can fire off. The canister underneath the cannon allows him to store excess amounts of his powers so that he can fire off these gravitational bolts of energy with no lead-in time. (my purple parts are also very limited, but I’d have liked an open purple stud of some kind at the tip of it)

Taikaha is noticeably larger than GWP Tahu, so I picture him as closer in power to a being like Axonn than the average Toa. He’s also a part of an unusual team of space adjacent Toa, including some with unique and strange Toa powers. Unlike the Toa of Gravity that Lariska killed, Taikaha is not so arrogant as to underestimate any foe, or rely wholly on the incredible powers he commands, instead using his strategic and analytical mind to overcome his foes.

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Well I wrote way more than I expected to, so don’t worry about not reading it all, or nothing at all, but I hope you enjoyed the pics of Taikaha. I’ve been having a lot of fun building in this ‘SCCBS’ (I guess is the official name now?) style, both in Lego.io and freehand with just the parts on hand (though of course that could result in design limitations). If TLG continues to improve the SCCBS parts at their disposal, the pieces that can give them great details, and more, they’ll continue to have a pretty great character building system.

Thanks for taking a look!

[Ghid]

Welcome to the Boards.

The lack of any face detail makes the figure a little off-putting as a Bionicle one, but the GWP style doesn’t lend itself very well to that sort of thing without going the custom print route. I do like the detailing with the ingots, but the thighs seem quite bunched and the rest of the leg looks quite thin in comparison. Maybe he’s an Olympic cyclist

Overall though, excellent foray back into the world of LEGO building, and I hope to see more from you on the Boards.

[Tahu-SupremeToF]

Appreciate the thoughts, I do actually intend to print out some faces, but I haven’t gotten around to it, mostly because I have a bunch of parts on the way, but they’re probably still a month or two out (from PaB). The thigh thoughts are fair, but I actually like the imbalance it creates on robotic designs, so either the thigh section is unusually large, or the shin part is. Those thick limb pieces (like on Carapar or Norik) or the shin armour pieces (like on Ackar) were some of my favourites because they created that imbalance in the design.

Made another character over the weekend, I mentioned something about a space adjacent team, so here’s the “solar” one. I’ve always been partial to the red Toa, so he’s gotta be the leader, of course.

First thing you may notice is the ridiculous colour imbalance, well, that’s chalked up directly to lack of parts. I wanted to make him solely out of dark red and yellow. It’d probably be a good idea to use supporting colours like black or grey, especially because the joint pieces are grey, but ah well. I’ve got some improvements in mind to balance out the criss crossing colours in whatever future parts order I make, along with a 2x2x6 slope for his feet, like GWP Tahu has, and many others. I still want the colour scheme to be obviously dark red and yellow, but it’s practically checkered, especially on the upper half.

I quite like the way the sword handle turned out, with the claw pieces fitting nicely into that round 2x2 piece’s cut out sections.
He’s also got wings and a whip weapon that he can hold or use as a tail. Ya, the design is all over the place. Probably gonna have to go back to the drawing board with him at some point, but again, he was a fun build. Also the head is currently 3 1x2 pieces, but I had been going back and forth between 1 and 3 of them so much, still not sure which is the way to go. Maybe bracket pieces even, to give some texture to the side of the head/mask? The torso is also too heavy because it’s so big plus the wings, so I had to forgo torso articulation aside from side to side using 2 ball and sockets.