First things first. Who remembers Makrobion?
If you never heard of it, don’t be surprised. It was an obscure toyline released in 2005. The previous year, the company that made them (Eco Zoo) released some meh-looking dinos and decent-looking arthropods, built with a mainly ball-and-socket-based building system. But with Makrobion, I think it’s when the toys went from meh to pretty good (they look much cooler in the cover art, though). The best way to describe this line is BIONICLE meets Pokémon, in space! Two races of aliens, one dino-like and one insect-like, are forced to fight by human trainers who mind control them with 2 neural purple spikes. Once a Makrobion loses both spikes, it goes feral again and back into nature.
As for the MOCs… they don’t look that much like actual Makrobions, but I hope I managed to capture at least some semblance. Ironically, originally, I was fumbling constantly when trying to make big MOCs based on their likeness, as you can see in the pic below.
Then, I decided to shrink them, simplify them, and stop trying to make them resemble the original models so much. And these little guys are the result!
I started from the “insectoid” faction, although now perhaps the term “insectoid“ isn’t the first that comes to mind when looking at these little fellas.
They all have 30 pieces each, but can easily be customized by adding even a few details such as extra spikes, tail, or other ornaments.
Because they only use a few parts that are repeated in their build, it’s super easy to customize their color schemes and get cool combinations!
As for the dino faction, I went a little overboard with them. The Rahkshi/Rahaga heads and the fact that I used a short double socket joint for their torso made it trickier to get cool color schemes, but I hope the result doesn’t disappoint.
As for the previous little guys, I kept the piece count to 30 parts for the standard build. But the same principles apply to these guys too when it comes to customizing.
Unlike with the insectoids, the dinos can be built in 2 different ways, depending on how you place the Bohrok arm comprising their upper body. Both looked pretty dino-like, so I decided to keep them.
Aaand that’s pretty much about it! I hope I unlocked a core memory for at least some of you! Thanks for reading all this. Hope you liked these little MOCs! I might try to make something slightly bigger in the future, but the main piece used in the Makrobion toys (the one seen in the torso and sometimes in the legs) was unique, and I wish we had something like that for Bionicle at some point.
If anyone wants to give these small builds a try, here are some instructions
