Long ago, I created Manguopo & Wanitama for @Gilahu’s Brotherhood of Makuta Community project. Suffice to say, they weren’t great, as pictured below:
(The pair now)
(Manguopo then Makuta Manguopo and Friends)
(Wanitama then Makuta Wanitama: The Red Titan - #7 by darkbrick999)
I’m going to give the lore blurbs here, then talk about the builds themselves below.
Name: Manguopo
Assigned region: An island with no name.
Kanohi: Tatararatapiritanga, great mask of convenience
Status: Dead
Manguopo had bad timing. He was the last Makuta created by Mata Nui, just to get the group up to an even hundred. Even so, he had the lofty goal of improving the design of the Great Spirit’s chosen people, the Matoran.
Shortly before Teridax revealed The Plan, Manguopo was dragged into the sea by a rouge Rahi experiment. He survived, but got back to Destral just a little while the reveal of The Plan. None of the other Brotherhood members had noticed his absence at the Convocation, so no one ever explained the organization’s treason to him. Completely oblivious to the situation, Manguopo was eventually assigned to a desolate island by a group of Makuta who found him annoying. Manguopo made the best of it, though, using his mask’s power to alter probability for the parts he needed to be where he needed them to be to finally create the improved Matoran he’d always dreamed of, building an entire society of ‘Paike’.
Eventually, he managed to return to Metru Nui, just in time to hear Teridax’s evil speech, right before being killed by a falling pillar. In the end, everything made sense.
Name: Wanitama
Assigned Region: None
Kanohi: Hau, Great Mask of Shielding
Status: Dead
Wanitama was always more fascinated with plants than the Rahi that lived off of them. This wasn’t his only quirk- often, rather than creating new species by simply mixing viruses, he would create hybrids through grafting, or mutate seeds with various natural venoms and mutagens. Sometimes he would spend weeks in his sprawling green-houses at a time. There was a time when these buildings covered at least half of Destral. As such, he developed a greater mastery of weather control than any other member of his species, so he could sub-consciously control the climate conditions in the different houses even when he was away from them.
Wanitama was known for being a very agreeable companion, and was well-liked by almost all on Destral. A fellow Makuta even gave him his Hau as a gift, symbolic of how his cooperative spirit represented the best of what one of Mata Nui’s creations could achieve. Because of this, though, some of the other Makuta grew jealous, and began trying to sabotage his work. Their efforts were thwarted by Teridax, as he knew that Wanitama could potentially be a powerful ally, in both research and combat. Though he would rarely engage his Brothers in sparring, it was well-known how formidable his shear-like claw hand was when used against experiments that went awry.
When Teridax revealed The Plan, Wanitama sided with him. Not only did he feel he was in debt to Teridax, but he also believed that, if he could have his influence on the Brotherhood’s activities even after the deposition of Mata Nui, he and others like him could ensure that the Universe would still be a good place with good people.
After the Great Cataclysm, Wanitama, because of his unparalleled botany skills and firm loyalty, was one of the only beings Teridax allowed to explore the surface of Aqua Magna. Unfortunately, a seaweed sample from one of these excursions exposed him to deadly spoors that, over time, led to asphyxiation and death.
About the models:
Manguopo maintains almost nothing from his original form, build-wise. However, I chose to maintain all of what I considered to be his defining features, those being his yellow minifig hand spines, and the pare of small manipulator arms beneath a larger pair. The only portion of his build that is exactly the same is his feet. I chose to merge his upper-arms and wings, though I with I could’ve found a way to make them larger and more realistic. They are inspired by pterasaur wings, primarily. I wanted his whole stature to be very avian, and I think I succeeded.
Wanitama’s build is also a complete rework, though he still sports the same right lower arm and feet as the original. While the first version had a massive hunchback and shoulder pads to make room for his simple gear function, with this one I decided to retain those features while dropping the function. I wanted his figure to look more sloped and natural, with realistic bad posture. The torso is built around the idea of using a head to grant limited waste articulation. His lower left arm isn’t perfect, but it’s the best claw I’ve been able to come up with that is large, but still able to grip things.
@Xing1870, I finally took your suggestion to use digitigrade legs on this guy, and to tone down the CCBS. It only took… 4 years. Wow.
I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at these improvements, (I know I have), and I hope you look forward to seeing them possibly improve again in the future.
More pictures here: Titans | Flickr
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