Don’t listen to Toa_Vladin, he doesn’t know about constraction parts.
The rear end should be two separate parts attached to the legs, not one lump. The legs themselves are innovatively designed so good job.
4 Likes
Personally I think this looks great.
Of course the main focus here is the torso, so that’s where I’ll start. I think it’s very well done. Knowing personally what it’s like to really work with technic in something like this, I think it’s amazing.
I will admit the standard CCBS limbs do feel a bit tacked on in comparison to complicated and well built torso, but they’re not that big of a problem for me. All things considered I think this turned out fantastic, but maybe trying to change up the limbs wouldn’t hurt.
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valadin was pretty harsh but it shouldn’t have taken 4 years.
maybe a 2 days or a week for this but no more this moc is so underwhelming.
yeah, what @Toa_Vladin was really REALLY harsh but he does “kind of” has a Point. but I think the Good Parts it has are nice and you can Easily fix the Problem the Moc Has, so it ain’t all bad.
Also
Quick Question: How?
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Here’s what really happened. Originally she was built in late 2015. I posted a topic on here. Using what other users said along with MOCing techniques I learned, I added tweaks here and there gradually over a period of 4 years. Think of her as an evolutionary process that is ongoing.
Valadin probably shouldn’t have deleted that reply. If he’s going to say something he should just say it.
Here’s the thing about the overall appearance of the MOC and her digitigrade stance. She’s meant to look kind of messed up in a way. She is meant to be a transgenic clone of Nokama. She has bits of Rahi and Makuta in her too. But I think sometime in the future I may technic her arms up a bit.
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It ain’t a hard rule, but it’s a Rule nonetheless. Constructive criticism is telling people HOW to fix something, and being a mentor. If all you’re doing is saying “This is wrong and this is wrong and this is wrong” you aren’t being constructive and therefore should probably consider not saying anything.
~Hawkeye
11 Likes
You need to commit to using either ALL smooth parts that match with ccbs or just use detailed parts from OG BIONICLE sets. It just looks weird when your torso is so dense and then the arms are made up of like six parts.
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Wait what happened? Who exactly was in the wrong here?
I think “me”, although I fully believe thaf my criticism was constructive, as it is the basic form of criticism that I give on all the mocs I see. I said “this is wrong and why”, and I assure everybody: I didn’t came here to shame a moc like a troll.
Half of my post was my opinion: It’s really hard for me to look at this moc and to see an athletic female in it. It reminds me more of the average body of a teenager (note that I don’t specify if a boy or a girl). The other fact is made out of facts: tge double jointed CCBS legs is a common mistake made by newcomers. I did that a lot. It isn’t wrong by any mean to fo it, it just make the moc look not as good. To fix that you just need to use two longer CCBS pieces. If it is tgen disproportioned with the rest of the moc, make the arms and torso shorter. The other thing I said is thaf the textures in tge torso clash with the smooth, roundish pieces in the limbs, which I don’t think I need to prove.
I probably would not have been as harsh if this wouldn’t have been a four years old effort. Now that I learned the story, I want to apologise for the harshness (that’s a word, right?), although my criticism still remain.
Was I harsh? Yeah. I am known to make harsh reviews on mocs, but this doesn’t change the fact that what I am saying is invalid.
I reiterate my statement that that’s the worst thing you could do to this MOC at this time. You ought to clean up the torso a lot first.
Also re: @Toa_Vladin, your critique is valid, but it reads like you went out of your way to make it harsh.
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No. When I made them my purpose waa not to be rude, but to critique.
It reads like you went out of your way to make it harsh, intentions notwithstanding.
I think that the way that you formatted your comment - short sentences, no paragraphs, periods instead of commas - added substantially to the aggressive tone I read out of your comment. Also, while you pointed out the flaws, you didn’t seem to offer any solutions, or even hints in the right direction. It comes off as destructive, rather than constructive, criticism. Even if the solutions may be obvious (to you), spelling them out illustrates that you want to improve the work, not degrade it.
4 Likes
Ok, there’s definitely a lot of potential here! I think there’s just a bit that could be tweaked and it’ll look great. Regarding the colors, I would condense it down to maybe one shade of blue and red, with silver. There are some transparent dark blue and metru blue ccbs shells that you could use to closely match Nokama’s mask. Also, i think if you could figure out how to get a bohrok shield on her chest, it would make it look sleeker and less cluttered.
[quote=“Lugztina, post:11, topic:50152”]
her digitigrade stance.
[/quote] I’d say just own that! Maybe make the backwards bend a bit more noticeable and increase the upper leg length. You could also add claws or something to play up the slightly bestial nature. The way you have it now, it looks kind of like the legs are meant to look normal, but you didn’t have long enough bones. This is really more of a posing thing than anything else.
3 Likes
Reminds me of something I say to a lot of MOCers: If you have to explain part of a MOC in its backstory, then that part of the MOC clearly isn’t doing what it’s supposed to on its own. If the intent was to make her digitigrade from the start, make it obvious enough that no one questions it.
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Hawkflight pretty well sums up my thoughts on this particular situation. [quote=“Toa_Vladin, post:15, topic:50152”]
I think “me”, although I fully believe thaf my criticism was constructive, as it is the basic form of criticism that I give on all the mocs I see. I said “this is wrong and why”, and I assure everybody: I didn’t came here to shame a moc like a troll.
[/quote]
You’re forgetting the most important part of constructive criticism. “This is wrong, this is why, and this is how you go about fixing it.” Without that last part, critiques lose their value.
Basically, spending more time saying “this is wrong” than you spend saying “here’s how I think you can fix it” isn’t constructive because you’re critiquing someone else’s creative work.
FOR EXAMPLE.
This MoC isn’t bad. The criticisms stemming from the CCBS and Technic overlap are valid, but mostly because having Technic on the Torso and then CCBS arms makes the differences between the two glaringly obvious. There are plenty of examples on the boards of MoC’s that nicely blend the two, so it’s definitely worth taking a look at some of them to see how they get around that issue. (Standalone Ball Joints are your friend)
I can see where you went for the Feminine figure, but I think the biggest thing working against it is the Inika Shoulder piece on the torso. It tapers down when it should taper out - the hips (especially on a character such as this) aren’t the narrowest part of the body.
I’d work on fleshing out the front of the torso - specifically smoothing it out. The back actually looks great, but I think the texturing on the front of the torso is definitely contributing to confusion and looks odd.
As for those people saying “This shouldn’t have taken 4 years” don’t listen to em. Not all of us have the time, patience, or skills to actually make MoC’s. What’s important is that you made it at all! I haven’t built a non-Inika mod moc since before Bionicle G1 ended. Hekk, I haven’t build a moc since before Bionicle G1 ended. Ain’t got time for that 
9 Likes
Please choose your words more carefully. There are ways to communicate your criticisms on a MOC without using patronizing language. No one here is perfect at the craft, and not everyone can work at the same speed. There is merit to what you have to say, but there are much better ways to go about saying it.
As for the MOC, I’d say it looks fine, but there are some inconsistent aesthetics that, if reworked, could make the MOC look much better. The proportions are good, and the torso build is pretty well done. The legs could be better, perhaps by incorporating more technic and less ccbs? You’d have many more options as well as more consistency with the look of the torso. The color scheme is a bit inconsistent, but I see what you’re going for. I would drop all the different shades of red and blue and focus on maybe just three of those, say for example, mata red, dark azure, and dark trans-blue.
The best part about evolution is that it never stops. If you should make any adjustments to this MOC, I look forward to seeing it- hopefully sooner than four years!
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Alright, after reading these comments, I took the liberty into incorporating some ideas into the MOC. After having her for so long, I lost track into what the character actually was. She is meant to be an assassin and not necessarily a model.
I especially wanted to convey that she was once a stone cold killer with swift cat-like movements and the ability to produce high-energy blasts. This is what the trans-orange system pieces on her hands convey. I also made her color scheme and overall aesthetic much more concise, being mainly only one shade of blue now and having Metru limbs. The use of Metru limbs I feel makes sense in this case as she has the genetic information of Toa Metru Nokama as a base. I still wanted to keep the CCBS on her upper thigh to give her legs that rounded shape typical of many females. I like torso design as it is, it is very unique and I feel it gives her a agile, feminine vibe without over-sexualizing or making her look anorexic. That was the main complaint I had when I first built her. I also incorporated more silver, particularly in her neural cord and took out the red. The red was proving to be very distracting, despite the fact that it is my favorite color.
Her upper arms were very tricky as many armor options would restrict movement and pose-ability which I did not want. So I went for two light trans-blue system rods. These one, serve in the story as her veins or vein markings which light up when she is using her powers, and two, do not bulk up the arms too much and, three, do not restrict movement.
Now I want to address some comments because I believe some of her design in regards to her story premise is a bit misunderstood.
@Toa_Vladin This sounds a bit offensive to me and I see this a lot with other female MOCs. Women come in a huge variety of body shapes. I would seriously consider that you go out and actually pay attention to what real people look like before you make such generalizations. What does a woman have to look like exactly? Also, I really would not be critiquing a MOC when you have not even tried these builds before and most of your other MOCs are BASIC CCBS MODELS that take really no time to complete. Before you critique anybody, if I were you, I would first work on your own MOCs, because these just seem like some generic Hero Factory sets/Bionicle 2015 sets and not something that looks like you put in any thought into. Also, I don’t see any female builds coming from you. What really turns me off about a person is if they have this “do as I say, not as I do” type attitude, especially if you are going to come off so harsh like this. I suggest you buy yourself some parts and work on your own MOCs before you start critiquing. And no, I don’t really accept your apology; it doesn’t sound genuine and it only sounds like you are sorry you got caught.
Ok, now that I got that off my chest;
@Likus Trying to keep this PG-13 at most so no thanks lol.
@Risebell I did this mostly but I feel like sometimes using an element is necessary in order to achieve a certain look/aesthetic. But I agree, the MOC before I modified her was looking offputting with complex torso and simple arms.
I’m a very busy man guys. I only have time to come on here and post on here only once in a blue moon as well as make subtle tweaks here and there to my MOCs if I see fit. That and the vision that I wanted for this MOC was blurry at the time. I appreciate the nice constructive criticism I did get though. It really helped in making this MOC look more concise and making it look more on how I wanted to look.
Edited post to abide by board rules- Prentice1215
3 Likes
this Looks really Better! I like how without the red it looks a lot more calmer and gives it that assassin look that she has
yeah, I sometimes think about that before making a Female Moc or even any Female Character for that matter. and I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that.
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Firstly, that inika shoulder is awful, get rid of it, bare technic would look better than that, replace it with something or just leave it off, but it has to go. The upper arms don’t look great either, just a bare double socket with some bars loosely attached to them, maybe you should try building up something with system for the shoulders, and speaking of system. The chest is just exposed technic, I’d suggest making something out of system to properly contour the chest, I used system on my gali moc for the chest and it worked out well, I think it would here as well.
Also I entirely agree with rise, consolidate your textures, now the ccbs on her is even more out of place. I’d suggest keeping the ccbs and adding system personally, but it’s up to you.
Finally, she doesn’t really look that feminine imo, the shoulders are much too wide, looks more like a svelte male, like lewa, you need to narrow the shoulders to be closer in width to the hips.
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@Payinku Can you show me a picture of that Gali MOC just so I could see what you did with the chest? I sort of want a Xenomorph/malformed genetic experiment type vibe, how would I be able to express that?