“And we all know what your pledges are worth, don’t we, ‘Toa’ Nidhiki?” - The Shadowed One
My entry for the Duckbricks Fanon Contest #6!
Back in 2021 I posted my original Toa Nidhiki MOC. To be completely honest, that design has NOT aged very well and shows that, as a moccist, I had so much room for improvement back then.
I do recommend checking that MOC out though, to see the differences between the two iterations.
This MOC is mostly purist but the mask and chest plate are in unavailable colors.
I used the official Kanohi Volitak piece instead of KhingK’s custom one. I really like the look of the official one and thought it fit perfectly, even with the respiratory thingy on it.
His chest now bears the popular Gahlok-Kal shield piece. The Piraka foot piece almost covered his entire torso and I didn’t like it, so I switch it out.
The Nuva shoulder armor was used due to it being conveniently available in bright green. The shoulder armor faces forward to give Nidhiki a slightly more unique shoulders.
Due to the usage of bright green, I couldn’t give him sand green as the combination of these 3 type of greens didn’t work out. 
I thought that using the Rahkshi lower legs with the Visorak feet as armor was to common for me to do, so I switch out the Rahkshi legs with backwards facing Hordika lower legs.
There is a tiny amount of reddish brown scattered around him, I personally think it looks good.
Here’s a good look at his Air Scythe
His Air Scythe no longer splits to form pincers, and are no longer double ended.
In Birth of a Dark Hunter, he’s described as sending elemental power from both sides of his scythe. With this in mind I added the Pohatu Nuva claw piece; you could imagine elemental power shooting out of the prongs, which could be considered to be on both sides of the scythe.
The scythe can be conveniently folded and stored on his back.
Here’s a view of his backside:
The Piraka foot piece, which I originally used as his chest plate because of it’s similarity to the Gahlok-Kal shield piece, is now on the back due to it’s and shaping fitting there more. It was a centerpiece of my original Nidhiki and I wanted to incorporate it into the current one somehow.
You can also see how his upper arms is built.
Here is the model next to the official 8622 Nidhiki set (obtained through the Bionicle Database of Stud.io Models):
Ramblings
What I like about this comparison is the contrast in color schemes. While they’re both predominantly dark green, the bright green gives Nidhiki’s Toa form a nice nit of vibrancy. It may not be a metallic color like seen Lhikan, but it still makes him look optimistic and heroic, which is fitting for a member of such a legendary Toa team. The grey and pale colors on Nidhiki’s mutated form gives off a depressing and almost lifeless aura, as if there is no hope and future for him anymore.
Unlike my original version of Toa Nidhiki, this version shares almost no similarities with his mutated form. His upper legs do sport the Metru thigh armor and his chest bears the iconic Gahlok-Kal Shield, but that’s about it.
In canon, most mutated characters, like the Toa Hordika and Rahaga, look absolutely nothing like their Toa forms. Matau did not recognise his newly mutated brothers and sister until he heard Nokama’s voice and Dark Hunter Savage’s Toa team didn’t recognize him after he mutated either. As such I ditched trying to make Toa Nidhiki look visually similar to his mutated form, which meant I could be more creative with his design.
And here he is alongside Toa Lhikan and Tuyet:
I used Bukkey’s Tuyet as I somehow didn’t have the Studio file for my version on hand (and didn’t remember that I had it shared on my Google Drive until after I built Bukkey’s).
I really like this version of Nidhiki, he’s definitely an improvement over the original.
Thank you for your time and sorry for all of the text.
C&C are appreciated as always!
P.s. I might add more images and poses later depending on whether I have the time to render them.
Edit: Forgot to include a link to the Stud.io model
