Hello again TTV Message Boards! Evan is back once more to continue my personal version of the Toa Cordak team. Previously, for my first ever MOC (And hence why I am still asking for CONSTRUCTIVE criticism from people who understand and are better at this then I.) I took a crack at rebuilding the one member of the Toa Cordak we got a set for, Lesovikk! That MOC was meant to make a more complicated version of Lesovikk that better fit in with the complicated design of Nikila shown in both artwork and other people’s MOCs. THIS TIME THOUGH, it is a bit different.
This is the first MOC and Bionicle Character I practically made from scratch without having to base on a previously existing design. I present the sturdiest member of the team, its healer, and it’s BIG BOY, Toa of Iron, Fedalu!
Before going into depth about various feature, build aspects, and Fedalu’s character, I wanna make a quick note. This was my first time ever building a MOC from scratch, learning how specific pieces worked and how they might affect things, and I fully understand that this is not a perfect design, and me building it exclusively in Studio may have affected how I see articulation. I appreciate any type of Constructive criticism, just don’t be a jerk about it or say, “Why would you think this part would work?” or stuff around those lines. Okay? Okay. MOVING ON.
Your first question upon seeing this MOC might be, “Okay, how is this guy a Toa Cordak?” Couple of answers. Let’s start with the build. While I did reuse some parts from the actual Lesovikk that we did get, a good chunk of parts and designs qualities here pull from four sources. My own Lesovikk Prime MOC, WholesomeGadunka’s Nikila MOC, the Toa Hana MOC made for the fan made Bionicle Rebuilt series, and my own interpretation of what a Toa of Iron would look like.
The Torso is mainly where the shared parts for the Toa Cordak come in, as all the members I’m making will either use the Toa Metru torso like what I use for my Lesovikk Prime MOC, or a modified version of the custom torso made by WholesomeGadunka for his Nikila MOC, with the latter being used for Fedalu here. The reason for the reuse or modification of parts of Toa Hana for Fedalu is due to me knowing right from the get go that I wanted Fedalu to be more of bulky character in comparison to his teammates, and the limbs, mainly the shoulders and parts of the legs, really help convey that.
Now for a part I’m really excited to talk about, my interpretation of what a Toa of Iron should look like due to, as of the time of typing this, we do not have any canon image of what a Toa of Iron is meant to look like. How I went about thinking about this is that the element of Iron is basically Bionicle’s version of what a Metal element would be, and when I think of metal, personally the first thing that pops to mind is smooth and refined. So, to the best of my ability, I tried to make a majority of the outer, Orange armor be either smooth or round in appearance. Also I went with Orange and Silver because I felt it was a good color combination.
My own gripe is that of the mask, which is the fan made Mask of Healing made by Galva. I think my pick for the actual Mask design fits well with everything else, it’s the color that I’m having second thoughts about and need an opinion on. Initially when I decided on the Masks for the all of the Toa Cordak, I thought Fedalu would have more have a balance between Silver and Orange, but the finished MOC leans more on Orange. I actually was really unsure if I wanted to keep the Mask color to make it stick out from the rest of the body, change it to Orange to better blend with that body, or possibly go the route of something I don’t actually think I can do in Studio, that of making it two colors. With the majority of the mask being silver, and those lines(?) on the left and right being made Orange. This is more me thinking aloud and seeking opinions if I ever wanted to try and actually build Fedalu,
That’s another major difference between this and the Lesovikk MOC, Fedalu is like 95% made of parts you could actually purchase in those colors and build. Maybe I’ll post instructions as a separate post if I can figure out how to properly use the Instruction feature of Studio.
One last thing before diving into his character, Fedalu’s weapon of choice. That is, his fists. Or claws? Well I designed them to be fists or a type of Knuckle weapon as that’s not really a weapon you see in this franchise (Maybe there’s a reason to that I’m unaware of, I’m still new to this series.) and they still work as fists as you’ll see in poses at the end, but they could also almost work as a type of claw when viewed from the side angle like in the first image. Made me kind of think of the Onua or Pohatu from the first year of the series in a weird way due to those kind of sticking out in weird ways.
Finally, Fedalu’s character.
Fedalu could be loosely described as part of the “gentle giant” archetype due to his larger size, bulkier stature, and yet soft nature. That being said, he will still throw a punch when the time called for it, and he can hit pretty hard, but he was more like the team’s shield AND medic, usually being the one to try and defend his teammates from harm while also using his Mask of Healing to try and bring them back into fighting condition. Outside of the fight, he was one of the more friendly and jovial members of the team, who always appreciated being able to talk with and learn about his friends.
Though like the majority of his team, he did perish, and was sadly one of the first to go. Dying doing what he did best, trying to protect his teammates like the shield he always liked being.
I hope you all enjoyed learning about my first ever, built from scratch MOC. I thought a lot about Fedalu’s personality and character as I built his MOC, and I can already say he’s gonna be one of my favorites in terms of character. Looking forward to thoughts and help the community can provide to help improve my skills as a rookie MOC-ist.
I shall now leave you all with the remaining pictures of Fedalu, and stating that the next member of the team I will be working on is that of the team’s Toa of Water and Spiritual Member, who I have named, Gamako.
Bye for now! Have a Great Day Everybody!
New!: So after gaining a bit more experience with MOC building and Studio, I decided to have a bit of fun. Using Studio, I have gone back and made instructions for all of my currently released Toa Cordak MOCs! Now, these instructions are not anything fancy, I wasn’t trying to make them look all official so they are gonna be a tad rough, I really just wanted to get a method of building some of my characters out into the world for people who wanna try. This and all my other Toa Cordak posts will eventually all be updated with their instructions of their most up to date versions, and will most likely be replaced with new versions as time goes on and I make changes
Just so people know, for Toa Fedalu, there are 83 pages (Though that’s mostly because of my inexperience with the Instruction Builder) and around 343 pieces if I am remembering correctly, including 4 “custom pieces”. 1 3D printed mask, and 3 pieces that did not exist in the specific color, but they should be easy enough pieces to paint or find replacements for. Enjoy!
Make sure to check the bottom for the actual colors of the mask, and if there are any issues with the link, let me know and I will try my best to fix it.
