Having recently impulse-bought RPG Maker because it was on sale, I figured I might contribute something for once and make…well, anything, really. So, I’ve been hard at work for a while making a basic template for you, dear reader, to make your vary own Bionicle characters for RPG Maker games! Right now, I only have a template for Matoran, but I intend to design sprites for the Toa in the future. Also, I only have overworld sprites for now, but I want to make battle sprites in the future. Portraits are, sadly, beyond my ability at the moment, but one can work around this with Stud.io renders.
The template and the original 12 masks
Here’s the template under the hood, first of all. The face isn’t something you see often, and I removed parts of the forehead to better sell the profile of the mask without the giant chibi head making it ultra cursed. I may revise the side and back sprites at a later date, though; for now, here is…this thing. The torso is based on the Matoran designs in MoL.
The Hau was my first mask. It has an actual back edge, which I may or may not revise on all other sprites that would look better with one. These mask designs aren’t meant to exactly replicate the official Lego pieces; rather, they are evocations of those masks, with some details deliberately fudged or outright reworked to fit the head.
I removed the visor component of the Kaukau so you could fill it in with whatever trans color you like. The rest of the mask is opaque.
There’s support for a scopeless Akaku…
…as well as the classic mask we all know and love.
Making the sprite for the Mahiki did the impossible: it made me hate this mask even more than I already did.
For now, these are the only masks I intend to support with this template, as I want to move on to making sprites for the Toa, and seeing if battle sprites are something I can figure out. Those will be harder because all the sprites are at an angle.
In the meantime, do leave feedback on these sprites and what seems off to you. I might even try to make some sort of game in the future, though I can’t promise it’ll be Skyrim or anything; more like an RPG equivalent to MNOG…if that ever even happens.
Download the template for yourself! You’ll need Gimp in order to use it.