Sand Tarakava

So I was looking at some Bionicle Lost Media and I remembered about the Sand Tarakava. Apparently, there are 5 rumored to exist but only 1 is in possession of a guy named Mark Durham. Are there any photos to confirm its existence? Photos of at least the sealed box. Thanks. This is also a thread for lost media in bionicle since the last lost media thread was in 2016.
Ok so I found a bricklink listing for a sand tarakava but I can’t confirm it’s real since the ruru is orange.

EDITED FOR DOUBLE POST - Spiderus Prime

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There is no sealed box. The sand Tarakava is a prototype set that was never officially released in any form, with just a few prototype models given to collectors.

The Bricklink listing you’ve provided is for a replica model someone’s made with their own parts, not an actual sand Tarakava.

For a close look at a real sand Tarakava, see this page: ICFTA: Sand Tarakava – Mask of Destiny

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I’m not sure if this rumour is true.

I ended up looking into this a couple years ago due to a “discussion” on the subreddit, and I found a Tumblr post with evidence that there is only the one model.

The Tumblr post has since been deleted, but I was able to get it back with the Wayback Machine (minus the images, though they’re mostly just screenshots from various games):

The gist of it is that, according to an employee, Saffire (the company behind the cancelled 2001 game) received a prototype Tarakava set for development purposes and, after they were done with it, it was won by the employee in a bowling competition. He later put it on eBay, right around the same time that the current owner got it from an anonymous source.

Obviously none of this is conclusive, but it’s a lot more evidence than I’ve ever seen for the claim that there were 5 sets sold for $30 each to collectors.


EDIT: I just learned from BS01 that the above story has a certificate of authenticity:


Full Text Backup

[The Full Story of the Sand Tarakava]

This is something that you see a lot of myths flying around about, so I wanted to write up something that could be pointed to as easy reference for the facts. You may have seen or heard of this guy:

Read on for the somewhat convoluted history behind him.

To start, here are some things that are NOT true, but frequently repeated:

  • There were five of these models given to private collectors directly by Lego
  • This is a cancelled set

The second point is easy to address: its just a prototype of the final Tarakava set that we did get. Color adjustments like this were never uncommon for the Bionicle design process. I don’t know where the five-model rumor originated, but we’ll debunk that as we get into the real story.

Flashback to the Fall and Winter of 2000. Bionicle is still months from launching ( many months for everyone in North America), but work has begun on the tie-in media that will supplement the toyline. Of specific interest to us are the doomed PC game The Legend of Mata Nui (LOMN), and the web game we now know as the Mata Nui Online Game (MNOG). These games needed to integrate the Rahi as enemies, but as summer 2001 releases, the Rahi designs were still being finalized. So what do the developers of these two games (Saffire and Templar, respectively) receive from Lego? Prototypes! The particular Tarakava we see in the picture above was sent to Saffire for LOMN. And, indeed, take a peek at the Tarakava model in the game:

…and compare it, particularly the muzzle, to our prototype Tarakava:

That’s a match, baby!! And it’s significantly different from the final Tarakava design, which doesn’t even use a Ruru mask. Note also the use of the longer 45-degree beams to attach the jaw on the final model, as opposed to the smaller 90-degree parts on the prototype:

I didn’t make this observation myself - the shared Ruru was noted by JrMasterModelBuilder, then The Shadow Emperor realized that the LOMN model and the prototype were totally identical. So thanks to them both!!

So Saffire modelled their Tarakava on this prototype, then color-shifted it when they had access to more finalized designs. The same thing happened with Templar in MNOG:

This doesn’t mean, though, that Templar had their own copy of this Tarakava!! Saffire shared their 3D models with Templar, and many of MNOG’s early graphics are based directly on those models. Such appears to be the case here.

The plans for MNOG’s final minigame, where you fight all the Rahi at the Kini-Nui, were much more ambitious than the team ultimately had time to implement. While the completed version only incorporates the four relevant retail Rahi sets, there were several more beasts that had their stats figured out in anticipation of being included. We can see this in Templar’s retrospective blog entry on the chapter:

See that, fifth up from the bottom? Sand Tarakava. Someone at Templar must’ve been fond of the colors of the prototype model, and wanted to include it in the minigame! While time didn’t allow, the dialogue addressing this full bestiary was already written, and was included in the game. So we get this from Kopeke:

This, from November 2001, was actually the first time any fans would have heard of a ‘Sand Tarakava’ - nobody outside the teams working on Bionicle even knew about the prototype itself yet.

Meanwhile, at Saffire, our prototype friend had outlived its usefulness for game production. What happened next is here recounted by Darvell Hunt, who by some small miracle is the one developer on LOMN that has been receptive to communicating with the fan community.

We once had a group activity at the local bowling alley and the reward to the first person who got a strike was a prototype LEGO toy. I forget which one it was, but it was a yellow creature which punched, like a boxer, when you pressed on left and right levers at the back, and had triangular tracks for feet. I won the prototype toy that day and got to take it home.

About a year later, Hunt made the decision to part with his prize:

I had it for a couple years [sic], but unfortunately, I sold it on eBay a few years later […]

Thanks to The Shadow Emperor for grabbing these quotes from the Litestone Discord server

Hunt later clarified that he actually believed he sold the Tarakava in 2002. So where did it go? Well, we can’t say with total certainty. But what we do know is that, also in 2002, Mark of Mask of Destiny acquired just such a model, debuting it to the public for the first time.

The Sand Tarakava in my possession is a prototype model, not a MOC. I did not build it. It will not be produced as a set, except in that the retail TARAKAVA were derived from it.

I am not at liberty to discuss where or how I found the Sand Tarakava, other than to say it was through sheer luck while looking for a BIONICLE Mini-CD. No one from The LEGO Group sent it to me.

It sure sounds to me a lot like Mark lucked out and came upon Hunt’s eBay auction!

I guess either Mark or some other fans, upon seeing Mark’s pictures of the model (still the only images extant of the actual prototype!) put two and two together in a way that just so happened to be correct - this was the very fellow Templar had designated the Sand Tarakava.

The official Bionicle lexicon went up in 2002, and it appears the creators trawled MNOG for terms (see for example, the inclusion of ‘ensign’, ‘drifts’, and several very specific treespeak words). They picked up on Templar’s Sand Tarakava mention and included it with this definition, hewing close to what could be derived from the creature’s name.

A desert-dwelling breed of Tarakava.

From here, the Sand Tarakava came onto the radar of Greg Farshtey and Jeff James, who embellished this further for the Rahi Beasts book in 2005. They seem to have been aware of fan talk about the prototype as well, as they mention the creature is smaller than regular Tarakava - reflecting the prototype’s more hunched stature compared to the final models.

And that is the entire saga of this yellow lizard. A fairly bog-standard prototype that, through a very specific and weird set of circumstances, became an official creature in the Bionicle mythos, and the object of many collectors’ desires. Its funny how this stuff happens.

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Just did some more research myself, it does appear that there was only ever one model, which has been in the hands of the same collector since 2002.

I believe the misinformation likely comes from the fact that there are multiple yellow Rurus in circulation.

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Did you find any additional sources of information?

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Also, people can fake yellow rurus. People have actually dipped orange rurus into bleach, causing the colors to change, so those could be the cause of the yellow rurus in circulation. But then again, the legit mask has a code printed on it’s side, so if the one with the prototype code printed on the side is in circulation, then there can be multiples.

But let me get this straight. Darvell sold the sand tarakava to mark?
Ok another question. Darvell mentioned another set that he received from Saffire. Does anyone know what the 2nd set? Also, this person said something about another extremely rare unreleased yellow ruru sold on bzpower in 2017. Is this true, and if so, could you provide the link with the thread. Thanks.


EDITED FOR DOUBLE POST - Spiderus Prime

huh it mentions that it was for the canceled game, didn’t know that

Mark almost-certainly bought it from Darvell’s eBay auction, yes.

Wow, how did I miss that? That seems like a pretty big deal, though I don’t know what it would be. Probably another prototype, though I’d have to wonder what set it was for. Another Sand Tarakava, or some hitherto-unknown prototype?

I wonder if the 5 sand tarakava rumor holds some merit, or if not where it originated from?.

As far as I know, the only “official” Sand Tarakava is the one Durvell owns. All others are replica MOCs, built by fans either for themselves or to sell on Ebay for mega $$. Not that I blame them. But anyhow, I can see the possibility of others existing, if possibly some of the designers had made other prototypes, or copies of said prototype.

It might be the nui rama prototypes that are in possession of Barklava of Bzpower. But I’m just speculating.

That seems possible, though I kind of would have expected that Lego would only give Saffire a single model, like they did for the Tarakava. It would be nice to know more details about where those Nui-Rama came from.

For those wondering (like me):

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He did actually post those on here before. I believe it was on the LEGO Prototypes Discussion.

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Quick question: what kind of tread does the Sand Tarakava use?

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This Duplo tread:

https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=71981&name=Duplo%20Tread,%20Thick%20Cleats&category=[DUPLO,%20Vehicle]#T=P&C=11

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Thanks

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