The Beginning of the New Chronicle (LEGO Ideas Project)

It may not matter much but I will still make sure to support both of these.

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Iā€™m curious: letā€™s say Bionicle fans unite once again and all three mocs get 10k inā€¦ letā€™s say one week. And by some miracle, LEGO is choosing one of them- technic Tahu. Would designers be talented enough to turn it into something more proffesional without turning this moc into its system incarnation? LEGO always changes base project a bit. Sometimes more than a bit. But I believe, they are smart enough to know that by supporting technic project we expect l, wellā€¦ a technic set at the end

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Thatā€™s actually really good question :thinking:
I didnā€™t take into account that after the first wave of Hero Factory villains (Von Nebula, Rotor), we didnā€™t get any more advanced titans. Black Phantom and Fire Lord had many flaws, especially in terms of leg design, and the most praised set from Hero Factory by BIONICLE fans - Witch Doctor - was built in a somewhat messy way. It was supposedly due to how limited the CCBS building system was, but there was nothing to stop the Creative Team from reaching for Technic bricks when designing larger models. G2 didnā€™t had any titans except Umarak the Destroyer, who had a lot of holes, and later, Star Wars sets relied heavily on dedicated elements and prints. Iā€™m not sure if the people who designed such works of art as Brutaka, Maxilos or Jetrax are still employed by LEGO, but I hope that people on the Creative Team still remember how titans were built in the days before CCBS was introduced.
After all, weā€™re still getting great LEGO Technic sets :slight_smile:

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What about the G2 Makuta?

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I skipped Makuta because Iā€™m not sure if its designer was a part of LEGO Creative Team or he was only a marketing guy who made a MOC. After all, Greg Farshtey and Christian Faber never were a set designers, and I think, the team responsible for all three Makuta designs (from which one has been chosen as a canon model) was rather a face of marketing. But I can be wrong. If you know more, correct me :wink:

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No, the JTO Makuta model definitely came from Lego set designers, albeit not necessarily the same team that made the G2 sets.

One of the set designers is here on the Boards, and commented on the reverse-engineering topic for the model years ago:

Some of the designers involved in the various Makuta builds are credited in this reupload of the Makuta Contest video:

Also, the designers of the JTO model, specifically, are credited in these instructions:

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G2 Makuta has so weird history behindā€¦ Whole combiner without actual instruction stuff and the fact that we never got the most important mask, which started whole G2 storyline, it was probably one od the most frustrating LEGOā€™s decisions I had a chance to hear about.

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For me, still much more frustrating is the fact that Yesterday Quest and The Powers that Be webstories were never properly concluded. I can deal that story planned for 20 years long run ended after 10 years, but LEGO could at least let Greg finish what he already started.

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Lego was already doing that; the serials continued for a couple years after they ended everything else about the theme. The decision to put the stories on ā€œhiatusā€ came from Greg. He eventually got too busy with writing Ninjago (and other Lego themes) and raising his first kid, so the Bionicle story he was writing for free in his spare time was the first thing to get cut from his schedule.

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I want to comment more, but I donā€™t know how else to better describe it. Cool! Awesome job, and good thoughtfulness.

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Thanks, Iā€™m glad you liked the design of this MOC :blush:

Contrary to appearances, coming up with a BIONICLE-themed project is hellishly difficult.

In theory, BIONICLE is a series based on action figures, so it would be logical to build a specific character. But the LEGO Ideas regulations do not allow for modernized versions of sets that have already been created. In other words, all characters released as sets are out, while heroes from sidestories are too unpopular for the project to collect 10k votes.

The second thing that characterized BIONICLE was the plot, so you could consider a diorama presenting a specific event. But BIONICLE fans expect a construction made of LEGO Technic, and a project using System bricks would not stand out from the thousands of other sets released by LEGO. Yes, the strength of such a project would still be a reference to the seriesā€™ plot, but that is not enough to motivate a lot of skeptics from our fandom.

The next option are icons or the series, such as the Great Spirit Robot, a bust depicting the head of Tohunga/Toa, etc. But here again, I would have to use System bricks, and besides, both of these things have already reached 10k votes once.

So there is the fourth option - a character builder set based on unnamed characters. Unfortunatelly, again there is a problem - how to convince 10k BIONICLE fans to vote for a character they donā€™t care about? And even if the project is successful, what are the chances that LEGO will consider the project profitable?

For almost a year, I have been analyzing what projects are being approved by LEGO, what is missing from the LEGO offer, what BIONICLE fans (those who care about the return of the series, I do not count those who have written the series off and who are unwilling to sacrifice 5 minutes voting for a project addressed to them) think about both the projects that have already reached 10k and those still fighting for votes.

Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that the only sensible option was a tribute set honoring the history of the series by capturing key elements of it, such as the Technic build of the characters, the symbiosis of machines with nature, the mysterious atmosphere, and the paradise island in the background. And so, my project - ā€œThe Beginning of the New Chronicleā€- was born.

Actually, Iā€™m curious what else could work, but Iā€™m not sure if thereā€™s something what would have higher chance of both reaching 10k votes and being approved by LEGO. Especially, when youā€™re unable to use bricks that has been discontinuedā€¦

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Congratulations on reaching 300 supporters in the first month!

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Thanks, but actually, 300 votes in one month isnā€™t so spectacular. To have 100% chances for getting 10k, given project needs to keep getting 12-13 votes per day (exacly 12,68ā€¦), so today, my diorama should have something like 469 supporters to call it a success.

Especially when you know what our community is able to do- Sokodaā€™s diorama reached 10k in 25 days. And yeah, Iā€™m not even half as popular as Sokoda, and TTV didnā€™t made dedicated video about my MOC, but it doesnā€™t change the fact that over 10k of active BIONICLE fans have already a LEGO Ideas accounts. Probably more, because many created more for later two BIONICLE-themed projects.

So Iā€™m not sure if itā€™s the fault of the defeatist community members who donā€™t understand what a great opportunity theyā€™re wasting by ignoring LEOG Ideas (and Iā€™m talking about both current projects and the negligible support for THS not so long ago), or maybe the fans are just so picky that theyā€™ll only vote for a project that they see as flawless. Because I realize that in photos, my MOC might look chaotic, since the camera couldnā€™t capture the 3D, merging my characters with palm trees. I made a lot of smaller mistakes too.

Well, thereā€™s also a third option - laziness, but letā€™s be honest, the BIONICLE fandom has always stood out from other communities for its huge commitment, so I donā€™t think that suddenly thousands of fans wouldnā€™t want to sacrifice five minutes (two for those who already have an account) for clicking the yellow button under four MOCs.

Iā€™m afraid that either our fandom completely gave up on LEGO Ideas, or that fans are just going to wait for a miracle project to come along and be the proverbial shining knight on a shining horse. After all, weā€™ve seen in previous projects case that fans only voted for one, top MOC, ignoring other great projects, as if having multiple champions at the same time were the problem. I wouldnā€™t mind if my diorama was overshadowed by something much better, but it doesnā€™t look like such a project will appear before the seriesā€™ 25th anniversary, which we have to start hyping upā€¦

I think, Iā€™ll try to create one project more in future months. I tried to motivate some of my friends (great builders) to also try, but after year of having no single BIONICLE-themed project, I think Iā€™ll just start giving more of myself. :slight_smile:

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You should try and see if the ttv channel would be willing to promote it at all. I donā€™t know if they would take a suggestion like this but I would try.

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Iā€™m not a type of ā€œpromote me, plzā€ guy. I always felt weird about such manner. I know, self-promotion is crucial when it comes to LEGO Ideas, and to succeed, people have to be invasive about promoting their MOCs, but still, I am more of a person who likes to achieve what I achieve through a job well done rather than by begging. And the pool of votes Iā€™ve already collected, although small, gives me greater satisfaction than if I were to suddenly get a few thousand votes for free.
Even though I see almost zero faith in LEGO Ideas from the BIONICLE fandom, I still canā€™t deny that I could have built something better and that perhaps the low support is also due to the quality of my MOC.
I think, for now, Iā€™m gonna wait a bit and see how far my diorama will go on its own :slight_smile:

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So what would you like to do better? Most would vote for your set because of the Toa and I donā€™t see too many things that can be changed on better here. He could be less black, but from what I know, only few of those parts exist in lime. Matoran is imo even better.
About diorama, I donā€™t have much to say, I never had half of bricks used here in my hand.
Maybe try using more teal bricks on Toaā€™s lower legs

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Black parts of the Toa are the main reason why heā€™s blending with the enviorment so much. Unfortunatelly, camera is unable to separate them from each other because itā€™s able to see only limited spectrum of shades of black. Lime elements are so bright that they stand out from the green palm leafs, so there would be no problem with telling what youā€™re looking at. Unfortunatelly, most of the black bricks Iā€™ve used cannot be replaced by lime variant. Actually, the blending problem does not exist in real life. It is the fault of the camera, which, unlike a human with two eyes, is not able to capture the three-dimensionality of the structure. MOC is not messy at all.

As for what I could have done better, most of the negative feedback Iā€™ve seen (apart from the worthless ā€œlooks like s***ā€ comments) is about the figure blending in with the background, the fact that the construction looks fragile (the 15279 swamp plants tend to fall off and sometimes when removing the MOC from the diorama, its foot will detach the plate with the pin, but other than that, the whole thing holds up very well), and the fact that I use an illegal technique of inserting the stud into the pin hole (LEGO itself used this technique in dozens of sets). So if I were to make any changes to the MOC, I would probably try to fix things that arenā€™t wrong, but which are used by people in our community as an excuse not to vote for this project.

My project is a physical MOC, so budget, pool of elements, and availability of selected bricks in a given color are quite limiting. But as Iā€™ve said many times, these are not flaws that constitute a valid excuse for refusing support, and any of the minor issues, if they are indeed considered a problem by the Creative Team, will be solved by LEGO at the design stage of the final product if I manage to hit 10k.

Therefore, I do not plan any radical design updates in the nearest time. So far, my project has already received 340 votes and apart from two people on DuckBricksā€™ Discord and one person on All Bionicle Rejects Discord, no one has complained about the current state of the project. :slight_smile:

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Yeah, yeah, I get it.
Btw, how long it takes between the announcement that given set has been picked from the 10k club and the setā€™s official premiere? 6 months? One year? Letā€™s say we want to see anniversary set in February, by what month would the project we are promoting have to receive the required support? Is there still time for something new to appear on LEGO Ideas site?

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Actually, I donā€™t see any specific rule here. I would say that it takes something like 12-20 months, because on 13 February 2023 Iā€™ve uploaded on my YT channel an information that ā€œMata Nui Risesā€ has been rejected by LEGO and that instead of him LEGO picked Nightmare before Christmas set and Red London Phone Box. The second one had its premiere on February this year and the first one has its premiere right now. So itā€™s hard to say, how long it would takeā€¦

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Try using this brick in future builds, it could make your project less system

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