I love this guy’s flat pancake head so much that I just had to draw him
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Welcome back the the Hawkflight Archives, today I have a full Toa team, one of two I have ever made
We start here with the illustrious pants of what would have been Jethryn V4 - aka Jethryn’s form as part of the Toa Order. Taking some cues from the original version of Jethryn - namely the Inika sword, Core Hunter mask, and dark blue, while perpetuating previous elements of Jethryn such as the Metru feet at his sides and the Bohrok head based thigh design. Come to think of it, if I ever made a new version of Jethryn, I should try to include those again. Also, a first attempt at custom feet, which ends up giving him the appearance of cloven hooves.
I tried to make a makeshift body to move it towards completion. It didn’t help.
Ultimately I settled on a simple, Inika-based design, using the two Metru torso chest design (another element from Jethryn V3 that I could reconsider for the character.) It’s worth noting that, for him and at least one other Toa on the team, I had lore for why he was a Toa of lightning and male - an effective symbiotic transformation that would be introduced later on.
Khaati, Toa of Air, was probably one of my most unique designs from this era - dark green and gold with heavy white spikes, and a custom mask with a halo and horns - this mask was the Mask of Reincarnation, which meant that after he died he would be transformed into a slightly different version of himself and take in elements of his death, allowing him to obtain more powers over time at the expense of his memory. This was actually my first BIONICLE OC concept, before Jethryn and Onadus. This would be cool to revisit someday.
Fun fact, I did tease Jethryn V4 when I only had the legs, and his mask (used to reference his returning to roots) was held by Khaati’s torso.
Incidentally, he was the first casualty of the ill-fated Toa Mokha expedition, having quite a bit to do with…
Galek, but in his form as a Toa of Fire, rather than a Toa of Shadow, but no less evil. Galek grew hostile to the rebuilt Matoran of the Southern Continent, which the Toa were tasked on finding and re-establishing connection to, but Galek orchestrated Khaati’s death at their hands and led his Toa team towards attempted genocide. He was ultimately killed by Jethryn, after his manipulation was exposed and his attack on the other Toa. It was this conflict that burned Jethryn’s mouth, preventing him from using Kanohi and forcing him to use his “conduit mask” (aka Slizer foot) to regulate his broken circuits.
None of which has to do with the MOC, which I like less than his Shadow Toa version.
Jethryn wasn’t the only survivor, though - unbeknownst to him or Galek, Gelisa, Toa of Psionics, survived her defeat at Galek’s hands. She also survived in design to my G2 storyline, becoming the basis for Therina, a similar Toa of Psionics (well, “Toa of Spirits”) with Lhikan’s Hau, which I had fairly recently obtained. She also cross-connected with Zach X’s story, serving as an assistant to the Makuta Netrux in his creation of artificial lifeforms. Xevach (Zach’s self-MOC) wielded the Mind Baton at the time, so this seemed like a good way to connect them. Design-wise, she got considerably improved by Therina down the line.
Arphax, Toa of Magnetism, got his inspiration from an unusual place - the local news. I had recently heard about a kidnapping in the local rea, which stuck in my head, and I ended up creating this hero character who served to rescue similar victims in Metru Nui. (This tidbit eventually made it to the Custom BIONICLE Wiki’s “trivia of the month”.) The white and red color scheme was inspired by classic superheroes, to give him a more noble appearance than a Toa of Magnetism’s standard colors, and wields a considerably worse custom firearm than Drakaal did. Also, he has matching Furno XL pieces for shoulders, because I of course got a second one to have another cape.
Rounding out the band is Kaylos, Toa of Iron, AKA Tranlii but with a feral appearance and a larger bust. She was also based around a Zamor sphere launcher torso similar to Hema, and is a female Toa of Iron, artificially transmuted from some other element. Arphax rescued her from captivity as a Matoran and she was probably thrilled to be on the same team as him.
There was definitely more I could say about her but I won’t on this platform. Her storyline was arguably one of the darkest I’ve ever written.
And, for completeness’ sake, here’s an unfinished team member - Vortux, Toa of Ice. He ended up being replaced by Kaylos in the story, but he was eventually going to have two ice disks as weapons.
Brief storydump for what happened after these characters - Jethryn went into self imposed exile after killing Galek, encountered Turaga Jovan who convinced him to be a force for good even outside the order. Jethryn went on to become a cartographer, sometime spy, and start a team of similarly outcast Toa. He was eventually abducted by the Order of Mata Nui, because he ended getting injected with some odd energy during a fight against Dark Hunters… and that’s where the next batch of characters comes in. Join me next time, maybe.
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These are pretty neat!
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Welcome back to the Hawkflight Archives. I just noticed that in the last post I said “Welcome back the the Hawkflight Archives”, and it appears that no one has noticed. Anyway here are some MOCs.
We’ll begin with some period pieces, or as they’re officially called, the Mixels. I think I got one of each of the initial tribes (fire, lightning, and earth) and mixed them up. This one looks to be some sort of volcanic rock guy with an angry unibrow for his single eye.
This fellow just reminds me of Zaptor. Probably the most memorable Mixel to me. My sister and I still quote his spiel about public safety on occasion.
This guy has fire and also has an angry looking bit of swoopy hair. He must be a cool guy.
Speaking of cool guys with swoopy hair. This was my self-Mixel, because of course I needed one. Interesting how the mixel color selection meant he had the same colors as Drakaal, my secondary self-MOC. He also has a spear. He must have a cool backstory about how he got that spear.
Actually, he didn’t. The discussion about why he had a spear did eventually lead to us deciding that the Mixels were a far future evolution of the inhabitants of Spherus Magna though. So there’s that.
Back in BIO-MOC land, this is Enlu, Toa of Light. I don’t think I had much of a design for her, she appeared in the story I was writing for the Toa Mokha before I gave up on that.
And here’s Fayni, a Matoran character for a MOCpages RPG. I would go on to reuse this character later.
And here’s Gineo. I think there’s a good chance I built this after I scrapped Vortux but wanted to do something with what I had so far.
These little modular vignettes were meant to chronicle a heroic family in past, present, and future. I gave up on the future part. I think I still have these minifigs around, because I barely make new ones.
man go bonk
Going back to “Serious” characters, I guess. This was a revisit of Eltre, the infected Toa of Plantlife. I feel like there wasn’t really any improvement - possibly it was a step back, because at least the first one had poses I liked.
And here was Jethryn V4, aka he of the poorly explained and questionable backstory that probably needs a paragraph or two.
I think my biggest regret with Jethryn’s story for a long time was wrapping his backstory up in a prophecy (which made it harder for me to give him an interesting conflict), which, now that I think about it, is a dumb regret since prophecy plays a consistent role in BIONICLE. As mentioned previously, Jethryn’s gender/element combo was possible because he was actually a host for “The Stormhawk”, a celestial creature from outside the Matoran Universe, and after a skirmish with a Dark Hunter, He was abducted by the Order of Mata Nui to identify what was wrong with him.
He was in a semi-comatose state, remembering his memories of the Toa Mokha and of his reconnection with Gelisa years later. This also ended tragically, both with Gelisa dead and with the accidental creation of the fusion Drakaal, who imprinted on Jethryn as the cause of his suffering. At the same time, Shaycon (remember Shaycon), from Hawkflight Archives 01?) was trying to identify the infection, but Jethryn woke up and escaped before it got under control.
Now that I’ve written it out, there’s actually a lot of potential there, but it needs some good execution. Creating characters who are too good is always a risk with OCs, and I do think in that original incarnation I was writing Jethryn as too good, too powerful, too hard on the cool assassin vibe. But the “we don’t know what’s wrong with him” storyline is perhaps more interesting, with parallels to my diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder and depression. It helps that in future iterations of the character (namely Jetera, my V2 selfMOC) the Stormhawk became a character of its own rather than a pure power-up, with its own agenda that conflicted with Jetera’s morality.
TL;DR I want to make a new Jethryn and it’s going to be your fault.
And that’s not even getting into the MOC. Most notable things included custom feet, the Furno cape covering the entire torso, the return to silver for an iteration (I considered it a “dirty” version of his normal white), and the Metru chest as a mask. Most of which would end up removed for the next iteration, because the MOC itself was fairly controversial.
Our last entry for today is Donakh. I was pretty proud of this MOC because it was effectively a combiner model - taking pieces from my newly acquired Onewa Metru, Enlu, and some other grey pieces I brought with my to my grandad’s condo. Donakh was another Order prisoner who escaped. He had lost his belief in Mata Nui thanks to seeing some of the inner workings of the Matoran universe, and was locked up because he was encouraging other Matoran to quit their duties, threatening another need to use the Ignika by stalling the progress of Metru Nui. He was also the first character I think I wrote with his own narrative voice - a snarky, jaded personality. I wrote his encounter with Jethryn in first person, and had him as one of a handful of narrators for an also unfinished story.
Join me next time, maybe, for the last of my BIONICLE characters before G2 came along.
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Very nice. The mixels remind me of the ones I used to make
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Huh, I never did the last post of this. Time to fix that.
To kick things off, here is Fayni. My character in a very short-lived MOCpages RPG. I don’t remember that much about her in this iteration, but she was eventually revived for my G2 story. Notable for paralleling Jethryn’s Furno XL hood, by having a Furno XL scarf.
These Matoran were characters from the same story, I don’t remember much about any of them. This one looks a bit clunky.
also clunky, and with a very short spear
I think this is the only MOC I have ever done in orange and dark green.
Here we have a fella with a motorcycle.
And a very stocky Matoran build showing off that I was such a big LEGO fan, that I had the LEGO wallpaper.
Now, on to some more interesting MOCs.
Here is Kerath, a male Vortixx - and with terrible gynophobia as a result of the sexual classism of the Vortixx. Another dark plot that I never really invested in. Eventually became a dark hunter, and eventually eventually ended up teaming up with Jethryn on an adventure into the Southern Islands.
Kyrill, a female member of Axonn’s species (most evident in the foot and thigh designs), and a member of the Order of Mata Nui. Was Jethryn’s second romantic interest, originally tasked by the Order to join his new team to the Southern Islands and keep tabs on his Stormhawk element, and they ended up on different sides. She was also meant to wield a sling, but I don’t know if I ever made that work.
I always liked to have one “counterpart” to whichever version of my selfMOC I had at the time. For Jethryn V4, I included Eikaal, the Toa who was eventually fused with a Visorak and became Drakaal. Eikaal was also meant to have an Avian power mirroring the Stormhawk, thus the bird emblem you can barely see on his chest.
Wrapping things up for today we have Jethryn V4.5, meant to address the criticisms of Jethryn V4. The silver bits were returned to white (and more White was added), the classic Slizer foot is back, and the cloth was returned to underneath the armor rather than the covering for the torso. This was Jethryn’s last appearance before his G2 variant, Jetera, came along.
Well, I think that’s the last thing before I joined the message boards, and started posting MOCs here. Not that I posted everything I ever made since here, and maybe someday I’ll decide to round the Archives off with those, or even reviewing the stuff I’ve made since I joined the boards. Until that hypothetical time, or until a I have something new to show, this has been the Hawkflight archives, with me, your host, Hawkflight. Have a great day.
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these mocs look pretty good. I like the motorcycle guy
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i love the vortix moc!
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Really loved seeing your progression of building!
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I really really like this one
Not entirely sure why
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