Well, if you ever manage to dig them out, we’d love to see some new pictures of them. It’s always inspiring to see such foundational parts of Bionicle’s unique feel pop back up after the two and a half decades it’s been since the line began.
The hunt is on 
Time to get the community to work tracking them down 
Something like these? (From BS01)
(Note the use of the original versions of the Dikapi and MNC, instead of the combo models with tan legs and ball joint eyes respectively)
Yes, that’s them! I guess they’re slightly less lost-media than I thought.
I do belatedly remember that I’d made a few new alt-models from the latest sets in 2003, but the photos were all lost when somebody stole my camera at a convention I was attending.
As luck would have it, we’ve been backing up old data recently, and I did stumble across my ancient photo folder full of Rahi MOC photos. I can’t recall if these were ever shown off anywhere, but I present Ngarara the crocodile, Waiki the walrus, and the unnamed “Gopher-Tortoise”.
That is a seriously cool crocodile. Looks like the jaws have a hinge and a rubber band on them, do you remember if there was a snapping function or were they decorative?
Oh, that Walrus is fascinating. It actually did get canonised, only under the name Waikiru and made from the brown Bohrok rather than the red one:
I like how you incorporate the Kanohi into the models. That’s pretty rare to see outside of 2001
It was mostly 2001, really!
Walrus – aha, that’s right! I’m not sure why I didn’t start with the brown one in the first place. Maybe I just had an extra red on hand.
Crocodile – I tried to always build some kind of function in (especially during the early period when everything was traditional Technic parts; it was tougher once we got to the more organic stylings), whether it was rubber-band-powered or just gear-turning movement. I’d have to unearth it to be sure, but I think you could turn a gear to open and close the jaws, and the rubber bands provided tension to keep them from flopping around. I’m sure if I could have figured out a snapping function, I would have. I didn’t have any training or even real experience when I was building those models, just a background in biosci and a love of animals, so my process was mostly sticking pieces together and hoping I could improvise a mechanism along the way. I’m sure they were super clunky compared to what the Model Shop could produce.
Oh I think I can see how this works, the little black nub on top of the head is a lever linked to the lower jaw. When you push it back and forth the mouth moves. Neat!
All this stuff is genuinely amazing to see after so long
(It looks like I’ve got lots of additional photos of the Sands of Mata Nui models as well, if new angles on anything would be helpful.)
Personally I’d love to see more of the Pakipaki, it’s just a really great design! Though honestly, seeing more of any of these is amazing considering they haven’t been seen in 24 years
This is like the coolest thing to happen this entire week
For real it’s like digging for buried treasure
