Hello everybody, this is Maniac4Bricks. When following Bionicle back in 2004 (at 9 years old), I was a little let down that the first enemy of the Toa Metru, the Morbuzakh, wasn’t a set or even a combo model. And around that time, entries were taken in for the Rahi Building Challenge with the notoriety to become part of the Rahi Beasts Scholastic book as well as canon status. Naturally I entered by creating my own version of the Morbuzakh from parts in my collection at the time. I still have the Polaroids of the original design!
And so many years later, in October 2020, I decided to rebuild this monstrosity with a little update for stability and a little less creepy status.
Charming, ain’t he?
I based my model on the many articulated branches of the Morbuzakh as shown in the comics. The Kanohi head was used to resemble its “mouth” area as seen in the transformation illustration. Since I was already using the Rahkshi leg builds as branches, I figured why not use their staff tips as the furthest parts of the branches? The base was from the Metru Nui Matoran Orkham, the only Metrutoran that I owned at the time, which also lead into giving the Morbuzakh red eyes when I didn’t mean to. At least nowadays I can pop off brain stalks willy-nilly with a brick separator, if need be 
As mentioned earlier, most of the construction comes from replicating the Rahkshi legs but in different colors. But the body is a little more interesting. Since I never took photos from the underside of this model, it was a guessing game coming back to it to see how to keep parts in place, or better than before.
Simply put, in order to fit the “top” and “bottom” limbs onto the torso, I had to turn the connector piece sideways. Then I added some frictioned Axles with Pin (or as I call them, “pin-axles” or “half-pin/half-axles”) and a 5-long Technic beam to bound them together. That way they can still move on their own without falling out of the holes by accident. The base-up side holds a 4-long Technic axle to hold a bushing and the “mouth” Kanohi head. I doubt back in the day I would’ve done anything more advanced, not sure if I would’ve thought this far to be honest.
Another technique I considered was to bound the connectors together with some 2-long axles and some skinny 3-long Technic liftarms, like the ones used in the Rahaga (yes I’m aware I’m not good with Technic names, but that’s why I provide links for pictures of the exact pieces I’m talking about). The only problem is that you’d lose the articulation of swinging either limb from the connector’s pin as opposed to the ball joint itself.
The model stretches to about a 10 inch diameter or roughly 5 inches radius with the branch tips facing up. He wasn’t built to necessarily be in scale with the Toa Metru or the Vahki, and if he was, maybe this was just a section that grew into its own, so it can wrap around Metru infrastructure or anyone passing by like a trap. Here’s a ground comparison to a Vahki.
And this might be the creepiest part yet: here’s how it looks standing upright. Or should I say, uproot? I’ll see myself out.
One last thing while I’m here around the door, did you know they made an official Morbuzakh sponge? No set but you can grow one in water?? Exclusive to this German Bionicle comic/magazine. I love obscure LEGO merchandise, even if I don’t own it, just to know it exists.
Have a good day!
Maniac4Bricks (Joey)
