Okay, there are two things I wish to address here, and feel free to hate on anything I say.
First things first, why would you want to copy someone’s work that is not your own. Sure in some situations it can be fine, but there is a certain limit to it. Also, it is frowned upon by the “Higher Ups”, and shows a lack of creativity in a MOC that should show your creativity to at least some extent. Also, don’t raise yourself on a pedestal and patronize yourself, Steven. Don’t make it all about you and all about how you think it’s alright. Opinions are opinions, everyone has one, does not mean you have to take assault.
And that leads me into my second thing, why are you offended? It was Awesomenessborn’s opinion, and nothing more. You act like it went out of it’s way to insult you when in actuality, it did no such thing. You’re making a big deal over what is a small opinion. Maybe you accidentally worded it in such a way that it sounded like you took great assault, and I’m just looking too deep into it. Either way, learn it’s an opinion, it did nothing to go out of its way to insult you, and that you’re making a big deal over nothing.
There, that’s my two cents, I’ve said all I needed to say.
I honestly think that what you should do is use the Inika build as a model, and try different ways of incorporating that into the MOCs, that’s how I’ve been doing it, mostly because I don’t have a whole lot of lift arms and the like, but I’ve found that if you do it right and be creative, it can look really cool.
I haven’t read everyone’s post here, but I have to say Hawkflight’s advice is just bad and I disagree with it. Garnira’s though is solid advice.
My advice is more general, follow your inspirations and instincts. MOCing in a vacuum can have its benefits but so can observing other MOCers. Ultimately you want to find your own path, your own style of building and potentially your own unique blending of concepts or unexplored areas of MOCing. Borrowing techniques can be really useful, but copying other’s MOCs verbatim is a wasted exercise and I think it only negatively influences your technique and style.
I find BioMOCing to be a big exercise in breaking down mental barriers so that you can use what you have creatively. The more you can break the rules the better MOCer you’ll become because then you’ll be able to find more potential in the parts, even the weird off the wall ones like I have a tendency to use, find new ways to connect elements you’ve been using for ages and generally just find new creative solutions to the same problem. Reusing the same trick and technique over and over again can make your MOCs stale, uninteresting and indistinguishable from each other. I sadly see that in a lot of MOCers from MOCpages. I’ve literally had to ask someone if three different MOCers were the same person because I couldn’t distinguish their MOCs from each other. Repeating build types doesn’t necessarily mean you should repeat the techniques you used the first time. We build humanoids a lot as Bionicle MOCers, and yet I think I might have two MOCs total that reused the same build type, but only because I wanted them to look related. Change up your style and technique and even your own MOCs within your collection can stand out from each other in a line up.
Lastly, this is true of any artist in any medium, but challenge yourself. If you don’t challenge yourself as an artist you become stagnant and plateau. Be consciously aware of things you’ve achieved and haven’t achieved, and when you’re feeling comfortable with one type of build or style, go do something drastically different. If you’re comfortable, you’re not growing.
You should not be afraid of using Inika builds, at least if your going to make something better with it. Take into consideration with some of my brother’s creations with it:
I agree, don’t be afraid of a particular build, even I’ve used it once.
I even used the inika build as inspiration for rebuilding a character of mine.
I call the little one Steve Rodgers.
But at the same time, relying on specific build styles, even super customized ones can become a crutch. Using a technique can be helpful, relying on a technique can become a hindrance.
I see a controversy on copying others stuff. I think that it is perfectly fine to use techniques that others use. that is how I learned about custom building.
Another thing that is widely debated among Bio-Moccists is custom vs official builds. I think that you should find what you are good at and use it. If you can make good looking mocs with pre-made builds, do it. If you are better at custom, do that. just don’t rely on one or the other or on a specific technique. Mix it up a little.
Another thing to remember is to challenge yourself. Maybe find a piece that you never use and commit to building a moc with that piece, or try to use a system that you don’t use often. for example, I tried to make a very 2005 inspired character. he ended up being a titan sized Xian with an arsenal of weapons. I usually build inika sized toa, so this was a change for me.
Finally, one thing that helps me build is to know the feel and personality of the character before you start building. this helps you get that feel across better and helps with consistency.
Let me ask you guys something: one thing I always like to see are mocs with posable fingers on their hands. What would you MOCers say is the best way to achieve that for my own self-moc?
The most common thing in the MOCing community that I’ve seen is to use a variant on the Hydraxon hands. Usually a thumb connected via a tap piece, and fingers connected with a T-Bar (although since I’m low on T-Bars I tend to use a system clip piece connected via EXO Force hands, like so.) EXO-Force arms are the most common pieces to use as the fingers, and can have claws added on for those kinds of characters, but others like to use Battle Droid arms (for thinner fingers) or Minifig arms (for more organic fingers), and possibly the small clip-ons from Chima would work.
That’s a bit of an open ended question Kahi. First off, what size or scale are we talking here?
Pretty much all of my MOCs have articulated fingeres/hands these days. Only my earlier stuff doesn’t. As Hawkflight mentioned most people use the exo force/bionicle Minifig arms as fingers. That’s the widest range of part used for fingers.
The T bar configuarion is what seems to be “standard” but honestly its crap. I think I’ve used that hand design once and I don’t find it very useful. The hand design I use I first saw from Lord Gringat on MOCpages/DA. I use it on a lot of my MOCs but it can be seen here on Matteo
The way it works is you stick a claw piece into the axle hole of an old style socket a 1X2 plate into the square notches in the socket(it provides a light grip) then you stick a modified plate with the bars(look at the photo for the specific one) and attach it to both the plate and the clip part of the claw. This provides a nice sturdy connection to the socket element. Then you can attach two fingers to that, and like with the hydraxon hand use a tap piece and can attach a thumb, or two more claw parts connected together provides the same solution albeit a little less compact.
Another alternative that is relatively new thanks to the mixel ball joints is to use those. I’ve created a sort of test variant of the smaller hand design. .
I haven’t actually created a hand design with mini balljoint digits, but I don’t think that would be an efficient method as the fingers would be quite long, making the hand rather large. I could see it being useful for a characterized hand, but not for something proportionate to a “standard” sized build. This hand design though was made with the mindset that it could be customized to better fit the proportions of a figure.
If you want something a little more articulated and bigger, the next option is technic style click joints as seen here
This is probably my favorite hand design to use the click joints. its very articulated. It uses a combination of the click joints and the bar and clip system to create a very articulated hand.
Finally, the last jump in size is to use balljoints. Now we’re talking axon style hands. Interestingly enough, you can still rely on the bar and clip system to provide excellent articulation to the hands as I’ve done here with Saxum, provided the fingers aren’t too heavy, otherwise they’ll overload the bar and clip aspect of this design.
He uses the big Hero factory Paw piece, the small claw piece from the other hand designs and sockets attached to those via their axle holes, then the Hordika necks in the sockets to create the actual digit. This design is great for bigger MOCs or MOCs where you want them to have really large hands. And because it uses the Hero Factory Paw piece, it connects to any arm design that ends in a balljoint, which most arm designs do.
I know this is a bit of a read but I hope it helps you guys with your MOCs and inspires you to come up with your own designs. If you do copy one of mine(except for the one I borrowed from Gringat) I’d appreciate you giving credit. Thanks.
I actually just built one! All I gotta say is: It get’s complicated if you don’t use a Mata head or a hordika-styled head. I end up having to make a little contraption that puts a turaga hand in the middle of the Rhotuka hole, so I can use the Metru head for it’s pose-ability. It’s difficult to master, though.
Actually don’t do that. I spend a lot of time studying others’ MOCs and try my best to replicate the designs. Then I just experiment with it to see what works.
Something I do is look an element(piece) I think looks cool, and think of where I’d wanna see it.
Example: “Hmm, that Brain Attack Chestplate would make some snazzy leg armor.” and then I just do it. I try to make shapes to fit around that armor piece, and in that MOC’s case, Bohrok Skull pieces worked beautifully.
