Hello !
I’ve been interacting lightly for the past few months on the subject of canon contests and the Toa Hagah in particular. To be honest, I’m on the small side of people who would rather not have canon contests. However, since I cannot prevent them to happen, I figured I could at least try to have a little bit of fun out of them. Since I’m not a mocer per se, the Hagah contest is probably the only one where I can actually participate, so here I am.
Moreover, the Hagah contest is of particular interest to me, because we are designing the four remaining members of a team of which we already have two members in set form. I’m a purist, I’ve made no secret about that either. For that reason, I’d like to show my purist view of what the other four Hagah could look like. As a result, you’ll find no overly complex or skilled build here. No custom 3D parts either. What I did was to carefully choose the armor, masks and spears and put them on a standard metru build. Everything is in the choice of parts, not in the building skill, since I’m not a mocist. I only used the metru thigh armor because I think there are essential to get the pure metru look. I also only used Rahkshi and Vahki legs to precisely match the leg designs of Iruini and Norik.
To elaborate a little bit on the concept of my Hagah team, we’ll need to travel back in time to one of the first discussions about the Toa Hagah and how much purism should be applied to them. Toothdominoes (Niek) made a joke about that on twitter. To achieve true purism, you should recreate the exact situation of the Hagah in 2005, that is designing characters which are NOT Pouks, Kualus etc then retrofit them to be the remaining Toa Hagah. For those who might not know, this is a reference to how Iruini was originally supposed to be Toa Nidhiki and Norik was originally supposed to be Toa Dume. That twitter post made me laugh but it also sparked an idea. Since I was going to use only true LEGO parts anyway, I’d be forced to use masks from characters that already exist as their own sets. So, I decided to actually apply the idea of this tweet and choose the armor, spear tips etc of each of my Toa Hagah in accordance with the character from which I chose to reuse the mask. Basically, I’ve designed Toa versions of existing characters in armored metru form and gave them the name of a Toa Hagah. I will explain the reasoning behind each part choice in the description below.
Before I go into the details, I first need to talk about the colors of the armors. I’ve chosen to completely forgo color parity. Here is why. I’d rather not paint parts. Painting one mask is one thing, but having to paint multiple parts and an entire hagah shield is too much for me. I respect the people who have no issues painting parts, but I’d personally rather avoid it. Because of this, I’m restricted to silver and gold since those are the only colors in which the Hagah shield exists. Now, let’s look at which Hagah I can apply a gold armor to. I know some people think that is a bit ridiculous, but since Iruini has a gold Rhotuka in set form, I would give a silver armor to the Rahaga who have a silver Rhotuka in set form. That means my Gaaki and Bomonga are both silver. Only Kualus and Pouks remains. However, some people have voiced concerns that white and gold are the colors of Light. I don’t necessarily agree that it is a big deal, but it’s true that a Toa Hagah of Ice with golden armor would be hard to distinguish from a metru-built Toa of Light apart from the weapons. I’d rather avoid this debate altogether, so I made my Kualus silver. There only remains Pouks for gold but, to be honest, I think flat dark gold does not look good on metru brown. So there you have it: all my Hagah mocs are silver. This means Iruini is the only Toa Hagah with gold armor in my heacanon team. At first, I thought it was a bit silly. Then I realized this was exactly like that in Rahaga form. Iruini is the only one with a golden Rhotuka. So, basically, I think this is no big deal. Iruini is gold, great for him, the others are silver. No big deal, we have had toa teams with weird armor parity in the past, I see no real reason to make it a bigger deal that it ought to be.
That being said, there are only a limited number of actual LEGO masks that exist in silver. I used three of them and the fourth one will need to be painted. Its original color is the right color for the Toa Hagah I have given it to though, so you could choose to keep it non-metallic to avoid having to paint it. Enough talking, let’s look at the Hagah.
1. Axonn / Pouks
I couldn’t go with official silver masks without including the Rode. So, for my concept, I made a Toa Hagah inspired by Axonn. Obviously, red is already taken on the Hagah team. However, Axonn is from 2006. That year, a new shade of brown was introduced to Bionicle with Avak: Reddish Brown. Do you see where I’m going ? On my team, brown is the new red. Thanks to the concept of taking inspiration from an existing character, Pouks practically built itself without the need for any thinking. The torso of Axonn uses a Toa Nuva torso armor and two Toa Nuva shoulders. I reused this for my Toa Axonn/Pouks. Then came the spear which also practically just built itself. I made an halberd by using half of the blades from Axonn’s axe. For the purists, an halberd is both a spear and an axe, so this is fine in my opinion. Also, I always loved that big axe lego part. Since the Rakhshi leg does not exist in metru brown, I had to use the vahki leg but honestly, it would have been my choice anyway since it looks stronger than the Rahkshi one, so it suits Axonn better. What do you think of my Axonn-inspired Pouks ?
Notes: I digitally recolored the double ball sockets connectors on the legs to metru brown because I didn’t have four of these on hands. The part does exist in that color so there is no issue on this, but I only did the recoloring on the entry photo.
2. Mazeka / Kualus
With the limited number of existing masks in silver, I had to use the Volitak. Luckily for my concept, the Volitak is not only used on Nuparu Mahri, it is also used on an Ice matoran: Mazeka ! So, basically, I built a Toa Hagah inspired by Mazeka and 2008. I chose to use the Inika armor for the torso because it is the part that is used in 2008 to fuse the Phantoka with their respective Matoran and Mazeka is also a Matoran from 2008 so it made a lot of sense in my mind. For the shoulder armors, I figured that Mazeka, despite having access to powerful weaponry thanks to the order, still didn’t have any form of actual armor as a Matoran. As a result, I made my Toa Mazeka/Kualus lightly armored by using the shoulder armors of Matoro Mahri. This is compensated by the spear, which looks slightly larger than the others. Like Mazeka, my Kualus has powerful weaponry to compensate for his lighter armor. In my headcanon, the blue part of the spear tip is an ice blade that is generated by the mechanical part of the spear tip. Basically, this is some kind of engineering device that creates ice blades. In my headcanon, he can detach and throw the ice blade part from its spear then generate a new ice blade by freezing ambiant air. Of course, I’m not going to cut the LEGO part so the ice blade is always present on the LEGO display, but if you compare the size of the gray part of the spear tip, it is slightly smaller than Iruini’s. I shortened the shaft of the spear a little bit just to be sure it wouldn’t be disqualified for length issues because the blue part cannot be separated from the spear, even though in is not technically part of the spear in my headcanon. I used the Vahki leg because the Rahkshi one did not exist in white. This is fine because Mazeka had strong-looking legs in his Matoran form so Rahkshi legs would probably not have worked anyway. What do you think of the final look of Mazeka/Kualus ?
3. Hydraxon / Bomonga
Since the existing masks in silver are very limited, I had to use Hydraxon’s faceplate. I did a lot of research on whether this part would be canonically valid for use as a Kanohi and I concluded that it could work: Could Hydraxon's face piece be a mask? - #21 by b6i6o6 It turns out all these research were not needed in the first place because Greg already stated that it was possible for a Kanohi mask to be the same shape as Hydraxon’s faceplate: https://greg.thegreatarchives.com/2003-2008/page271#post10816-line7,20 So, basically, I built a Toa Hagah inspired by Hydraxon. For this, I reused Hydraxon’s thigh armor as shoulder armor. For the torso, I used the Kohrak-Kal shield for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted one of my Toa Hagah to feature a silver bohrok shield to echo the gold one from Iruini. Secondly, Hydraxon is skilled in different forms of combat and possesses a wide array of weapons. In my mind, the Kohrak-Kal shield looks like it has multiple small circular blades at each end. On the torso like this, it looks like you could detach one of those blades and throw them at your enemies like some kind of shuriken. For some reason, I feel like it resonates with the idea of having an assortment of different weapons. I’m not sure they should be throwable in story, but at least it works for me from a visual design perspective. Now comes the spear. Being a Toa of Earth, I wanted to have a spear that could somewhat drill. I was not satisfied with the existing options of actual LEGO drills in silver. I ultimately decided to use a combination of the Lerahk staff with the Nuhvok-Kal shield. Basically, I see it as an enhanced version of the tools used by the normal Nuhvok, with its two big drilling tips. For the legs, I chose the Rahkshi ones. I know some people like their Earth toa bulky and short, but I wanted to tell another story. It works well with the Hydraxon inspiration since Hydraxon is also tall and serious-looking. However, notwithstanding Hydraxon, I think diversity is important and the Toa Hagah are a very good occasion to showcase a tall Earth toa. What do you think of these choices ? To be honest, Hydraxon/Bomonga was the one that gave me the hardest time.
Notes: I digitally recolored the double ball sockets connector to black because it does not exist in this color and I think using this particular part is essential to have an authentic metru feeling. You can use the newer mold if you want to, or paint the part in black. I only did the recoloring for the entry picture. For the other pictures, I used the non-official LEGO part in that color because this is how I built it at home to avoid both painting and the newer mold. If the fact that I used a non-official part on the additional pictures is a problem, I can reshoot them with the official gray part instead. I figured it was no big deal since the entry photo uses the official digitally-recolored part. Please tell me if, for some reason, you think that is a big deal and I have to reshoot the other pictures with the official gray part.
4. Idris / Gaaki
Having already exhausted most of my options for actual LEGO masks in silver, I chose Idris for my fourth character to inspire a Hagah from. For those who might not know her, Idris is the blue matoran in the Karzahni set. She wears a dark blue great Ruru. I chose to use the Hordika torso on Gaaki because this torso is also used for the Matoran of Mahri Nui and, therefore, for Idris herself. For the shoulders, I chose the leg armors of Toa Ignika, which are also used as shoulders on Nuparu Mahri so they give me a watery feel for some reason. I think they look awesome on Gaaki because it gives her a slender look. For the spear tip, I used one of the blades from Hydraxon. I always thought it somewhat looked like an upgraded version of the blade used by the Matoran of Mahri Nui so it felt perfect for my concept of an upgraded Idris. I suppose the mask should be painted silver, but I think it looks good as well in dark blue if you prefer to leave it like that. The Rahkshi legs were an obvious choice for Gaaki to make her look as slim and slender as possible. Maybe it’s just my mind that is tricking me, but I think I managed to give her a feminine look without using any weird techniques like boobs or whatever. What do you think ?
Notes: I digitally recolored the Rhotuka to be Dark Blue because I did not have that color on hands. The part does exist in that color so there is no issue on this, but I only did the recoloring on the entry photo.
If you read this far, thank you very much. I told you there was not going to be any exciting building techniques or whatever. What I did was basically just some careful part choices then slapped them on pure metru builds, alternating the hips between Rahkshi and Vahki. Because most of the value of my “mocs” is in the overall concept of taking inspirations from another existing character and in careful part choosing, I’d rather not see these parts changed in the art portion of the contest. Each part has an actual role to play in the concept of my team and the inspiration of each character so I feel each of them are important. Thanks for your understanding and for reading this far !
Now I’m curious to know what you think about the thought process, the part choices and the final mocs !
