Toa Hagah Canon Contest Format Feedback

LEGO BIONICLE
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BEFORE VENTURING INTO THE DISCUSSION ON THIS TOPIC, PLEASE READ THIS POST - Hawkeye

  • EXACTLY AS NORMAL: MoC contest first to decide the design of the characters, with a follow-up art contest to create the featured art for BS01
  • ART ONLY CONTEST: MoCing portion would be foregone due to Metru build restrictions
  • FREE-FOR-ALL: MoCs and Art will exist in the same poll brackets and will compete against each other to determine the best appearance for each character, independent of format; follow-up group Art Contest would be held to depict all the winning designs of the Hagah in the same image and artistic style
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Hello everybody! It’s been a while, but WE HAVE RETURNED! As promised, before we begin any official proceedings for the next round of canon contests, we want to open a dialogue with you guys to discuss issues with the proceedings, improvements, and the format the next round of canon contests are going to take. As such, this topic exists for you to air grievances with the prior contests, suggest rule alterations/improvements, and discuss a series of potential options I’m going to present to you. The Hagah are a bit of a special case because of some restrictions placed upon them for the sake of canon compliance, so we’re at a bit of an impasse and would love some feedback.

To that end, we’ve written up a large scale document that we ask you all to read. It contains a full elaboration of the problems with the Hagah, as well as an extensive elaboration on the logic behind the options presented in this poll. To be honest, it’s less of a poll and more a community survey just to gauge general feelings towards these options. You’re free to vote for as many or as few as you like, but one of them will end up being the path we choose. We ask you to please read this document in full and give your feedback in this topic.

If you desperately need a TLDR, I suppose this should suffice:

The Hagah will be Metru builds in order to be canon compliant. What that specifically means is up for interpretation, and we will have to come up with a concrete outline for what that means in order for builders to have an agreed-upon standard, so feedback is appreciated on that front. The only alternative to this is to not have a MoCing contest at all for the Hagah and keep it to artwork only. Our other option is to drive home the notion that what matters is not build OR artistic complexity, but rather making the best interpretation of these Toa characters, independent of format. To do this, one of our ideas is to hold a MoC vs. Art free-for-all to decide the best designs of the Hagah, with a follow-up group art contest to depict the winning designs in the same artistic style to be depicted on BS01.

If you’ll allow me to rehash something from the document, I ask that you all be respectful in your critique and discussion in this topic. Not only towards us, but to each other as well. I know there’s a lot of people with vastly different priorities and personal interests in these contests, and there’s a variety of strong opinions (both positive and negative) on how the last few have gone, but please refrain from being snide, antagonistic, or overly hostile in your discussion. Feel free to criticize us and debate others who don’t agree with you all you want, but do so respectfully and in accordance with board guidelines. If the topic gets too heated or people can’t conduct themselves properly, we’ll unfortunately have to take administrative action. Work with us and work with each other to hash out all these problems ahead of time, and we should be in for a very rewarding set of contests!

-Mesonak

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Hmm… Tough decision. Might have to think on this a bit. When’s the deadline for this poll?

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No harsh deadline! As far as I’m concerned, there are problems worth solving, and this topic is going to remain open as a consistent source of feedback until we have solid solutions for those problems. So there’s no specific cutoff or anything like that. Realistically, probably the duration of this month is a soft estimate.

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So, couple thing I’d address here is masks.

Seeing as the Hagah have no reason not to be able to wear masks in (almost) any shape, including ones we have in official sets, rather than a new and unique shape like with Tuyet, Helryx and Artakha, I don’t see the necessity in leaving those up to the art.

Also, as per Official Greg Dialogue | Page 174 Official Greg Dialogue | Page 176 there would need to be a restriction in regards to Pouks’ mask, as it can not recreate the appearance of the Mask of Emulation seen in the comics, as Pouks’ shaped after a different mask (like all the Hagah other than Iruini).

(In fact, giving the Toa Hagah new and unique shapes will just cause confusion as those will not be representative of those powers, but whatever…)

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my thought is that creativity is born of restrictions. some of the best mocs i’ve seen have restricting parts. still can’t figure out how to build your moc the way you want? use official rubber bands.

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Going to succinctly rehash the entire last-thread-drama in one image for y’all so we don’t have to do it again.
image

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Makuta needs some better body guards. Apparently we cannot see 4/6th of them until now!

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All their masks are shaped like Hunas, so we can’t see them. That’s how it works, right?

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I wrote the following message just a few moments after the canon contest discussion was closed on the boards last year, so have been unable to voice my concerns until now. It’s somewhat outdated, and I’ll probably return with updated thoughts tomorrow, but I still think my original post raises necessary discussion points:

I’m glad I’m not the only one concerned about preserving consistency and uniformity within the team. I will probably have a more extreme view than people that have already posted, in that I believe we should have near-perfect consistency in the Hagah. That, I believe, is what Lego would have done if they made the whole team, considering for example the degree of uniformity in set groups such as the Piraka and Inika - and it’s also what most creators have done if you google ‘Toa Hagah’.

First of all, I’m generally opposed to a Hagah contest, for reasons I’ll get into. But if we had to have a Hagah contest, my ideal outcome for canon would be this:

  • Equal distribution of metallic colours across the team, e.g. 2 pairs of 3 colours, 3 of 3, 1 of 6, etc.

  • Equal or near-equal distribution of leg types

  • Equal distribution of shoulder armour types. E.g. a 3/3 split of Metru to Nuva shoulders, or 2/2/2 with a new suitable Bionicle piece (no Knights Kingdom pauldrons pls)

  • Equal or near-equal distribution of eye colours

  • Equal or near-equal distributon of anything else that can be varied (feet, thigh armour, etc.)

  • Metallic colours in the same places (thighs, feet, shoulders, etc.)

  • Different chest armour for each, or equal distribution

  • I can forgive Metru build modifications if an art contest rectifies them

  • Different mask for each or equal distribution

  • Standard Rhotuka shields on all, or a single one of the Visorak shells for 3 of them.

As I said, I’m probably in a minority with these criteria (which aren’t demands for rules, let me be clear), but if we ended up getting 5 Nuva-shouldered Toa and one Metru-shouldered, or 5 silver and one gold, my ‘purist-lite’ sensibilities would render me disappointed by the outcome of the contest. My voting preferences in these contests have always been heavily informed by ‘What would Lego feasibly create, or at least approve?’, and I think that’s more important in this contest than in others.

With that in mind, having such consistency and uniformity in a contest like this makes it practically impossible to both organise and get the intended result, especially if you don’t have a ‘draw the whole team’ style art contest where the artist can fix inconsistencies in the MOCs. And even with such an art contest, trying to achieve team consistency in even a few of the criteria I set out would give the artist way too much power to change the winning MOCs’ appearance. The Hagah are already set up to be pretty uniform regardless of my criteria, so how much of the MOCist’s creativity would be preserved?

The solution to this could be to have a ‘one entrant wins all’ contest, where entrants build or draw all four and get them all canon if they win, but that has its own problems. Besides, it doesn’t feel particularly fair for one dude to canonise four characters.

If enough people are of the same opinion as me, namely that achieving a consistent and uniform-looking team is a better measure of success for this contest than letting people be as creative as possible, I would argue to not hold the Hagah contest. Let the community canonise other characters, whose designs will enable more creativity and cause less contention. We don’t need to get an appearance for every character - in fact I’d argue we shouldn’t. Leave some stones unturned for creative people to fill without imposition from a collective canon. That’s what Lego encourages, after all.

Anyway, I’d be interested to know just how many people sympathise with this, and whether I really am in a minority.

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So I’ve definately been contemplating the definition of a Metru build these last couple of months of hiatus and I have this definition to share:

“A Metru build Is a build not limited by armor or limbs but a torso build first introduced in the Metru sets and later the 2 set Hagah. Metru build must feature a Metru torso, the standard waist piece first seen with the Metru, a Gear box in the style of the Metru or the Hagah and a Metru chestplate. The Gear box is the most heavily enforced as it should be in line with the previously released Metru and Hagah sets but how you attach the chestplate or the waist is up to you. However it should be mentioned that the waist should generally be located around the same area as the founding sets of this build. Any other armor or limbs you’ll like to add is fair game. In this definition both Dark hunters Mimic and Ravager are Metru Builds.”

This is my definition at least and I’ve put alot of thought into it considering I’m a huge 04 fan I feel that I have a good understanding of this build but if you disagree, as long as you are being respectful feel free to let me know. If you agree I’d love to hear that too.

Tarkur over and out!

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Ok, so actually, this is one thing I’ve never understood. Why do people want unique masks for these guys? It’s literally in their lore from 05 that they’re shaped after past heroes.

Rahaga Norik rarely wanted to talk about his past. Fortunately, Rahaga Iruini was not so close-mouthed. It was from him that Matau learned the Rahaga had once been Toa in another land — and not just any Toa. Clad in armor forged from precious metals, and wielding both Toa tools and Rhotuka launchers, they were the elite. Each of the six wore a Kanohi mask forged in the shapes worn by the great heroes of the past. Their duty: Protect Makuta, he who was sworn to protect and defend all Matoran.
– Origin of the Rahag, BIONICLE Adventures 9: Web of Shadows

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I’m glad that their giving us options to choose how this canon contest will work, (although I did choose for the contest to continue how they’ve been set up.)
there hasn’t really been a canon contest involving 4 characters at once.

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I interpreted that to mean unique among the team. If that was the intention, I agree with it.

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Alright, I’m super happy these contests are starting again, I hope you guys running this got enough of a break.

So, I’m more in favor of option 1, because in my mind the main value of these contests comes from the physical builds we get. Bionicle was both a toyline and a story; I find leaving the “toy” part out of a character’s appearance to be disappointing. That’s it. It’s a simple reason, yeah, but I feel it sums up my feelings best as possible.

As for how exactly we’re going to define “Metru Build”, I think the only stipulation should be that the build require a Metru Torso block, not including the hip piece. I feel that definition allows for the creativity I love seeing in Bionicle builds. Pohatu used a Mata Torso upside down, Kongu Mahri used Hordika forearms as shoulders, Kiina used a Vahki leg as a torso, and Helryx used a Mata Foot as a torso.

In that vein, there’s so much you could use a Metru Torso as; maybe use it upside down like Pohatu. maybe use it as a shoulder piece like Krahka, maybe use it as Popeye forearms like Lurker. I feel just the requirement of having a Metru Torso on its own would be enough. I’m sure some of these ideas would look horrid irl, but that’s the point of the poll, isn’t it? We vote for the best ones.

Looking forward to the new comment wars, my old friends.

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I guess I’d be open to multiple having the same mask so long as there was some uniformity to it. E.g three have Noble Kirils and three have Kualsis. But the odds of any uniformity being achieved when these contents are supposedly going to run simultaneously are very slim. I’d be pretty disappointed if two of them ended up sharing the exact same mask and the others all had unique ones.

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Iruini had a unique mask upon release; only reason Norik has Dume’s was because he was originally intended as Toa Dume (I think; heard that somewhere)
I see no reason why the masks modeled after “great heroes of the past” have to be existing masks; perhaps those heroes had masks that weren’t produced by Lego.

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Also, I hope the art contests can include the physical depictions of the Hagah masks. I just, I really want those pngs on the Kanohi page on BS01, man. That’d be neat.

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Oh; I thought you meant as in unique, new designs.

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You’re not alone in that. I’ll clarify my message.

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