Hello! These are my Toa Hagah entries for Gaaki, Kualus, Pouks, and Bomonga. These were designed in Stud.io and rendered using Blender (Thanks to Petrus, HahliNuva, and Perp3tual for helping me with that).
Design Philosophies
I’ve gone for giving them builds akin to those of the default Iruini and Norik sets, in that their gearboxes and shoulder, etc. follow the same build (and that they have blue pins). I believe this best creates parity with those two, as that is the context they would be placed in. Still, changing them up some bits, like giving some secondary colors, helps a little in making them have individuality, as they were not always in this armor, or together on this team.
As for metallic colors, I went for 2-2-2 setup, adding metallic dark grey as that is most commonly been the third metal color in BIONICLE, the sole exception being 2001’s copper masks. This meant the Hagah shields had to be in colors that did not exist (and even so, the Rhotuka do not exist in black and dark blue for Bomonga and Gaaki). This meant I wouldn’t get away with doing no recolors (and still be satisfied) any way I that went about these.
For the eyes, I gave Gaaki neon orange, Bomonga neon green, and the last two light blue. I had originally considered going for the six Metru eye colors, however as Iruini uses neon orange rather than red, that set a precedence for these leaning into the neon-side of the colors.
As a very minor note on the shield, and how they are rotated, I have them set up as they are in the box arts. The instructions seem to have placed them erroneous, as a correction note (which did not fix the issue but made it worse, likely due to miscommunication) was included in some batches.
Outside of the Rode, the masks are mostly arbitrary.
Finally, yes, the background is Metru Nui, and they were not really in Metru Nui… neither were most Dark Hunters.
Gaaki
For Gaaki, I went with a fairly simple design, but I ended up adding sand blue to break up the color scheme a little. I chose the Tahnok-Kal shield and Tahu Nuva swords because of their matching flame aesthetic, which in this case would be representing water, like how system fire pieces are used to represent blasts of water in LEGO City.
Front/Back/Side views:
Kualus
I don’t really have much to say on Kualus. I settled on Gunmetal, because metallic blue or silver would look too much like regular Toa of Ice colors, and gold, while not inherently an issue, would look like Light, and I prefer it on Bomonga.
Front/Back/Side views:
Pouks
For Pouks, I decided to take a bold approach of giving him the red secondary color of Roporak. Additionally, I gave him the Kanohi Rode, as an homage to the prototype Toa Inika Hewkii.
Front/Back/Side views:
Bomonga
Finally, Bomonga. I decided to use dark grey to break up the black color. I would have liked to use keetorange, but with the red on Pouks, and with the gold here, it wouldn’t work well. To accomodate it, the eyestalk needed to be shorter, 2007 version (which coincidentally makes this the only mold here, outside of the Kanohi Rode, which did not exist in 2005).
Front/Back/Side views:
Additional Images
Bonus
Links:
- 810day 2020 version of the Biopack for Studio.
- Kanohi Rode part recreation, by HahliNuva.
- Studio version of the Rode. Remember to credit HahliNuva if used.
- Studio MOC file (with Whenua for convenience).
- Backgrounds primarily use assets from the 2004 style guide.
- Spreadsheet with parts list.
I give consent for my mask to be altered in the final group art if the artist chooses: Yes, with the exception of Pouks
I give consent for my metallic color choice to be altered in the final group art if the artist chooses: Yes
I give consent for my spear tip to be altered in the final group art if the artist chooses: Yes, with the exception of Gaaki
