Recently got myself a better photo set up so you can expect me to remake the pictures for my other posts with better quality. Now what better way to break this in than by posting a slightly older project I recently slightly remade.
So as we know when the Toa Nuva’s adaptive armor currently isn’t adapting to anything its supposed to look like their old form just with the colors of their Phantoka/Mistika forms.
While many people like to just recolor the 2002 sets (which of course does look quite nice) I decided to go a bit of a different way and rather adapt those 02 forms into Inika builds so that they would also be in scale with all other more modern Toa. I did my best to translate the colors from their various 08 sets which in some places was easier to do than in others and demanded some creative liberty with parts being actually available in specific colors but in the end im quite happy with how they turned out.
Btw before anyone asks why I care about parts being available in specific colors when I used masks that don’t even exist: In this day and age masks are comparatively trivialy easy to get in new colors. (Credit for these ones go to Rothanak for designing and Modeling and Buryusforge for printing and painting them. Also credit to Constraction_Deva for the custom eyestalks on Tahu, Gali, Onua and Takanuva)
As for why I didn’t use the original masks: Unfortunately Mata and Nuva masks have a bit of a different art style than later masks which tends to make them look just kinda off when used on Inika builds. These masks let me circumvent that. My headcanon for why they look different is: When Artakha sat down and created these armors he became a bit petty and thought: “I designed these people and along comes this idiotic silvery liquid and thinks it can mess with MY designs?? I will have them look how I want them to look.”
So as usual heres my thoughts that went into making them:
Tahu:
Hes pretty much the most basic one of them so ill use him to also explain my choices that apply to the others: It was pretty clear from the start that both lower limb pieces would need to be available in both pearl light grey and dark bluish grey. Which narrowed things down to Inika legs, Piraka legs and Rahkshi legs. I knew that Gali would require me to use the leg piece I would end up choosing as arms as well which lead me to deciding that the Piraka ones would look best for both purposes. I decided against the Inika ones for the arms since those are somewhat bigger than the Piraka ones which would lead to pretty wonky, gorilla-esque proportions.
For armor I decided to go with just the basic Inika ones both because I felt it was the closest available ones that still looked Nuva-esque and since matoran that turn into toa get forms similar to what they imagine a hero looks like so it only makes sense that the Inika would resemble the only Toa they remember seeing. I would have preferred to use the other chest piece since its more reminiscent of the original Nuva armor but unfortunately its just not available in enough colors.
Speaking of color, that was also the reason I went with metru feet. Those simply came in the most colors I needed.
And after that I only had one more concern which was the weapons. I knew I wanted to keep the original ones (especially since finding an alternative to the weirdness that are Onuas Quakebreakers would be kinda difficult.) but… yeah they are designed for far smaller sets and look kind tiny in the hands of Inika builds. Fortunately these turbine pieces do a pretty decent job in adding some more mass to them. Yes they just disconnect and new pieces just connect for the secondary modes but… ssssh those weapons also can transform into guns thanks to the adaptive tech. Lets just blame it on that
Kopaka:
Not much to add here. I know the chest isn’t dark bluish grey but neither is the one of his phantoka form so that’s intentional on my part. Yeah kinda messes with the colorscheme but I wanted to remain faithful to the colors. Also combined a flat shield similar to the one his Nuva form had with the one he had as a mata. Simply because the complete flatness just looked realy weird. Hes also the only one with non symmetric arms since hes been that way even back in 02
Onua:
First one with some noticeable differences. First among them of course his hunched over stature that I of course needed to adapt into this. Took me a bit of thinking but in the end its actualy fairly easy to add onto an Inika build.
This difference in stature also made the Inika legs look better as arms so I gave those to him with the excuse that Onua Nuva always had different arms to the rest.
You might be wondering why on earth I added random spots to his limbs. Well think back to his Mistika form. That one had red wings on his arms and legs so I had to add something of that color onto him they could have grown from. It was either that or giving him red legs and shoulder armor/arms. This options was at least far more discreet.
Gali:
Not much to say here too. As previously said I of course gave her the same limb piece on each limb as that is how Gali Nuva looked.
Pohatu:
Probably the most different one out of all of them. Some would likely say “As he should”. While I did not find a good way to flip the torso of an Inika build without it looking absolutely disgusting. I still found a way to somewhat honour his traditionally not typical torso in a different way.
Well to be honest I was kinda forced since the Inika armor does not exist in dark bluish grey. So I first took a look at how his pilot form handled it and used that as a reason to turn around his torso and use the other inika armor on his back. While that looks ok-ish on his pilot form his chest is kinda a bit too bare for a Toa Nuva ready for combat. So I experimented around and eventually settled on a slightly filled out Rahkshi foot for new chest armor. Fits in well enough and the extra bulk does seem fitting to how Pohatu usually looked.
Also gave him yet another piece for his arms because longer arms realy didn’t look well with his proportions. Plus its excusable since his 02 form also had different arms than everyone else.
Also gave him the same hunchback build as Onua since he was also kinda hunched over usually. Also orange eyes are self explanatory. So are the Mata feet probably but if not: No orange Metru feet and his feet additions wouldn’t fit on those either.
Lewa:
Ah the one who drove me to madness the most of these. I can imagine youre already wondering why he seemingly randomly got a bunch of silver pieces on him. Well easy: Every time I found a good fit for shoulder armor and feet I could use across all of them this jerk would come along and declare that he needed them in colors that weren’t available.
So to preserve my sanity I once more had a look at the pilot forms. And wouldn’t you know it. That form had silver feet instead of dark bluish grey. And since that was still Adaptive armor it meant it was a valid color to use. And so I did. In the end it was kinda good that his shoulder armors also needed a new color because it would have likely looked worse if only his feet were silver. At least like this its more balanced. My excuse for silver shoulders btw is that it’s the silver from his jetpacks.
Takanuva:
Yes I know hes neither anatomicaly a Toa Nuva nor does he have adaptive armor. But hes still part of the team so I couldn’t have just left him out. His colors are instead mostly based on his stars form since that’s the first time we see him after losing his edginess and his temporary gigantism. While the full white with a bit of gold of his original form does have its charm the dark bluish grey does help break it up a bit more on a Inika build.
Also like Gali I gave him matching arms and legs but since there are no white Piraka parts (no Thok realy isn’t white easy to get that wrong) So I decided to use the arm piece for his legs instead. Was still when I was going to give all of them Inika legs for arms but when I switched those for Rahkshi legs I decided not to switch them on him because that made him look too skinny. Just didn’t look right.
So while it kinda breaks my rules I went with this and found that it kinda makes sense to give the oh so special Toa of light a little something that makes him stand out more. Also felt like it kinda makes him seem like hes wearing some wider robes compared to the others which also felt fitting to him.
Why isnt his mask exactly the same if he doesnt have adaptive armor? Well out of universe same reason as the others. In universe excuse: Well the Avohkii did also change its shape for no apparent reason when he got his light drained so who knows perhaps it just reformed into a different form than its original one
Ive also made sure every part that gets added or removed for an alt-mode has some place to be stored so they dont just lie around. Theres 3 different versions:
