So, I have just become active again in the BIONICLE community, and wanted to share some of my work. I’m not much of a MOCist, so instead I paint masks. constructive criticism and feedback are appreciated, as well as questions and ideas for future projects, since I’m not all that good with coming up with inspiration. I will try to keep this thread up to date.
Toa Mata Redesigns
For the Toa Mata I wanted to add little details that worked with their different elements and how I envisioned the masks. With all the masks I added a bit of silver along different edges to make the masks look a bit weathered.
Tahu
I used drybrushing to add a slight bit of black along the back edges of Tahu’s mask to make it look charred.
Onua and Pohatu
With Onua and Pohatu, I added scratches towards the center of their masks as all their time with rocks would have probably chipped away at their armor.
Gali, Lewa, and Kopaka
These three weren’t too different from their originals, with Lewa, I added black strips behind the “cheek” parts of the mask similar to how Eljay’s Miru looks. With Kopaka, I drilled holes where the telescope things are and filled them with hot glue so that they looked more crystal-like, but I really dont like how the colors turned out.
Toa Nuva and other Masks/Helmets
Vahi
I always thought that the rusted Vahi looked stupid, rust isn’t orange. So I went ahead and painted mine to make it look more realistic to how I think it should look, I do also plan on adding a crack along the bottom left cheek of the mask.
Nuva Masks
Much less detail was added to these, as these were done much earlier. Additionally, these masks were painted primarily using acrylic paints, along with everything after these, while the ones before were painted with enamel paints.
Other Masks
The rest of these are just other masks I made for fun because I was bored or because I thought it might look cool. Oh yeah, and theres a symmetrical 08 Kaukau in there as well as a Miru-Kakama Meld, maybe the mask of leaping? idk
Krana
I always thought the Krana looked really bland so I added some highlights on these
Misc Parts
Among these are the 2008 heads, the hero factory wave 2 head, and the short ccbs armor piece. I painted the heads because I really hated how they looked when they were just one flat color, and the armor was a test to see how drybrushing would work on ccbs armor, since its so smooth.
The Screw-Ups
I think its good to acknowledge when you make a mistake, that way you can learn from it. In this case, there are two big examples.
With the Calix, thats why you dont paint rubber masks, the paint flakes and it looks horrible. With the pakari, I wanted to do a Fourth of July mask but I didnt properly secure my blue tape, as a result, the white spray paint got screwed up and had a lot of air bubbles trapped in it.
And finally…
Ideas Wanted!
There are a bunch of masks and helmets that I think have a lot of potential but havent gotten painted yet because I dont have any good ideas, so please, let me know if you have any.
Thanks to @MrCod for getting me inspired again to paint masks, I got a lot of inspiration from his masks.