Author: Hayden

Return

Week 5 now. I feel like this semester is flying by pretty quickly.

After sleeping on it for the weekend, I have come back to realize I still don’t want to deal with the LEDs and cables right now.

A Splash of Color

Instead, I’ve decided to finally get on with painting the XPS foam. Shortly after I published my blog last Friday, my friend provided me with some paints to borrow. I took some time to mess around with them on a test piece of XPS foam.

Despite leaving the primer to dry overnight before painting the brown on top of it, which was left to dry over the weekend, the brown paint still feels wet and comes off just by pressing my finger to it. This is the most experience I’ve gotten painting like this, so I’m not really sure what the issue is or how to solve it.

I followed this Reddit post which, while it doesn’t apply to my situation exactly, does give some seemingly good ideas on what I can do to improve my situation.

One user states that Mod Podge is supposed to “dry clear”, and to apply a layer of it before applying a separate primer. However, another user in this Reddit thread states that black paint with Mod Podge is a good sealant and primer.

The common theme between the posts is mentions of keeping the primer layer thin, so I believe my idea was correct, but my process needs to be improved.

So I brought out the Mod Podge and paint and tried again. I applied some Podge with a wooden stick, threw some black paint on to it, and kept mixing and adding Podge to try and get a dark grey color.

I’m almost certain that this won’t work, and I’ll need to adjust my mixture of Podge and paint, but we can only wait to see.

In the meantime…

Solving the LED Conundrum

One of the last things I had talked about in my last post was how I could store the LED lights in the swords so that they could be replaced but also would stay in place securely.

I talked to Shannon and Cartland about my ideas and we came to the conclusion that it’s worth at least trying to design a casing for the LED before tearing the original casing apart.

I tried looking up the part to see if I could find literally any more information about it, and to see if someone already created the part to save me some work.

I checked a few Lego part websites but none of them had a listing for any components of the Inika swords. Bricklink did have one custom listing for the transparent tube that goes into the swords, but there was no other information I could find.

I also checked various 3D printing websites for a model of the LED casing, but despite this model giving me some hope, I was unable to find anything. Which is, unfortunately, not a surprise to me, given how complicated the swords are, and also with how little love the Inika get in favor of the 2001-2003 years of Bionicle.

So with that said, it’s time to get to work.

Micro-Measurementing

I grabbed the two LED blocks that I had removed from Jaller and Hewkii, along with the extra sword that both Hahli and Matoro had in their canisters. My plan is to get some measurements from the blocks and the sword compartment itself using a micrometer.

I opened up Matoro’s sword to prepare to measure, but quickly started seeing some major issues. The screws were massively stripped and seemed to be covered in a bit of rust and corrosion. The transparent tube is also extremely dirty, and the silver plastic all around the sword has signs of animal biting. I imagine the only reason this ended up in the canister is because I have no other duplicates of the sword.

But that’s not all. After taking off the battery cover…

The compartment is infested with some horrible corrosion! In a dark brown coloration no less, which I don’t believe I’ve seen before!

Despite my aversion to damage or modify the original components, I can make an exception when it’s for the sake of preservation. It just so happens to be that this will provide a great look at the inner workings of this little block.

It’s time for some emergency…

SURGERY

For this procedure, I’ll need the soldering tools provided in the DKC. Thankfully, one of my favorite hobbies is repairing electronics, so I already have a good amount of experience with soldering. It’s been a minute since I’ve done it though, so I’m a little nervous.

However, this procedure is very exceedingly simple:

Of course, we must take proper caution when working with solder. I’ve opted to wear a face mask to avoid breathing any of the potential fumes created by this. The DKC is plenty spacious and well-ventilated though, so I don’t worry too much.

With the tools in place, it’s time to glove up for the operation.

After a good hour of persuading, finessing, and fangdangling, it eventually comes off.

Now, as much as I’d like to call it a a complete success, there were some complications.

Regardless though, the separation was a success, so now it’s time to do some maintenence.

For cleaning, I went with the ol’ cotton swab and a bit of alcohol… and also some isopropyl alcohol to dab them in. It cleaned off the nasty corrosion real good. There were some spots on the block that the q-tips couldn’t quite reach, but for that I just submerged it in some alcohol which should clean up most of it.

While it’s cleaning, this gives me a good chance to talk about my findings.

First, the LED that was in the block is almost certainly unrecoverable- or if it is, it’s going to be a lot more difficult than to just put a new one in.

While removing it from the block, I noticed that I had a bit of trouble. I had assumed that it was due to the corrosion sticking it in place, but I was mistaken. The LED is held in place the same way the block is in the sword; with some light pressure fitting along some clips.

Replicating that with a 3D print is going to be very difficult, so I may opt to change the design a bit when I finally create my model of the block. I’m not currently sure how I’ll go about it, but I know I’ll figure it out.

Back to Schedule

For now, I’ll hold off on putting the block back together as I may end up needing to take a peek at its components individually. I won’t be able to use it for measurements though, because of the deformities it gained during the operation.

Immediately Off Schedule

Not long after finishing the last section there, the campus was hit by a winter storm and got closed for two days. This ideally won’t really affect the hours I put into the project this week, but it does make things a bit stressful.

Regardless, after returning back I immediately went to check the paint on the XPS board. Unfortunately, while the primer I created is dry from what I can tell, the brown paint I added afterwards is still wet to the touch. I’m not sure what to do about this, as the paint should have dried fully after two full days.

From looking it up, my best guess is that I painted the layer too thick, somehow, or that oil-based paints just aren’t viable to use on XPS boards. I’ll look into picking up some acrylic paint instead and see how well that works.

Finally Measuring This Time, I promise

With that out of the way, I’m going to focus all my efforts on designing a light block to put these LEDs in. There’s been enough distractions.

Using a micrometer, I got a variety of measurements from the light blocks that I would then mark down on a document. From there, I used those measurements to create this prototype model using my rudimentary modelling skills in Blender.

I made sure to use as accurate of measurements as possible, and to set the scale in Blender to work with millimeters, so this should be to scale.

I’ll do test prints until I get the size right, and then modify the actual model if need be from there. I’m really hoping I don’t have to.

It’s worth nothing too that this model does not take into account the circuit board of the original light block. My plan was to leave the bottom open so I can slot the LED in, and then have a separate “lid” that is printed in the shape and dimensions of the circuit board.

Next Steps

That’s all the time I have for this week, so it’s time to discuss the next steps.

First, I am going to stop by a Michael’s and pick up some cheap acrylic paint for the XPS boards. I can’t afford to wait weeks waiting for this oil based paint to dry.

Then on Monday, I have a block of time carved out to use the 3D printer. It’s pretty busy so hopefully I gave myself enough time to properly do some prints on it. Once I have my current model printed out and have the kinks worked out and ready for a final product, I’ll add a modification for a lid so the LED light can be sealed in.

Then once that is done, we can start looking into installing the new LED lights into the Inika and making some modifications to their swords so that I am able to connect the lights to wires.

While that is being done, I want to test out the acrylic paint on the XPS board and see if it is any quicker to dry.

Ideally, we’ll start being able to put the Inika in their final positions and make this thing look like an actual display.

Week 4 has arrived. I feel like this semester is flying by; we’re already a quarter through! There’s plenty of work to keep me busy in the meantime though.

Soaking Update Again

To start off the week again, it’s time for another soaking update. I received the parts from Shannon last week and reassembled Matoro and Hahli after letting them dry off. When I had put them together last week, the whitening process was less than impressive, but after coming back to them this week…

They turned out pretty well, for the most part. The photos make it hard to tell (for which I apologize; I don’t know how to use a camera to great extent), but Matoro is just about fully whitened on the surface. Unfortunately, parts such as his forearms and pelvis have yellow spots stuck in their crevices, and the same is true for the pin connectors in Hahli’s joints. But overall, I am very pleased with this.

Moreover, I was particularly worried about Matoro’s mask as, after removing it from the initial peroxide bath, it ended up being slightly sticky. Being rubber, I was almost certain I had destroyed its protection and caused it to start melting back into oils like rubber tends to do.

To my amazement, however, after drying it and leaving it on him over the weekend, it has turned out nearly pristine! It’s amazingly white and cleaner than I ever thought it would be. It’s worked so well, I may end up putting the rest of the masks in another bath for the same treatment.

In the future I may end up replacing the still yellowed parts on Matoro if I am unable to clean them any further, but we have plenty of time to find out if that’s the case or not.

As a note too: I adjusted both Matoro and Hahli’s poses, and I believe this is generally what I will stick with for the final display.

New Stuff

Now, with that out of the way (again), we can move on to the big announcement.

The supplies Cartland ordered last week have come in! This means we can start finally making some tangible progress on the display base. Before that though, there is something I’ve been dying to do for years now.

A Quick Distraction

You may have noticed that on top of each Inika’s canister is a gray axle that has been keeping the Zamor spheres in place. This is not part of the original sets and was added by me, because without it, the Zamor spheres just sit loose in the magazine. To remedy this, I had Cartland order some Blu Tack that I’ll use to stick the spheres together and keep them in place (hopefully) no matter what pose the Inika are in.

Fun fact – Inika play features

I’m not sure I had mentioned it up to this point, but the Zamor launchers have a physical play feature where, upon pressing the rubber launch mechanism, a Zamor sphere will be fired out of the launcher. This was the source of many Zamor spheres becoming lost, as with any projectile.

Looking at it all, I definitely got way too much for just this project, and the Amazon photos made me think it was transparent in color, but it does get the job done.

I also have a bit of a concern with how long the spheres will stay in place, but I can work on messing with this stuff as the project continues. I’m sure I can find an alternative if needed.

I (meticulously) applied Blu Tack to the rest of the Inika’s Zamor spheres and removed the contraption originally holding them in place.

I refined my process as I went along, and kept redoing the Blu Tack until I was satisfied with it. I found it easiest to stick the Tack to the Zamor launcher and magazine itself, and then attach the spheres, while modifying the shape and amount of Tack. The ideal size seems to be about no bigger than the top of a Lego stud (aka, microscopic).

I also stuck the loaded sphere to the launcher, and the top 3 spheres to the magazine. It seemed to make hiding the Tack easier, and it was just my preferred method. I don’t think there would be any issues with sticking each sphere together and attaching them to the launcher only.

Furthermore, I also opted to put Tack on each sphere, but you could probably get away with only applying tack to the top-most and loaded spheres, leaving the middle two loose. I knew it would bother me if I didn’t do that though.

Fun fact – Zamor Sphere colors

The various colors of the Zamor spheres are (mostly) not just a style choice, they actually have unique effects when a target is struck with them! The spheres themselves are actually hollow crystals that can then be filled with various substances to produce effects.

For example, the Piraka all have yellow-green spheres that contain an Antidermis that bends a target’s will when they are hit with it. They used these spheres to enslave the Matoran of Voya Nui and forced them to construct their stronghold. Jaller also has this color loaded into his launcher currently.

The Inika’s “sea green”, blue, and yellow-red spheres contained Energized Protodermis that would reverse the effects of the Piraka’s Antidermis virus. Hahli has the proper sea green color in her launcher.

There also existed silver, black, and gold variants found in a booster box that all had their own effects!

Also, despite Toa Jovan sharing the same sphere color as Hewkii and Nuparu, his Zamor spheres would instead nullify the effects of a target’s weapon.

This was a very long, slow, and tiring process. I had figured it would only take a few minutes, but I ended up spending 3 hours dealing with it. And I may end up coming back to poke and prod at it all in the future. Not to say it wasn’t fun overall though.

It’s left me with an absurd amount of Blu Tack though, as I only used about 1/8th of a single strip. There are four strips per package, and two packages total. Needless to say, I’ll be donating the unopened pack to the DKC. As for the opened one though, I’ll find some uses for it… maybe to remove some dust?

Placing Blocks and Stuff

With that rather long detour taken care of, it’s time to start measuring the foam.

My idea was to put the current blocks I had, and the Toa, in various configurations to see which one appealed to me the most. It turns out though, having the two 12″x15″ blocks together gave a pretty good result!

I’m having a bit of trouble with the composition of the team together though. I decided to take the same formation from the Inika commercial I keep referencing, where, from left to right, is Hahli, Kongu, Nuparu, Matoro, Hewkii, and Jaller.

My main concern is that Nuparu and Matoro are competing for the same viewing space. I want Matoro to be at the main forefront due to his iconic story relevance, but I also don’t want Nuparu to be in the back as I feel that’s where he tends to end up when all of the Inika are together. Not to mention his color scheme might blend in with the background I’m planning to add.

I’ll toy around with them as we continue onwards and see what I can do.

While doing all of this too, I noticed that Nuparu and Hewkii had some pretty loose joints which made it frustrating to set them up correctly. This is a problem I will tackle later on in this post.

Creating a Glue

I expected the measurements to take a lot longer than they did, so I hadn’t really thought ahead to what I would do next, honestly, so it’s all improv from here.

Since we now know that the full 12×15 boards will be enough room on their own, I suppose we can go ahead and stick them together so that they’re ready to be modified.

But before anything else, I decided to mark an outline of where the Toa are standing currently, so that I can put them back in their positions when done.

Now that I won’t forget where exactly the Toa are placed, it’s time to create the glue. For this, I’ll be referring back to the Beginner’s Guide to XPS Foam YouTube video I had mentioned in my previous post.

The video mentions that HT glue and contact adhesive are better options than PVA glue due to their faster drying times, but since I only have PVA glue and don’t want to wait another week for glue to arrive, we’ll make it work.

The video also mentioned using something to keep the pieces in place while they dried. While I probably don’t need to do that since my pieces are going to be flat on the ground, I’ll feel a lot better if I did. I found some wooden skewers that I’ll “borrow” from the DKC to serve this purpose (if I’m ever able to remove the skewers, I’ll return them back to their baggy, but we all know that is almost definitely not happening).

Getting the Slay On

While the boards are left to set, this gives some time to deal with an issue I had brought up earlier.

Some of the Toa have some pretty loose joints, which is to be expected given the nearly 20 years they’ve been sitting around. Notably, Hewkii’s feet, Nuparu’s feet and legs, and just about every joint on Kongu all are much too sensitive and move at the slightest push. This make posing them a hassle.

Thankfully though, this is a very easy fix. It simply just requires some transparent nail polish, and a bit of patience.

The idea is to apply some of the polish on the ball joints so that it gives a bit more surface area and friction to the loose socket joints.

I applied polish to Hewkii’s ankles, Nuparu’s ankles and pelvis, and Kongu’s left shoulder, left wrist, right ankle, knees, and left hip. I tried to keep the application thin and even all over the joints.

I cannot stress this enough; they MUST sit overnight after being painted. If you try to attach the sockets too early, you will damage the ball joint. Learn from my mistake and make sure the nail polish dries entirely.

I’ll leave both the Toa and XPS boards to dry overnight, and hopefully they won’t need more glue or anything.

The Next Day

As of me writing this section, it has been one full day since I set out the parts to dry with the nailpolish. I reassembled the Toa without incident.

I did a pretty poor job with keeping the layers properly even on Kongu. His knees are still pretty loose, and his foot is so tight that I was worried I would snap off the joint.

Nuparu ended up a little better, but still somewhat tight.

Hewkii definitely turned out the best. He’s easily poseable but also won’t fall over anymore.

In any case, I’m more confident now that the Toa will keep their shape a little better now, so it was a success overall.

Starting with the LEDs

My original plan for the day was to paint the XPS boards, but I had some troubles in borrowing the paint from my friend, so that will have to wait for another time.

To pass the time, I decided to start working on getting the LEDs set up, and getting some practice with the Arduino Uno R4 that I decided to use as the control board.

I’ve had some experience with getting LEDs to turn on, but that’s all I’m coming into this section with. I’ve never once even touched a Raspberry Pi or Arduino before, so that will be a learning curve to overcome.

I first started by relying on the official Arduino docs to get myself set up and prepared to work with it (found here).

After getting the IDE set up, I followed this guide to learn how to power LEDs with the Arduino (which also happened to give some good starting experience for Arduino overall).

I was a little worried about not having components such as resistors, but thankfully there’s more than enough all around the DKC due to past projects!

I toyed around with the setup to figure out how it all works and it was going amazingly. Having experience in repairing some electronics absolutely helped a lot with my understanding of this stuff.

And after a lot of jury rigging and some finagling…

A working prototype is produced! I’ll have to refine the technique I’m using to connect the wires to the LED, and find a way to hide those same wires for the display, but this is a start.

The next place I want to take this is by setting up LEDs for each of the Inika. Through some testing, specifically blue LED lights don’t like to play along with green and reds, so it’ll take some experimentation.

I also found this webpage that was particularly useful as it has the same breadboard and Arduino set up in the provided images, while also providing more information on how to set up multiple LEDs.

One consideration I needed to make while working with these LEDs is that they will burn out eventually. No matter how well I take care of them or what methods I use to help them, there will be a time that I have to replace them.

One major thing I can do to help this though is to add resistors, so that the LEDs are dimmed and don’t take as much power, increasing how long they can stay on for.

Now, despite my basic understanding of how electronics work and their components, I have a severe lack of knowledge of voltage and electrical currents. So while resistors do have codes that inform you how much power they resist, I am unable to make any real sense of it. So instead, I just kept plugging in resistors linking to LEDs until I got an appropriate brightness.

The idea doesn’t sound terrible in principle, I just don’t use the color codes that don’t give me the brightness I want, however…

The variety that the DKC provides will become my downfall. It took me a good while of just switching resistors around (not even to mention how green, red, and blue LEDs all needed different strengths), but eventually, I was able to get this setup:

I spent another few hours attaching one of the lights to Hewkii so I could brainstorm ideas on how I would eventually make the lights look pretty, and hide the wires.

My two biggest considerations with this were repairability and keeping things as unmodified as possible. I don’t want to damage or stress the plastic at all, and I want to make it easy enough to replace any faulty parts in the lights when it comes time to.

Ultimately, I think the best option would be to either replicate the light units that originally came with the Inika, or just reusing them entirely. They were, after all, designed specifically for the swords.

It would be much, much easier to reuse them, but my preservation side just won’t let me do that yet. It wouldn’t be very difficult, as it would only require me to desolder some spots on the motherboard, which also means I could put them back together just as easily. I just hate the idea of ruining something so vintage, even if there’s hundreds of these things available. I’ll take some time to think it over and look into options; there’s still plenty else to keep me occupied for awhile anyway.

Furthermore, I also learned from Hewkii that there may not be another option to run wires into the sword casing other than by drilling holes. I’m strangely less adverse to this option but again, I will consider options.

All in all, my mind is very scattered right now and I think it’s best to leave things here while I refresh for the weekend.

Next Steps

Next week, I want to start painting the XPS boards at last. It’s going to take a lot of time to figure out how to paint them properly, and I’m very nervous about it, but I’ll do my best.

Regarding the LEDs, I just want to put them away and not think about them for awhile. Trying to string together cables, dig through resistors, fit them in the swords… It’s just been too much for me and has made me frustrated.

For now, I need a break.

Week 3 is now upon us, or me, or this project… Whatever the relative term would be. Regardless, with the initial plans out of the way, it’s time to really start making progress on the “display” part of this project.

Update on the soaking

Firstly though, I wanted to touch on the hydrogen peroxide bath from last week. Unfortunately, it was ineffective as I did not find a place to set the parts outside at that would also have direct sunlight shining upon them. I had assumed this would be the case, so it does not devastate me to learn.

Shannon was so kind as to take on the chore of giving these poor parts some sunlight, so I will report back once we have some results.

Finally, on to the display

With that mentioned, let’s jump into the plans I have.

The first thing that needs to be done is to measure the area I’ll need to work with to fit all 6 Toa. Ideally, I want them spread out enough so that each one and their features stand out on their own, but also close enough so that they look like part of a team, and so that this display doesn’t take up an entire wall of space.

But before I can measure anything at all, the Toa will need some poses!

Super cool pose time

Since Matoro and Hahli are still disassembled at the time of writing, I won’t be able to get a pose idea for them, but I’ll make sure to come back when I can.

As for the rest of the team, I generally followed the Rule of Cool, but still tried to make each member unique so that I wasn’t just showing off and putting all the focus on their special tools (or Hewkii’s awesome climbing chain).

I did take a lot of inspiration from the Inika’s appearance in the Piraka Online Animations for these poses too. I’m not particularly proud of it, as I’m trying to be more creative and come up with more original concepts, but it is what it is.

As a side note, I apologize for the low-quality image. Despite being a Flash animation, most of the Piraka Online Animations were rendered out as videos beforehand. WordPress also won’t let me properly center the image on the page.

I know for a fact that Hahli’s pose will be very similar to what’s seen here on the frame, but I’m less certain what I’ll do for Matoro. Perhaps I’ll take some further inspiration from his character teaser commercial, or perhaps from the legendary Inika commercial featuring “Move Along” by The All-American Rejects.

Measurementing

Back to the main goal at hand…

I don’t really have a nice, clean method in mind to get a floor measurement. I planned to just spread out the Toa on one of the measuring mats in the DKC and try to work from there.

From my rough estimation, again not being able to take Matoro or Hahli into account, I’m thinking we’re looking at about a floor space of 24″x18″. It’s essentially just guesswork but having an idea down will let me start getting the materials I need to start getting the whole process done.

I’ve had Cartland order a set of 12″x15″ and 12″x7.5″ XPS foam boards that I believe should be versatile enough for my purposes. It, along with a few other materials I’ll need to work with it and spice it up, will arrive next week, just in time for my next blog post.

This means that there is not much more physical work for me to do this week, outside of maybe inspecting each Toa for grime I missed. But, my main point with this is that the downtime gives me the perfect opportunity to do some research into working with these materials.

Challenges and Research-ent…ting

I’ve never worked with XPS foam before in any manner. I know it is commonly used to create terrain models, and is also used in cosplays, which is why it was my choice for this project. It clearly has enough versatility to be crafted into anything I want, and its wide usage also means there’s plenty of guides and tutorials on how to manipulate it.

I’ve already done some light research in the background of working on this project, but I want to actually write down all of what I learn.

Two of the major hurdles I know I have to worry about right now is getting the foam base to the proper size, and painting it. From my rough measurements earlier, I know that the 12″x15″ boards that Cartland ordered won’t be big enough on their own, so I’ll have to glue them together. Furthermore, I’ll also have to prime and paint them, and also cut them either to have the proper size for a floor, or for extra terrain details such as rocks.

While looking up resources on how to cover most of this, I came across this absolutely amazing video on YouTube with a whopping sub 1k view count (at the time of writing) that talks about these in a really enjoyable, but also informative way.

From this video, I now know that combining XPS foam together is as simple as using some hot glue and toothpicks, and priming and painting is also a very simple process of combining black paint and PVC glue.

It doesn’t go super in-depth, but it still serves as a fantastic beginner’s guide that condenses a lot of, admittedly, scattered information together.

It also covers the process of texturing, which I thankfully had already seen from Adam of the YouTube channel “North of the Border”, who, like I had previously mentioned, will also be instrumental in creating this display.

Other Research – Plexiglass

Something else I had been digging into occasionally is how I’ll go about creating the protective transparent case around the display. From everything I can find, Plexiglass/acrylic sheets are the way to go for this, as much as I tried to find an alternative.

This option does slightly scare me as cutting Plexiglass can be a difficult and very dangerous process, due to requiring special tools for “thicker” sheets, and because it creates tiny, breathable sharp shards when cut. Although I suppose I’ve done just as dangerous processes when soldering and desoldering electronics.

Because the official Lego store displays have very limited information on their exact specifications (and may not be designed to last for multiple decades), I’ve opted to look at proper display cases built to last for inspiration. Notably, this website contains a ton of display cases built to house specific Lego sets which look particularly nice (if absurdly expensive).

I used this Star Wars AT-AT case displayed on their landing page as an example to look at. Thankfully, a lot of their creation process is detailed in the description of each product, which will serve as another great source to find information to research.

In the description, it mentions using “3/16″ (5mm)” acrylic, of course, but also pressure fitting it together, which I hadn’t heard of before. The way it was detailed made me think the process would require a special tool or machine, but thankfully, I discovered this video that unintentionally shows off how pressure fitting works. This does mean that, should I choose to use this method instead of some sort of acrylic cement, I would have to get my Plexiglass sheets specially cut, which I discovered could be done by Ace Hardware (of which there is a store nearby campus). I’m unsure of the specifics of how the cut would be done, but I imagine I could talk to any associate in store about that.

Another thing mentioned in the AT-AT case’s description is the use of UV printing a background on the acrylic itself. I looked into it, but unfortunately replicating this option myself is just too expensive due to the cost of UV printers. This is no issue though, as I had planned to try other methods for a background, such as a design printed onto a piece of glossy photo paper.

While on the website, I of course had to search for any Bionicle specific displays. Unfortunately, there is only this single one (again absurdly expensive) available, designed for the 2001 run of Kanohi masks (but could also be used for the 2002 collection as well). That being said though, while searching through its description, I noticed a few things that were not seen on the AT-AT case.

Fun fact! – Kanohi in early Bionicle

While the display seen above shows off the entire set of Kanohi for the Toa Mata, along with the masks found in each “McToran” from the McDonald’s promotion, you would need three of these displays just to show off the entirety of the 2001 Kanohi collection!

The masks of the Turaga could also be collected in each respective elemental color (orange, light blue, light gray, dark gay, lime green, and tan). The Turaga’s masks don’t have the special “Flip Flop” silver or gold colors that the Toa’s masks have, but there are so many other special-colored masks to fill in those slots!

Some of these masks include the copper masks of victory in the unique “Flip Flop” bronze color, transparent green and blue Kanohi found on Rahi, the PowerPack exclusive chrome silver Hau, infected Hau (with unique paint jobs on each one), and even the legendary 14 karat solid gold Hau! (both seen here)

This also isn’t even to mention the numerous misprints all over 2001 masks, which could fill up one of these displays on their own!

The number of Kanohi to collect was drastically reduced in 2002 and 2003, with only the Kanohi Nuva introduced alongside the Toa Nuva, but you could easily fill up almost three full displays from the brand new Krana found in the Bohrok (and later, also the Bohrok-Kal and Bohrok Va)!

For one, it mentions including a UV “protected” background, rather than UV printed. It doesn’t mention more about that specific feature, but from watching the included video of DuckBricks signing the limited-edition versions, he is seen lifting some sort of film up off the background to mark his signature. Obviously the film is there to protect the signature, but I have to wonder if that is part of the UV protection?

Having this on my own display would be absolutely fantastic, as UV rays are what cause the discoloration in lighter colored Lego pieces, and are also just generally a source of slow, long-term damage, even when kept away from windows.

Upon looking it up, the first result I found was this website that sells Plexiglass sheets that are inherently protected from UV, rather than using a film. They also allow for ordering any specific size, which would also be a nice bonus, even if I have to cut the sheets again for pressure fitting. The only downside to these is the cost, being about $45 a sheet for the general size I’m looking at. I’ll continue to do more research into this and discuss with Cartland about it as I start to get to the point where I need to create the display casing.

Back to the Bionicle Kanohi display, the other thing mentioned in the description is the use of a magnetic front panel to allow access into the display. This is something I think I’d like to consider incorporating into my own display. Typically, these kinds of displays are sealed by using screws on mounts, and while there’s no problem with that method (being my alternative choice in case I can not apply pressure fitting), I think it could be fun to add on. I think it would also add a modern and fancy touch to the display and would further show how much care went into it all.

The last thing I want to bring up in regard to my findings here, is the use of what seems to be a black sheet of acrylic for the base of the display. While I still want to work with XPS foam, it does get me thinking that I might need a proper foundation to place it on. Because it won’t be seen on its own, I imagine I have quite a few options for what I can use as the foundation, but I’ll look into that more when I need to.

Special Small Update

I spoke to Micheal Benson in the theater department for his advice, as I had meant to do for a bit now. After I gave a short explanation of this project, he suggested PETG instead of Plexiglass, which I had never heard of. Giving a very quick Google search, it seems to be generally more flexible and resistant to heavier damage compared to Plexiglass.

Furthermore, I also told Michael that I was trying to recreate the Lego store displays, and for that he confidently told me that those displays use Lexan for their casing. Giving this material a quick search shows that it’s designed almost purely for protection, and is also quite flexible, which makes sense. You don’t want a bunch of kids to easily damage the displays.

Overall, it seems that Plexiglass is generally chosen for displays as an aesthetic choice, so I’m thinking I’ll stick with it. I’ll definitely look more into PETG though and see what the process looks like to work with it. Knowing Michael, he wouldn’t give me a recommendation like this if he knew I wouldn’t be able to work with it better than Plexiglass. And if all else fails, the option of Lexan is still available.

Next Steps

With that very long entry out of the way, I want to discuss my plans for this project for next week.

Shannon will return the (hopefully) whitened pieces tomorrow (Thursday, as of writing this) which means I’ll be able to put Hahli and Matoro back together, meaning that I can work on getting proper, more precise measurements for the display size.

Because the materials that Cartland ordered are due to arrive on Monday, I’ll ideally start work on modifying the XPS boards to fit the display dimensions that day. I also hopefully won’t need him to order extra foam for whatever reason.

Once the boards are measured, cut to size, and glued together properly, I’ll follow the beginner tutorial embedded above and start by priming the base with a mixture of PVC glue and black paint. From there, I will hopefully have at least some extra foam left to experiment around with different paint colors to create a terrain that I like.

As for the terrain itself, my plan is to take inspiration from the Inika Move Along commercial, with the Toa Inika storming the Piraka Stronghold. This will involve using some silver, dark gray, and maybe some brown for that ever present brown wash seen in North of the Border creations, to add a sense of grime. Eventually, I’m also thinking of adding some transparent stands to the Toa, so they don’t fall over during transport or any accidental bumps.

I want to also take a second page out of Adam’s book by using armature wire as seen in some of his creations to create the iconic chain-link fence seen throughout the Inika’s (and partially also the Piraka’s) promotional material.

Finally, I plan to make two very minor modifications to the Toa. First, I’ll use the Blu Tack that is part of next week’s materials batch to stick the Zamor spheres together so that they don’t fall out of the Zamor launcher and magazine

All of this work should cover the length of the week, but on the off chance it doesn’t, I can also start delving into options for the LEDs in the Inika’s tools. I don’t expect that will happen though.

Welcome again to my display project. This last weekend proved to be very busy for my personal life, but I’m glad to get back into the swing of things again, and to start making some real progress on this.

Intro

I ended off my last post by talking about how many of the Toa Inika needed a proper deep clean. We can’t have any grime and dirt ruining the beauty of these figures and their soon to be home!

To get right into it, the first thing I want to do is quickly use some compressed air to blow away any loose debris and dust on the pieces. To make this process easier, I’ll deconstruct each Inika down to have an easier time with each piece.

Because there’s so many pieces, I only want to detail some of the worst, most visible offenders and showcase a before-and-after of those pieces. So with that being said, let’s begin.

The Great Dusting

I chose to start with Nuparu due to his black coloration making the grime most visible. By far his dirtiest parts are his mask, shoulder and chest armor, and torso.

Personally, I’m amazed his feet and lower arms don’t have as much dust on them with how many fine details they have.

Unfortunately, the compressed air was not able to remove much from the torso, and nearly nothing from the shoulder armor. However, the chest plate cleaned up nicely, as I had expected… but so did his Kadin!

While I’ll still have to go over them again with a wash of isopropyl alcohol, it is nice to have at least some of the dust off.

I continued his cleaning without any further surprising incidents. Everything left of him will need some alcohol.

Fun fact! – Nuparu

As mentioned on his character bio in my first post, Nuparu was an excellent engineer and nothing short of a genius. During the Bohrok invasion on Mata Nui, he failed to escape Onu-Koro before it was flooded and ended up trapped in its caves alongside Onepu and Taipu.

While the two other Matoran worked on digging an escape path, Nuparu used the empty shell of a Gahlok to create the Boxor, which would play a massive role in saving the other villages across Mata Nui from the invasion.

He quite literally built an Iron Man-like suit in a cave, with a box of scrap, 6 years before the first Iron Man movie would debut.

Thankfully, Jaller, Kongu, and, to my surprise, Hewkii all are fairly clean as is and I don’t feel any of their parts are worth documenting.

Hahli, on the other hand, has some parts that could use a dusting. Her parts include her torso, mask, and chest plate.

Within these parts, her chest plate and torso cleaned up alright. Her Elda is still plagued by bits of dust and other gunk. I worry that a lot of this mess is caused by wear and tear around the mask, as there are some very clear scuff marks and light scratches. Should that be the case, I would feel that using a different mask piece entirely would have to be the best option.

Thankfully, I happen to have a few extra copies of Hahli specifically. This is due both in part just to luck from the pieces I’ve kept over the decades, and because of the Inika exclusive combiner Toa Jovan^*, who is assembled with parts of Hewkii, Nuparu, and Hahli. I bought a second copy of all three Toa Inika specifically to assemble Jovan, and after assembling him, I kept the remaining pieces of each Toa in their respective canisters.

*Fun fact! – Toa Jovan

Jovan was extremely unique in his lore. He was the only Toa of Magnetism, and also the only Toa in his team, to have ever gotten an official name or design. In-universe, Jovan was one of the oldest Toa created and his team reflects this, being the first ever functional Toa team. His team would also not only be the first ones to retrieve the Mask of Life, but also included the only other (unfortunately, unnamed) character who would be destined to wear said mask.

This is all to say, I do happen to have an extra Elda I can swap out for if needed. I gave it a quick inspection but struggled to see any physical damage under the extremely thick dust all over it, so hopefully that means there is none!

Age Begins to Show

While continuing to clean Hahli, I spotted this crack in her right foot!

While it is small, and does not (currently) affect the overall structure stability of her, it does worry me that it has formed at all.

I went to grab another foot from her canister, but spotted more cracks on each of them!

This was extremely strange to me, as I have never seen damage like this in these specific molds before, so that got me thinking that the cause was similar case to that of the infamous Gold Plastic Syndrome*. I decided to inspect Kongu’s feet, and sure enough…

The cracks reveal themselves again! While his are much milder compared to Hahli’s it does seem to me that this issue is caused by the special marbled plastic they both share.

*Tragic fact – GPS in Bionicle

While Gold Plastic Syndrome is a term created and used by the Transformers toy community, Bionicle suffered from a very similar issue, just with another color. While the Lime (referred to as Lime Green by the community) color had been used since the beginning of the series, featuring in Toa Mata Lewa in 2001, and even the Toa Inika’s heads, it was not until 2007 that Lime Green would start to gain its horrible infamy.

While not to the extreme, hand-crushing degree of actual GPS, any Bionicle joints made with the Lime Green coloration had a very noticeable reduction in strength, breaking under normal use extremely easily, and quickly. This was made worse because those joints were sockets, meant to snap on to ball joints after applying force.

This excellent Reddit thread delves into the specifics and history of it all (although beware of major spoilers for Bionicle’s story). In short, something within the plastic mixture that Lego used was the culprit, and it means that nearly all Lime Green pieces made after 2006 are eventually doomed to be destroyed. Hopefully injection molding becomes cheaper in the future and fans find a way to replicate Lego’s plastic colors.

My Hypothesis

On top of the marbled plastic in general, I believe this to be a result of this specific foot mold, as these parts are both softer and less shiny in comparison to, say for example, Hahli’s legs, which also contain the same marbled process and have that signature Lego shine.

What I am more unsure of though is the primary cause for this to happen. My initial guess was that it was due to aging and that it is a new phenomenon, as I was unable to find anything online that referred to these cracks (or any cracking in general on the Inika), but then it hit me.

For some context, I am an out of state student from Texas and during the Winter and Summer breaks I pack my belongings in my car and drive the nearly 1700 miles it is from UMW to my parent’s house and back.

Furthermore, this year Eastern U.S. was hit by a massive snowstorm and cold front featuring freezing temperatures for multiple days. Thankfully, I avoided being in the snowstorm directly as I was always a day behind it, but the further East I went, the colder the temperatures would be. Out of the three nights I traveled, two of them were in freezing weather surrounded in ice and snow, and my car would be subject to hours of that weather.

Of course, among the belongings I packed while preparing for the drive back to UMW, was the Toa Inika in their canisters. I, in hindsight, rather foolishly decided to leave them in my car’s trunk rather than in the main cabin with other items such as electronics. And because my car’s trunk is both not air-conditioned or as well insulated as the cabin…

I believe that these cracks could be a result of extreme temperature shifts! Similar to how a small crack in a windshield can expand to a multiple feet wide monster after the weather temperatures repeatedly lower and rise, I think that something similar happened to these Bionicle pieces.

Here’s my full thoughts to explain my hypothesis. I believe that:

• the special marbled plastic is just naturally weaker than normal, single-colored plastic just due to the mixing process done by Lego, creating a GPS-like effect to a much, much less severe degree
• the specific foot mold used here has some light, but not invisible, stress in its structure that is only 99% stable, explaining why it would pass Lego’s quality control at the time, and also why the cracks form in the same place on each foot
• the nearly 20-year-old age of the pieces gave enough time for the previously mentioned ideas to wear out the strength on them
• this was all magnified due to the extreme temperature shifts, and poor placement in my car, during the long road trip from Texas to Virginia

What does this mean?

Unfortunately, I don’t have feasible means of testing any of these pieces of evidence, so the most I can do is find another copy of Kongu’s or Hahli’s foot at home and inspect them for cracks. Should I find one in good condition, I’ll happily swap it out with the damaged pieces.

But that won’t be possible for at least a few weeks as I won’t have a chance to return home until Spring break begins at the end of February.

Alternatively, in an emergency, I could purchase replacement parts on Bricklink, where I have previously bought all of these Toa and their canisters.

The bright side

Thankfully though, that doesn’t seem it will be necessary. I applied some moderately forceful pressure to the cracked areas to see if they would move, but experienced very little to no shifting whatsoever, meaning that the structure is still very strong. I have the feeling that it will hold up for a very long time, so the only true motivation to switch out pieces would be for beauty and decorative purposes. Perhaps another objective to reach towards later down the line?

Cleaning, Returned

I’ll continue to keep my eye out on those pieces throughout this project, but ideally the only update will be that I found undamaged versions of them to use.

I returned to cleaning the rest of Hahli, and also gave a closer inspection to Hewkii, Jaller, and Kongu, but found no other damage that was out of the ordinary.

What about Matoro?

If you are one of the people who noticed I hadn’t mentioned Matoro up until now, congratulations! You’re either very astute, interested in this series, or already a true fan.

Regardless, because Matoro is primarily white, I decided that I will only give him a quick all-around dusting for the most part, as I plan to bathe all of his white pieces in hydrogen peroxide like I had mentioned in my last post. This means that there are only 10 pieces to clean outside of that, and none of them are particularly filthy when compared to his poor yellowed parts.

Time to Hit the Bar

With the basic dusting out of the way, the next step for me is to remove any remaining grime with the use of some Q-tips and 91% isopropyl alcohol.

Just about every piece needed this treatment, so instead of filling up this post with more and more images, I’ll instead opt to only document any parts that I am unable to clean fully.

Matoro

Since he is still out in front of me as I write this, I’ll begin with Matoro. His bright silver torso and chest plate had some especially yucky spots on them, but had nothing that really stuck around.

However, I am noticing that his chest plate seems to be slightly yellowed, strangely. I’ll throw it in the bath with the rest of his white parts.

His poor Iden is also absolutely COVERED in gross dirt and grime. A light wash of alcohol removed a lot of the worst bits, but I’ll be so happy to fully bathe it with the rest of Matoro’s parts.

I sorted out his white parts and put them into a plastic container, along with his chest plate.

Hahli

Hahli had no parts worth mentioning. Everything that was not blown off was cleaned off easily.

I removed her white joints, along with her marbled legs, and put them in the bathing container.

Kongu

Kongu had nothing that was not already cleaned off by the compressed air, so nothing worth mentioning!

Jaller

Jaller also had nothing that didn’t get cleaned by the compressed air.

Hewkii

Hewkii had a few corners that needed to be loosened up with a Q-tip, but nothing stuck around after that!

Nuparu

The only part that I could not fully clean off was the claw in Nuparu’s left hand. There’s both a buildup of gunk in the corners, and a stubborn mark on one of the claws itself. I’m not sure it needs a full hydrogen peroxide soak, but I decided to put it in the container regardless.

What’s next?

With each of the Toa and their specific pieces accounted for now, that marks an end to the majority of my plan this week. I plan to spend a day soaking the gathered parts in hydrogen peroxide, which is a multi-hour-long process from what I’ve read.

Specifically, I am going to consult this webpage and its attached YouTube video for the process. While that tutorial deals specifically with light grey Lego bricks, I have no doubt that it will be any less effective for the white Bionicle pieces.

Although that being said, I have read on another page while researching this that hydrogen peroxide can wash out some colors, which does worry me when it comes to the blue on Hahli’s legs, but if worst case scenario occurs, I do have replacements. Ideally though, I’d like to avoid damaging something so vintage.

As for next week, I will have my definitive materials list ready to discuss with Shannon and Cartland, and assuming that we have no hiccups with it, I’ll begin the process of putting the display together!

Quite honestly, I am very nervous about it, but there’s still another 13 weeks or so to figure everything out and make this display be as amazing as it can be!

Welcome, all. My name is Hayden De La Chapa. I’m currently in my second semester as a junior at UMW majoring in cybersecurity, and I’m considering minoring in digital studies as I feel I have a strong artistic side.

I’ve never really written in the style of a blogpost, nor am I very good at these kinds of introductions, so I hope that this info will suffice.

An introduction to Bionicle

On to what I’m much more experienced with. Ever since my earliest memories, the Lego brand Bionicle has been a part of my life. Unique from the other brands Lego is known for today, Bionicle was a series of buildable figures using Technic and unique snappable ball joint pieces made specifically for the toy line.

Note that I have opted to add links to the fan hosted Bionicle wiki biosector01 on any Matoran Language* terminology used throughout these posts so that non-fans of the series can understand what I am discussing without bloating up the page too much. Because these things are so engrained into me, it is possible that I may pass over some spots, and for that I apologize.

*Fun fact! – Matoran Language

Many of the words in the Matoran Language are directly taken from the real-life Māori language. However, the Māori people viewed that certain words being used by Lego were disrespectful to, and an appropriation of their culture, filing a lawsuit against Lego in 2001 before the launch of Bionicle in North America. Lego would acknowledge their concerns and change many of their words. Most notably, this included the word “tohunga” (meaning “spiritual advisor”) being changed to the now ever-present “Matoran”. Many other words received a simple change in spelling, while others remained unchanged entirely. More information about this situation and the specific words used can be found on this page.

Lasting from 2001 to 2010 (with a less successful reboot ranging from 2015 to 2017), Bionicle was particularly unique due to its incredibly in-depth world and story. Each buildable figure is their own character, with their own name, personality, and lore, which allowed for a deeper connection compared to the previous lines Lego had produced. The main storyline lasted the entire 2001-2010 run and consisted of books, games, comics, websites, and even a few movies that explained parts of the story. Each year introduced a new set of characters to purchase as the story progressed forward, with designs typically drastically changing and evolving.

Beyond its story and lore, Bionicle was probably most notable for its physical aspects. The most well-known aspect of this is its very unique canister style packaging, which could include unique designs for each year and character series, or even a connection to in-universe story elements that doubled as extra play features.

Second most well-known would have to be the iconic masks, known as Kanohi. Like the characters, each Kanohi has its own name, design, and lore, and they were typically the focus of the collection aspect especially early in Bionicle’s life. For example, the Kanohi typically associated with the series is called the Hau, the mask of shielding that allows a bearer to form a shield around themselves to protect from attacks, but not ambushes.

Furthermore, nearly every series of characters comes with a combiner form that could only be assembled once all required characters were owned, which typically resulted in another in-universe character or creature.

For the most part, after its poorly handled and unsuccessful reboot in 2015, Bionicle has been shunned and abandoned by Lego. Despite winning the 2022 Lego 90th Anniversary vote in the first round, and placing 2nd in the second round, it was the only series not to receive a large scale high-budget set release like Pirates, Castle, or Space, instead being restricted to a very tight budget Gift-With-Purchase (GWP) on purchases of at least $95. Harsh, especially for a series so beloved by fans and that had saved Lego during their financial troubles in the 1990’s.

Fun fact! – Bionicle hidden in other Lego brands

Despite the rather lackluster love from Lego for the 90th Anniversary celebration, in December of 2023, the Monkie Kid “Megapolis City” set released, featuring many references to discontinued Lego brands. Among these references, hidden away underneath the foundations, is a brick containing a mask design identical to that of Takua’s Pakari as seen above, but with Onua’s black and green color scheme. See this post on the BZPower forums for more info.

The project

But that’s history for another time. As should be evident by now, I am extremely passionate for this series, and it has long been my Autistic special interest. This, finally, brings me to the project I will be working on for this semester.

One aspect I don’t really see talked about with Lego is their in-store displays. I’m uncertain about their design process in any aspect, but the Bionicle displays have long been a piece I wish to add to my collection. However, due to their scarcity it is difficult to find them available, much less for cheap or the specific ones I’d like the most. Because of this, and with inspiration from people who have posted online, I’ve wanted to make my own display for my favorite year in the series.

Allow me to introduce who we’ll be getting to know very well throughout this project:

These are the Toa Inika, who were the mainline release for the winter season of 2006. As you can see in the image, the unique canister packaging gives a very striking appearance unlike anything else seen in Lego. Also noteworthy: the characters seen here were all originally Matoran who could be seen and even purchased in the 2001 and 2002 story chapters.

Each main series of six figures included their own play functions which up to this point before 2006 typically involved a gearbox to allow arms to swing, a disc launcher controlled in a similar manner to a Beyblade, or switches to cause some sort of movement. In many senses, the Toa Inika were more unique than their predecessors, as they introduced the “Inika build” that would generally become the standard for each Toa series following them, and contained more than a few gimmicks:

• They included the new Zamor launcher projectile firing weapons, seen in their left hand (or on Nuparu’s shoulder). While these were introduced with the Piraka villain series earlier that year, the Inika added a magazine modification to the launchers, allowing for upwards of four spheres to be loaded.
• The Toa tools in their right hand contained LED lights controlled by a motherboard that would flash upon pressing a rubber button on the front.
• Unlike any other Kanohi in the series, the masks^* seen on the Inika were made out of rubber instead of plastic. This is the most controversial aspect of the sets among fans even today.

^*Fun Fact! – The Toa Inika’s masks

As I mentioned here, the Toa Inika’s masks are unique in the sense that they are made of rubber rather than plastic. This is to fit with their in-universe lore, where after setting out on their voyage to Voya Nui, the canisters the (then) Matoran travelled in were struck by lightning. This event caused a myriad of transformations, part of which was that their masks became organic. It was noted that these masks made the Inika “unnerving” to look at, and had a level of sentience and motor control, but also allowed Toa to have easier control of their mask powers. See this page on the biosector01 wiki for more info.

More about the Toa:

My idea for this project is to use these six Toa figures in a custom display that offers a stylized scene relating to their story/branding, and that involves modifications to the previously mentioned light-up Toa tools to be controlled by a master switch that may also control other lights on the display, that will be plugged into a wall outlet for power.

Ideally, I’d like to make the display similar to the ones created by Lego, so I know already I will be using plexiglass to serve as protection from physical damage and dust. In this regard, I plan to uncover and study any information about these displays and take inspiration from fan created displays posted online.

From previous experimentation, I know that the light up tools simply use red, blue, and green LED lights that shine through a transparent tube to produce the lighting effect, and that the motherboards controlling the current LEDs can be removed (so no more risk of battery corrosion, yay). I plan to remove the motherboards and insert an appropriate colored LED light to be controlled by a master switch.

Beyond that, I’m less certain what will serve as a base for the Toa to be stood on. One idea I have is to use some form of Styrofoam which can allow for a lightweight base that can be modified to fit stands and wires, but I’m not sure how easily it can be customized in terms of paint and decals and the like.

First steps

First off, I need to find a good option to serve as a base. For this, I’ll look through the YouTube channel “North of the Border“, who is one of my major inspirations and also who I will primarily refer to for ideas when making this project. Once I have a base material decided, I’ll decide on the poses I’d like each Toa to have and get a general idea on the dimensions and constraints to have for the display size.

Before any of that though, these Toa need a cleaning. They come from my personal collection, and despite my best efforts, dust still manages to penetrate my closed-door display cases. Some dust can be blown off with compressed air, but there are spots that have caked on layers from nearly two decades of time, and the rubber Kanohi masks also like to hold a tighter grip on any grime they acquire.

Furthermore, Matoro, and Hahli to a lesser extent, also have a unique problem from the other Inika due to their white coloring. Although not limited to white pieces, sun damage is most prominently seen on them in the form of a yellow discoloration.

Cleaning methods

My plan of attack is to first blast the Toa with a healthy coating of compressed air, removing and loosening weaker dust from some of the more notable spots. This will help show off which spots need further action. For these, I believe some cotton tips dabbled in isopropyl alcohol may do most of the heavy lifting. Should any grime still choose to persist, they’ll be subjected to the Isopropyl Bath with some sun which should ideally get the last few bits off. I don’t have a plan for what I’ll do if that fails, but I’ll be sure to do research into further cleaning methods if needed.

Speaking of the Isopropyl Bath, that will also be the solution to Matoro’s white plastic parts. It does seem somewhat counter intuitive to fix sun damage by letting pieces soak in the sun, but my previous experience with this method has shown great results. Because it takes a day or two for most of the yellowing to disappear, it will leave me with the perfect amount of time to put a materials list together.

With the plastic parts mostly covered, this just leaves the rubber masks, which intimidate me. I’ve tried all manners of alcohol, both wipes and isopropyl, baths, and compressed air but it just doesn’t get even a majority of the grime off. I imagine this will be a task I’ll be researching and working on for longer than I would like.

Finally, as for the discoloration in Matoro’s transparent blue pieces, I’ll throw them into a Bath with the white parts and see if it makes a difference. I’m not sure if the color is caused by sun damage, or if it is simply just a difference in the colors that Lego used^*, but my theory is that because the coloration is generally located on Matoro’s right side, it is in fact sun damage from the pose I had him in.

^*Fun fact! – Changes in plastic color

This exact situation is seen with silver pieces starting from around this time. Lego switched from using Flat Silver to Pearl Light Gray, and as a result some parts like Nuparu’s claws can be seen with notably different silvers. This post on the TTV YouTube channel forums shows off the differences quite well.

Conclusion

With all of that being said, I believe it’s time to cap off this very long post so I may begin the process. I had a lot of fun writing it in this manner, and I plan to continue including as much information as I can about this project, with a healthy sprinkling of Bionicle lore on the side.