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Tahu T.O.A. Unit


Onyx.5

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Dear RahkshiToa88:
Thank you for your interest in the Techno Organic Armour unit system! Unfortunately, TOA units are not available on the consumer market at this time. We are currently investigating potential distribution channels and legel authorization measures, but due to regulatory complications, we can not provide an estimated date of availability. While we would like to assure you that a TOA unit would be fully capable of executing everyday activities while protecting the pilot from excessive stress and exhaustion, TOA units are currently not approved for civillian, labour, or light and heavy industrial use. Rest assured, we continue to push for wider acceptance and availability of TOA units in all sectors as we strive to meet your needs. Please check back later! Don't actually check back later, I'm probably not going to change anything.


Dear Onarax:
What you are seeing is a prototypical TOA unit model. As with all TOA units, the unit is speci-
Okay I can't keep this up. And your comment doesn't really work with an in-character response anyway. So, uh... katana, right. Well, the simplest answer is that I don't think very hard when I draw these. But that answer is also unsatisfying. So, Tahu is well known for carrying a fire sword, but I wanted to draw him holding an actual physical sword of some kind, which he would then use to channel his flame powers. Rapiers and similar swords were right out, as I wanted something that was predominately a slashing weapon. Overall I just thought that the japanese concept of the sword, as a fast, fragile, but incredibly sharp weapon, fit much better with the concept of elemental fire than the heavy, defensive, club-like concept of the ancient european greatsword. Now, if you were really looking closely, you would ask why Tahu is holding it in his left hand. And for that, you might want to go back to my first answer.

As for Exo Toa, I actually made a topic a while ago with some thoughts and drawings of Exo Toa in this universe, though it's probably out of date with my headcanon at this point. While TOA merely contiain artificial muscle to supplement the pilot's strength, External Xenobiological Operating Techno Organic Armor* units are entirely self contained biotech organisms, capable of independant movement and thought (in keeping with the original Bionicle lore), which help augment the pilot's decisions making process, and allow the EXO TOA to have split-second reactions to possible threats without input from the pilot. Also, EXO TOA are serveral stories tall. So in effect, Toa = power armor, Exo Toa = giant mecha.
*[somebody please save me from my own backronyms]

Dear MrCod:
Thank you so very much, sir! That's what I only hoped to hear. The flavour text was pretty fun to write, I've always taken a perverse joy in creating jargon. It's going to take a lot of work to top "proactive interests protection plan". The idea of a human/bionicle combination is the entire point of this world, although it actually started when I was thinking about how I wanted to deal with the Kanohi masks in my Bionicle art. After all, how do you portray facial emotion on a piece of metal? The common approaches tend to be not bothering with facial expressions at all (the set-style approach), incorporating animate features directly in to masks (the movie-style approach), or doing away with the masks altogether to just have faces (the human bionicle approach). None of those entirely appealed to me. I was thinking about sci-fi in general when I realized I could draw the masks as helmets, thus preserving both the cool, technological feel of the metal masks, and the squishy, relatable form of the human face. And then I just expanded that approach to the entire Toa, and viola, you get the idea of Toa as armor. So I can draw all the little techno details I want, and then draw fully humanized characters, and they don't have to be in seperate worlds. I get to have my cake and eat it too.

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Somehow your art style looks familiar, but I can't exactly say why. O.o

(though I probably could've seen that old Exo-Toa of yours which you mentioned earlier? Could be.)

 

Anyway, these are awesome! I love the way the first neither has nor actually requires outlines, and the way the arm and leg are kind of fading into the background. All three together may look more like concept art for, say, a videogame rather than product promotion, but the text ad you wrote up is quite intriguing, as is the concept as a whole.

(I've always enjoyed human/bionicle combinations, and yours just works so well. :) )

 

Colours, proportions, shapes - everything is awesome. C:

20210512_strollin_banner.jpg

 My art collection topic - updated! (21/09/2021)

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A big thanks for your kind words, everybody!

 

You're right, TN - I've been drifting towards the sort of concept-art mindset, where fine details get sacrificed for the sake of getting a general idea across, without spending tons of time on a single image. I've never been good at getting clean outlines or smooth, polished looking images, and while sooner or later I'm going to have to conquer that dragon, for now I've decided to explore what happens when I simply throw cleanliness and outlines in general out the window. I guess I lean on an impressionist approach quite a bit as well. I've also recently stopped beginning my drawings with a sketch and then painting/inking over it, instead I just start with the dark colour and carve out the shapes I want. I think that's saved a lot of time. An intriguing concept is what I aim to deliver, and I hope I can get people to consider for themselves how they can bring a unique interpretation to the Bionicle world. Because I assure you, this isn't a special ability given only to a chosen few. As for why you'd recognize my art style... well, darned if I know. I know I recognized you pretty quickly, no surprise there, but I can't say I've posted many topics on GA, or anywhere really.

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I love it. Most of the time when people humanize BIONICLE characters, it looks a bit strange. In this case you've made the Toa into some kind of power armor suit, and that is awesome. It looks sleek and deadly at the same time, and the somewhat sketchy style brings to mind gritty sci-fi settings. Very nice work. :)

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Reminds me of Warframe.  This is by no means a bad thing.  :D

It is not for us to decide the fate of angels.

Dominus Temporis, if you're out there, hit me up through one of my contacts.  I've been hoping to get back in touch for a long time now.  (Don't worry, I'm not gonna beg you to bring back MLWTB or something.  :P )

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I love this so much!

 

The rough, sketchy style combined with the BIONICLE elements really makes this incredible to look at. I especially love the way you designed the opening Hau (Harassment Avoidance Unit?). The katana fits really well, and the fierce, dark red silhouetted style definitely makes me want to stay at least 10 feet away from this Techno Organic Armor unit.

 

I'm also really in love with the Lewa drawing. The way the suit is patterned along his back really gives it a BIONICLE feel, although I'm not entirely sure why. Your style is stunning.

 

Make more.

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I like the sketchy water-color-esque art style a lot. Very different from most Bionicle art. 

Steam Name: Toa Hahli Mahri. Xbox Live Gamertag: Makuta. Minecraft Username: ThePoohster.

Wants: 2003 Jaller (from Jaller and Gukko), Exo-Toa, Turaga Nuju, Turaga Vakama, Shadow Kraata, Axonn, Brutaka, Vezon & Fenrakk, Nocturn, ORANGE FIKOU.

I got rid of my picture, are you happy?

 

 

 

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Glad to see people are liking my approach to illustrating these. I only really starting drawing things this way recently, but I find it's a fun style to work with. And again, I'm hoping to bring something a bit different to GA, both in concept and in technical approach.

Endless Sea, it's funny that you should mention Warframe (warning, it's a fairly violent game, if you're not interested in violent games, you're not going to get much out of it). A friend introduced it to me and I played it for a few months a while back. It was fun for a while, though the gameplay doesn't change much, so I eventually drifted off. The art direction was certainly interesting though, especially how the titular Warframes relied on huge amounts of detail and texture to define them. As pretty as they were, personally I actually try to avoid relying too much on fine details in my designs, I try to use large shapes and silhouette definition, though I'm not sure how much I'm succeding. I'd like to simplify these TOA further, actually, but I'm still messing around with them, trying to find some aspects to make them unique. The bulky armor collars seem to be a start, though I worry sometimes that I'm just ripping off the Grineer, heh. While I don't conciously reference it, I guess I can't deny that Warframe might be exerting some amount of influence on me (case in point: Katanas). The sci-fi, biotech-heavy setting sure shares some similarities with Bionicle. Though if we want to talk about influences, it might be worth considering Evangelion (warning: 1, Eva can be graphic at times; and 2, it's almost two decades old so there are spoilers aplenty on the wider internet). The more I think about it, the more I like the design of the Eva units. They have a very smooth, uncluttered and sleak design by mecha anime standards, and at the same time the famous shoulder pylons are an interesting detail that makes them immediately recognizable. That's the sort of silhouette-defining design feature I'm attracted to.

5-O: Ah, the Kanohi. I'm still not entirely sure how to deal with integrating them in to my world. I have the character's faces, and I have these segmented armor helmets that are based off the character's original signature mask, and neither of those really lend themselves to being swapped out or collected. My current thought is that Kanohi might actually be more like special programs or functions that are installed as a part of a TOA unit loadout. This would help explain the swapability and collectability of Kanohi, while still allowing me to keep the physical helmets as an integrated part of the TOA, and as a visual signifier of the pilot, which never changes. I don't even want to think about creating acronyms for every Kanohi name... I might just say that the names are simply names, though I have to admit, Harassment Avoidance Unit is pretty good. And I still have to figure out what KANOHI will stand for. Something Ancillary Nueral Operation Something Instance... No, how about...

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I don't even want to think about creating acronyms for every Kanohi name... I might just say that the names are simply names, though I have to admit, Harassment Avoidance Unit is pretty good. And I still have to figure out what KANOHI will stand for. Something Ancillary Nueral Operation Something Instance... No, how about...

Just throw Kinetic in front of that. Kinetic always works for K-word jargon.

Or maybe Kakorrhaphiophobic?

 

EDIT: Kyriolexic? Keloid? Kinetogenic? Kilobase? Doesn't have to make a ton of sense as long as it sounds pretty epic.

Edited by Chro

save not only their lives


d665fa5c17bc200a946e0a69eaf11f929dc080cb


but their spirits

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I don't know what all the discussions all about, but that artwork, man...

 

I've always been a huge fan of artist that still post un-finished looking work. It shows their style and how they make it, and that's always so cool to me. It has very good use of color and I don't think I have any critique for it. Because I can't think of any as of now... :P

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Holy beans, I love this! Your style is eye-catching and striking, and you've done a great job of melding the organic and mechanical elements of the Toa. Your style is minimalist in a way, but it communicates so much detail. I'm absolutely in love with this, if you couldn't tell.

 

Anyway awesome job! Keep up the great work. :)

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HEEEeeeyyyyyy I love this!

 

You have some beautiful gradients going on with the slate blue and red, and that subtraction method is utilized here so well. I like your forms and the suggestion of detail, good technique here. Loving the silver forearms, you should keep those. The sword instead of fire is a wonderful way to "cool down" a Toa of Fire and along with the pose, gives it some maturity and weight that is difficult to achieve. Your Matoran emerging from the suit contains more movement and contrast, which helps demonstrate that you know what you are doing. I would like to see the same kind of attention to anatomy on Lewa however, his torso is pretty much a trunk (where Tahu's is layered and shaped in all three) and the humpback makes little sense in connotation with his character or function- rather like someone like Onua or Pohatu who in comparison with Lewa, would probably have to be enormous! If these suits are indeed grown from hosts maybe their actual form should differ more radically as well? Tahu's bulk at his neck gives him power while Lewa's just stunts his proportions which, while correct enough, look wrong due to the hump.

 

I love that you've made a new world out of this concept, much cooler than just "new tahu suit."

 

With perhaps a hint of highlighting or refocusing the light and adding details in more strategic places you'd have professional tier work and so far with what you have it totally shows that already. I saw on DA you said to someone you were using Alchemy, I think it would be cool to see you push that into some of your Bionicle work and give it some of these textures and shapes you used. Well you got me out of the woodwork... now to disappear forever... again.

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Chro: Ah, 'kinetic'! That's a good one, might have to use that. Personally I lean towards making the acronyms make as much sense as possible, but, there's really only so much you can do. Looks like it's time to crack open the ol' dictionary.

If there's one big thing I've learned recently, it's how much of a figure you can obscure or ignore while still getting a message across, and how you can still suggest detail without actually drawing in all of it. Case in point being the first drawing: you can see that Tahu's left arm (his right from our POV) has different colours and some details, meanwhile his right arm is just a silhouette. Because I haven't done anything to obviously suggest a pronounced asymetry, you assume that his armor is symetrical and that all the details I put on his left arm must also exist on his right arm, even though I didn't draw them. Which means I can use that to introduce moody or dramatic lighting or to put an emphasis on strong graphic shapes instead of spending time filling in every bolt and screw. Now, putting in every last detail with technical precision is of course a look in itself, and one that I highly admire, but, right now it's not where I'm at.

Ziontyro: If someone actually undertook trying to make a costume like this, I'd be honoured. If anyone wants to try it, that would be amazing and they have my full approval. Besides, it's Bionicle, it's not exactly like I own the copyright anyway. But yeah, it's either going to take a simplified design, or a really dedicated builder. At least they wouldn't have to wear their mask all the time to stay in-character.
Oh, and Rahk, I assure you, Lewa's suit is perfectly air transportation capable. That's what the built in jump jets are for.

And by Mata-Nui's mercy, it's UK. I was sort of afraid you'd show up, I didn't know what you'd say if you did. And as someone with some serious artistic chops around here, what you say carries some serious weight. I take your comment as high praise. You're entirely right about Lewa, though - while I was drawing him, I did struggle to get the upper back of his suit to look right, and it still looks off, resulting in humpback Lewa. Now that I look at it again, it's a bit clearer where I overextended the armor. And his torso is pretty bulky, yeah. I told myself that, hey, they're armour suits, so of course they'll be bulky, I don't need to worry about it, right? But I suppose I could add more definition than that, and vary the shapes more between toa. Ah, character design basics. And I'd like to keep the armor collars as a defining feature of all my toa, but, that doesn't mean I can't experiment with the form. So I'll keep that stuff in mind for future drawings. And I'll keep working on lighting stuff, and... aw man, I don't have any highlights! How did I not notice for so long? As for Alchemy... man, Alchemy. Fun program, I always found it a bit uncomfortable having to go back and forth between programs to draw things, but I suppose that's a digital art skill in itself. While I have been focusing on pure brushwork, I guess I ought to start thinking about how I'm going to start incorporating more texture in to these, whether through Alchemy or custom brushes or photobashing or what have you. But anyway, thanks a ton for stopping by, your observations are as acute as ever. Hope you're enjoying your stay as part of the BZP scenery. Do we even have any natural woodwork around here anymore? I thought they replaced it all with synthetic fiber...

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  • 3 weeks later...

This artwork is great in like eighteen different ways and I love you for making it.

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:smilepohatunu: chimoru2015spinnie.gif

Credit to Click for the awesome Bionicle 2015 spinnie!

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Wow... I've seen Bionicle art before that I thought was great, but yours takes the cake and adds candles. The art style caught my eye immediately, with the contrast especially. The proportions look great, as if it was a real armor suit, and yet it adds a sci-fi element that no real-life object yet invented could embody. On the last profile shot, the accented colors make it stand out even more than the unique style already does! The wires in the second one are really neat, too, and the placement of their connecting ends is great. I hope you'll draw more of these, 'cause so far, Tahu and Lewa look really great! (That axe)
If these were real,
if they were selling to the public, and
if I had money, I'd buy one.

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Great Beings, this is a really well thought-out concept and I'd love for you to take it further and draw comics with a narrative. These ideas are too good not to be explored. Create a blog and start fleshing out your world. Roll in all the fandom glory. This is beautiful, both in art and story. Please, please, for the love of Mata Nui, expand this. 

"Keep in mind that if Star Trek fans had, as a group, said, 'No point in talking about this anymore, it's never going to come back,' it never WOULD have come back."

 

-Greg Farshtey

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Dang. I'm a sucker for cel-shaded, high-contrast, low saturation images so this looks good to me anyway, but man it's amazing! If New Bionicle were darker like the Inika artwork, I could totally see this being the art style instead of what they ended up with. This is prime art right here.

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FANTASTIC artwork and fictional bio there, Onyx! For the bio, I love how you get inspiration from biotechnology. As for the artwork, it is truly remarkable and reminds me of... (see further comments below in this post)

Somehow your art style looks familiar, but I can't exactly say why. O.o

(though I probably could've seen that old Exo-Toa of yours which you mentioned earlier? Could be.)

 

Anyway, these are awesome! I love the way the first neither has nor actually requires outlines, and the way the arm and leg are kind of fading into the background. All three together may look more like concept art for, say, a videogame rather than product promotion, but the text ad you wrote up is quite intriguing, as is the concept as a whole.

(I've always enjoyed human/bionicle combinations, and yours just works so well. :) )

 

Colours, proportions, shapes - everything is awesome. C:

Is it just me, or this art style reminds me of the Mecha/Tokusatsu genre? Oh, and also Metal Gear art style too.

Your left brain contains nothing right, while your right brain contains nothing left.

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Well well, featured topic, how about that. I have to admit, it's a bit exciting. But, come on now, stopping to acknowledge being featured is a bit tired by now, no? It's expected, but not particularly exciting to read. But, now I have to start thinking more seriously about what to draw next... Still, thanks for the kind words everyone, I assure you I took the time to read what everyone has to say, even if I didn't directly respond to you.

Blueblur, ah, how refreshing to see someone stopping to point out something they're not such a fan of. On reflection, I must admit, I mainly focused on illustrating the concept of there being human (or cyborg) pilots at all, rather than taking the time to flesh them out and show them as unique people. I guess I ought to work more on that side of things in the future. Funny that you should mention Gali, I've been thinking about that myself. It's tempting to do things like de-emphasize the shoulders and bulk up the leg armour, but my current thoughts are that the sets never made any effort to distinguish Gali as female through her amour, so why should I? You know, do things Samus style. But, taking the opportunity to add visual variety has its draws too...

Flex, despite all the various modifications I've made to the way the Bionicle world works, Toa maintain their ability to directly manipulate their respective elements. I haven't decided whether they get to keep that power outside the TOA unit itself, though I'm leaning towards it being specific to the unit. That said, I did consider giving them elementally appropriate weapons... but ultimately, I think that if you want to see flamethrowers, you're going to have to go to the Exo-Toa models.

Iku, you seem quite adamant on your position. I'll see what I can do, though I'm already involved in another, non-Bionicle related project. Otherwise I'd be devoting more time to drawing these! You can bet the universe isn't going away any time soon though, it'll keep brewing away in my mind, and sooner or later I'll have a new batch of drawings and concepts.

J46, funny you should mention Metal Gear. I've never played the games or really been a fan, but I have to say, every time I chance upon one of Yoji Shinkawa's drawings for the series, I've always liked the look. It's a comparison I'll gladly take, and with any luck I can get closer to his calibre of work in the future. Plus there's those robot designs. So cool, but always just a little bit unusual or awkward, in a way that makes them stick out in your mind. That's the sort of thing I can appreciate.

It seems we have a few HB converts. Walking the line between BZP's long tradition of seperate 'movie' and 'humanized' styles was a major goal of mine, so it makes me happy to see people enjoying these drawings who usually don't enjoy anything with a human face on it. I think a major part is still keeping the strong emphasis on cybernetics and biotech, as they're such an integral element of Bionicle that I always find it a bit weird seeing someone completely strip them out. Not that it's bad when someone does, by any means. The more people try different things, the better. But that should help illuminate my personal philosophy towards my Bionicle art, at any rate.

Aaaaand Tahtorak with a second reference to Metal Gear's art. Man, and at the time I drew these, I wasn't thinking about Metal Gear at all. I suppose now I'm forced to acknowledge the similarity. Tokusatsu I'm not so sure about, as I've watched literally none of it. But Mecha? Yes. Very much so.

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Snake... looks like a new type of Metal Gear.  

 

Nah just kidding, but seriously, it looks pretty good. I really like the more distinctive art style, it has a very dynamic perspectives.

 

9/10. (Oh you just got trolled... because it's really a 10/10) Peace out Peace Walker. 

"Don't! They will kill you like a small dog. Instead let your anger be as if it were a monkey on a treadmill; confused and tripping around." -Lelouch of Britania- (Here is my BZPRPG Profile, Diotrua.) 

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