Shōgunocturn

 Nocturn was pretty cool set, back in 2007. I remember everyone liking Nocturn. He had cool glow-in-the-dark parts, snazzy combo on transparent blue and lime, bizzare head with jutting lower jaw and four arms. In Finland, it was exclusive on some toy stores only existing in southern Finland, so I bought my copy on trip to some Pokemon TCG match in Helsinki. My interest on TCG was already fading, so getting Nocturn was, honestly, probably the most impactful thing on the trip. 

Everybody loved Nocturn in 2007 and he's still liked, so when group of Bionicle builders plan collaboration on 2007 sets, more than one might end up picking Nocturn. So... Oops, all Nocturn! I didn't want to distract too far from the original set, so this is somewhat usual reboot. However, and unsurprisingly, the samurai aesthetics ticked again back in! Maybe it was the two-toe feet of the set, or wide pauldron-like shoulder spikes, or twin katanas, but there was something very, very vaguely samurai-like in Nocturn. I emphasized it by making the shoulders more pauldron-like, utilizing common lime green dinosaur tails from Mars Mission line. I also gave him longer horns to make the silhouette even more radical; the crest has Sinestro print fron Green Lantern sets, which fitted the aesthetics nicely; I know nothing about Green Lantern, but the print is cool and got several cheap. 

As with Botar, the eyes are mirrors of soul, so I wanted them sharper than those light-bulb like ones on original set. They're simiral to Borat, featuring 1x1 round plates with hole, connected to T-bars with their lovable plume holes forming a penetrating stare. Usually the extra knobs on T-bars would be a problem, but here they just gave Noc two extra teeth! His lower jaw, originally using piraka foot, was re-designed to fit more visible white teeth. I also added a tongue, as that felt fitting to Oni theme and monster feel in general. Red also bounced up well among the blue and green.

On legs, I wanted to create flowing shapes very different from the clunky legs of the set. The lower leg piece is the same, however; and two-toe feet, albeit much smaller, refer back to both samurai socks and the set. Using those weird Starts Gresh armour pieces was one of the original goals, and I'm very happy for the feet turned out. The arms, on ther hand, are mostly trans-medium blue, mixed with glowing parts of the original. Building them meant facing age-old problem of Bionicle builders: Most of the ball sockets are more or less broken and don't have enough friction to hold the weapons up! Bionicle building is hard, and not least due to this issue. Partly for this reason the back arms are very system-heavy.

And the weapons! Original set has two katanas, stupid squid launcher and silver tentacle. I kept the swords, of course, as they were fitting for the theme. I thought about making a realistic crossbow, but had no idea how to pose it on lower arms, so I went with a exaggerated Japanese kanabo mace instead. The tentacle turned into a silly chain weapon with small blades. I had designed that one for pre-Pit Kalmah model 8 years back, but that one was never finished, and the chain idea was forgotten. Until now. With those weapons, he's actually not very shogun-like, but more like big mid-boss goon that gets killed by the hero's mentor. Strong but dumb.

And hey - March wasn't that much of an architecture month after all. My LUGs contest jugding is late, so I haven't been able to post the model that was the middle part of my "white buildings" trilogy. But everything is ready, photographed and edited. Just waiting to be posted.

-Eero.