Mahri Nui concept

This concept drawing of Mahri Nui was done to depict the mood and feel of this surreal underwater location. It is a “snapshot” seen from one of the rocky gorges up towards the Matoran villages under their air bubbles. The air is kept in place by a web of special super strong seaweed. In front on the right you can see the plant that the Matoran harvest for air. Some red molten protodermis has made its way all the way from Voya Nui and is flowing over the ledge. The small craft on the left is an early design for a vessel that the Toa would use to descent to Mahri Nui in the hunt for the Mask of Life. Later that craft would be designed and shaped very differently and it would travel inside the hollow cord that held Voya Nui anchored. But more about that in a later post.

The design of Mahri Nui

This was a dream come true to design. I love the underwater setting so getting to create something from scratch was great. The broken off piece that make up Mahri Nui was impaled into the sea bed and the Matoran that were captured down her build a village for themselves. They lived inside bobbles of air which the harvested from the giant seaplants growing down here. Air was their most valuable treasure because it kept them safe and kept them away from the corrosive saltwater and the monsters of the pit.

The Voya Nui icon

The shape of Voya Nui was designed to look evil and mysterious inhospitable. Almost resembling an evil eye. This was the home of the Piraka the infamous smiling villains

The design of Voya Nui

 The Ignition trilogy that kicked off in 2006 was all about getting the Toa on a great quest. This was an adventure that would send the heroes into fantastic unknown location to meet amazing opponents, all in the chase to restart the heart of Mata Nui.

The next 3 years of story would take the heroes from a floating island to the bottom of the sea ending up at the heart of the universe for the final showdown in the air. So all tree environments would come in play ensuring diversity from year to year until 2008.

The floating island of Voya Nui, which actually was the missing piece of the heart, was now in the ocean anchored to the seabed by a chain of molten protodermis. The anchor point was the pit of Mahri Nui that at an early stage broke off and sunk to the bottom capturing a population of Matoran in the deep. The hunt for the mask of life led the heroes to discover the lost Matoran in the deep. So they could be saved and get inside before Mata Nui was revived.

Bionicle Heroes cover concepts

At Advance we did a lot of different cover suggestions for the Bionicle Heroes game and the face off between an Inika and a Piraka was chosen for the final cover but here are two of the other suggestions. 


This cover concept uses a very graphic style with a silhouetted hero seen from the back facing a horde of redeye villains symbolizing the impossible task the Inika are facing.

The other cover concept shows Hahli Inika coming ashore on the very hostile coast of Voya Nui. The rocky coast resembles the face of a Piraka

Bionicle Heroes Logo

Early in 2006 I designed the logo for the Bionicle Heroes game. It had to contain the original Bionicle logo as well as the word Heroes so I chose to use a symmetrical shape and make “Heroes” into a spiky arch that could work as a baseline for Bionicle. At the same time Bionicle was made bright orange to differentiate it from all pervious launches.

The final showdown

This concept poster was done in 2006 trying to envision what the battle in Karda Nui between the Toa and the brotherhood of Makuta would look like. 

At that point I had no idea what the actual product would look like, only that this would be a battle in mid air so here you see a Toa riding some kind of glider. He is being chased by an evil looking craft or creature looking like a blend between an “M” for Makuta and a manta ray. It shoots energy blasts and hits the wing of the Toa craft. The fight takes place just next to the “great fall” the water pouring into Karda Nui and Av-Matoran are watching from the fragile suspension bridges between their villages.