Chroniclers journey - 2022 Bionicle Community tribute poster

This is a Bionicle tribute to the most amazing fan community ever. United I believe that we have the skills and the creativity to take the story further. I’m all in because this is both engine and fuel in one.

We are all Turaga now and who says that a Turaga can't become Toa again. The future story is unwritten and it only becomes what you make it.

As you move through life, legend becomes shapes on the horizon of history and as you realize how small you are on the big scale, you also find that you carry all you need to take the legend further and make it your own. Go be the legend. The future of the biological chronicle is in your hands. Your backpack is full of treasures but dont let it weigh you down. Ahead lie great untold adventures.

Sketches from Turaga Beach - Tribute to the fans

Dear longtime fans of a certain biological chronicle. This video is an attempt to do a Turaga Beach tribute to the real heroes of this story and that is all the fans who joined and build the adventure through all those years. Your imagination and creativity is what it has been about since the beginning. I've used an unreleased version of an old #Cryoshell tune.
I came upon an early mix of "Closer to the truth" and for some reason it fits really nicely. It has a melancholic and fragile tone that is broken up by raw guitar riffs. The text also has some of the good references to the ending of G2 and then there is the alternative ending that has a nice "Kick" to it.

Now everybody is Turaga and it is time to move on from the beach wether you sail out or move inland to find new stories, pause a while, turn your head and look behind you a last time before you leave. You have everything you need in your memories and all the fuel you need in your imagination to go on new adventures. Go, go, go I'll see you on another beach someday.


Link to the memories

Strange sunset on Turaga Beach tonight

http://www.lego.com/da-dk/bionicle/newsboard

no txt version

Name suggestions from the time before time

Straight from the ancient BIONICLE archives here are two name suggestions that were in the final round of brainstorm just before the BIOlogical chroNICLE name was forged.

Turaga beach on "pause" for a really good reason

Dear blogreaders. You may be wondering why the unboxing of the Bionicle legend has taken such a longer break and why you havn’t heard news about the promised giveaway for a long time so now I think I owe you an explanation. 

To put it short, I got a call from Billund. A call that I kind off was hoping would come for many years.

As you may know a new LEGO House is under construction in the center of Billund. 

https://wwwsecure.lego.com/en-us/legohouse

Here the past, present and future of the LEGO brand and brick is going to be in focus and part of the exhibition will be a walkthrough of the LEGO history. 

The phonecall confirmed that Bionicle will have a prominent place in that history since it was the “The toy that saved LEGO” (quote from Jørgen Vig Knudstorp) and suddenly all my Turaga beach crates full of old sketches gets interest. 

In august I will take a meeting with the LEGO heritage department and run through all the early material that went into creating not only Bionicle but everything that came before including the early test concept “Cybots”, Voodoo Heads, Slizer, Roboriders and whatever I have in the crates. 

Nothing is certain about what and how the exhibit will be but this is fantastic news because it means that this material finally will be part of the official history and that it will be accessible for everybody. On the other hand I will have to pause the Turaga beach giveaway because many of the sketches that I planned to give away now probably will be part of a permanent exhibition in the most perfect place imaginable. 

I hope you all agree that this is the best place for this material. It is a homage to all the loyal fans that have been with Bionicle since the early start. Bionicle is part of the rebirth of one of the most fantastic brands in the world and who knows what the future holds:)…

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 023 - Video 1

From "the time before time". This video shows footage of the 1999 concept models called VooDoo Heads. As you probably all know this would later evolve into the Bionicle concept.
https://youtu.be/AjbiNuEv60c

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 022

Much has been said about the size of the giant robot Mata Nui and what you see here is not canon or anything. It is the simple inspiration that I used when creating the outline of the Island back in 1999 and later on in 2007 when we had the task to make the giant robot come alive.

As you may know I use a lot of local inspiration mixed with foreign input to create my work and when it comes to Mata Nui I am quite sure the shape of my home country Denmark has played a vital role in finding the shape. We have a saying here in Denmark that our country looks like a giant head with a dripping nose and a pointy hat. So there you have it. Just turn the face to face upward and put an island on top.

If you blend the shape and size of Denmark with the features of hidden robot face and the yin yang swirling shape of a galaxy then you have the outlines of what created Mata Nui.

Following that line the size of the robot ends up being app. 3150 km.

Canon or not? Now you know the inspiration sources.
Denmark is small and very flat without mountains but almost an island. so I think Mata Nui is my secret dream of what Denmark would look like if it was mixed with Hawaii.

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 021

https://youtu.be/Isuzfov350M

This is an old piece of preview animation made for fun to showcase the size relation between Mata Nui and Earth, given that a Toa was 2,3 meter high. Thak you Ghost for your great sense of humour through all the years of 3D production.

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 018-020

This new exhibit shows some of the internal crew T-shirts I have done through the years. The first one "Water is for wimps" was too expensive and complicated to make because of the full color on black.

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 014-017

The Bohrok launch key visual featured a triumphant Bohrok holding the golden Toa mask.
Tahu is on a ledge overpowered by the Bohrok swarm and a Krana is clutching his face.
Behind the scene the mixed Toa/Krana is symbolising the trouble of the heroes.

Below you see 3 examples of launch ads that both showed a piece of story, the product range and a promotional CD-rom that would be inserted in the canister.

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 012 and 013

Back in 2002 when the Toa went underground we needed a dramatic change of mood and colour so this gloomy green haze was chosen to give a strong contrast to the sand coloured launch campaign. The Bohrok were hibernating in their cocoons under Mata Nui waiting for the right time to go into action and the whole scene had a kind of pharaohs grave feel to it so I made the icon look like it could have been chiselled into the stonewall of the caves. It looked a little like a scarab and could be repeated infinitely like the number of the Bohrok.
And yes, there was another VHS selling in video for internal use and here you see the cover. One of the main reasons why I can't upload these videos is that we don't have the rights for the music and the music plays a crucial roll in setting the mood.

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 011

The Piraka art direction had to be different to anything we had done before to make the change that was needed after 5 years of legend told. So on the way to the final look we went through many stages and tests. Here you se one of the suggestions that I put together to test the limits. This poster tries to depict the bad and unpredictable feel of the laughing Piraka by tangling them together into one big alienlike silhouette monster and adding some film poster oneliners. Bad to the spine.
The pose with the shooter pointing straight up was found to aggressive in the test. We kept the white scratched background but back to the drawingboard. It may have been used on a book later.

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 008-009-010

Ok, get ready for an oldie. This is pre Bionicle back in 1998 when the first ball-joint mounted creatures were about to conquer the world. Slizer/Throwbots were planned to be sold from vending machines and a couple of them actually were constructed for consumer testing. This is the design proposal that I mocked up in an early 3D program (Strata I think:).
Below you can see the full illustrations of the robotic creatures in their environment. To the left the Fire Slizer in the volcanic zone ready to fight the fire monster and to the right the Jungle Slizer taking care of an evil tree.

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 005-006-007

Back in March 2000 we didn't have any finished models for the internal sell-in and business promotion, so the mask of time and a muck up head had to do the work. Apparently it worked. Sometimes it is better to show less. By the way, does anyone still have a VHS player:)?

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 003 and 004

Ok, here you have some really early sketches that were done during a meetings we had with Templar Studios here in Copenhagen. In may 2000 the plans were made for what later became "Mata Nui online game".

Already then we knew that we wanted a web site like nothing else LEGO had ever done and we were very ambitious. We wanted a 1st person feel and I remember we were very inspired by an old classic PC-game called MYST. This game had an mysterious mood and worked as a adventurous puzzle. It had a fantastic 3D environment and a lot of details.

The Toa Nav Gadget was thought to be inside the canister with the Toa and work as the Toa smart device and guide the hero through the adventure. Only a little part of the map would be visible and you would get more and more locations as the site developed and you explored the island. You can see some traces of the idea in the final game but the navigation was done in a more ancient style to fit the islanders.

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 002

Piraka teaser mixed media poster from 2005 using early concept models. Still smiling and bad to the bone. Coming straight at ya!

Turaga Files - Unboxing the Legend - Exhibit 001

I'm currently working on the video unboxing of all the old stuff but while you wait I want to shorten the time by making a digital "unboxing" of the files that is in the deepest folder on my old hard discs.
Don't know how many I will find but here is the first one. An early concept mix drawing from 2006 using a low res photo of a prototype model. Unused, unseen and almost forgotten.

The Turaga Files Teaser

Yesterday I went into the basement under Advance in Copenhagen to recover some of the old stuff and I made this little teaser video to test my new GoPro setup.
Among all kinds of strange stuff I found what I had hoped fore; Products, promos, visuals and the "Black Box" containing all the original sketches that were part of creating the legend. Stay tuned for the unboxing and sorry for the shaky hand/head held camera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhlPAaQWhhU&feature=youtu.be