I've been here for a while, and I've been intending to post MOCs ever since I joined up, and never getting things sorted out has been putting a leghold on that. Another thing that's getting in the way is that I'm not entirely pleased with the quality.

I lean close to using stock designs- I'm one of those people without the money to buy an entire wave, let alone duplicates, so for me, parts are scarce. I'm also unemployed due to having just left sixth form and I don't have money to spend on Bricklink- and generally this results in my Toa builds being about a head taller than an Inika.

One of the two female Toa I built has a different core build to everything else I've got (I made my Hahli design as "neutral" as possible because she's a canon character and we can infer from the sets that female Matoran are generally just as muscular and bulky as their male counterparts. Less "official" body designs are generally reserved for OCs), and there were a bunch of reasons for this. First off, she's a corrupted Toa of Psionics, so I wanted her to appear shorter and slimmer than the others because I like the idea that characters with powerful psionic powers are less developed physically. She has a custom torso to give her narrower shoulders, and she's about exactly between the height of an Inika and one of my other Toa. At the same time, I didn't want to make her look under-armoured, so she's still reasonably bulky.

Her actual construction is a carry-over from the days before I decided that keeping female Toa burly was A-okay, and as such her torso has the dreaded nuvaboob. This is something I want to get rid of, but I'm a bit lacking in ideas for how to do so. THe best I've been able to come up with is "Use a Metru torso with the gold Gahlok Kal shield on the chest."

I can't post pics right now, all I can give is some description:

1) She is approximately 22cm/9 inches tall. I can make her shorter, but not taller.

2) Her colour scheme is black and pearl gold. It's worth noting that while I have plenty of black pieces, the only sets with gold I own are Brutaka, Jaller Inika, most of Reidak, Toa Mata Nui, all but the Skrall of the Bonkle stars, all of the 2015 Toa, and Ekimu, no dupes. I also don't want to dismantle Tahu or Ekimu.

3) She has a 2015 head, with the gold Mask of Fire, though I am willing to change it if a different mask or a whole different head fits better on a new torso.

4) She has a waist joint, which is something else I want to keep.

5) If the design necessitates it, I can include trans-light blue.

Basically, does anyone have a female torso design for a build that size, that I can replicate in black and gold, that doesn't use the nuvaboob, and they don't mind sharing?

If you want to avoid the nuvaboob, i'm always a fan of using a piece of Inika shoulder armour for female torso armour. it give a kinda feminine shape, but isn't too over the top. if you have one of those in black, what could work. (it's a shame you don't have one in gold really, but I can understand why you skipped Tarix). alternatively, the gold Bionicle stars armour might work, if you built around it sufficiently.

I like your idea of psionics toa being physically underdeveloped, as it's an idea I've seen repeated across various Bionicle fan works. I love it when each element has its own physique, so IMO you should try to hold on to the short, slim nature of the moc.

The mask of fire would not be my personal choice for any female moc. It looks too big and square jawed IMO, but then I'm not much of a fan of it's design in general. Something like Pohatu's looks a bit more gender neutral.

That's my 2 widgets (Bionicle pun, haha) for now, hope the moc goes well!

Edited September 27, 20159 yr by Timeline15

If you want to avoid the nuvaboob, i'm always a fan of using a piece of Inika shoulder armour for female torso armour. it give a kinda feminine shape, but isn't too over the top. if you have one of those in black, what could work. (it's a shame you don't have one in gold really, but I can understand why you skipped Tarix). alternatively, the gold Bionicle stars armour might work, if you built around it sufficiently.

I like your idea of psionics toa being physically underdeveloped, as it's an idea I've seen repeated across various Bionicle fan works. I love it when each element has its own physique, so IMO you should try to hold on to the short, slim nature of the moc.

The mask of fire would not be my personal choice for any female moc. It looks too big and square jawed IMO, but then I'm not much of a fan of it's design in general. Something like Pohatu's looks a bit more gender neutral.

That's my 2 widgets (Bionicle pun, haha) for now, hope the moc goes well!

Thanks for the advice, the issue is more a case of actually working out how to do it.

As for the mask, I tried the Mask of Stone, but the eyes were too small and it made her neck look too long. However, when compared to the G1 masks, the Mask of Fire, looks a lot smaller and the chin doesn't look anywhere near as wide.

Edited September 28, 20159 yr by Lord-Vorahk

This is definitely a long shot, but do you have the original Hau in black? I think the Hau could look good for female MOCs.

The Inika shoulder armour shouldn't be too hard to implement because it has connection points on both axes, but it's hard to know for your MOC because we don't have pictures. You could also try using the 2015 piston add-on in gold.

The waist joint could easily reduce stability, so you might want to reinforce it with flex axles, Mahri tubes, a friction extender or something else if it bothers you.

If you need or want to redo the torso, here are three narrow and stable shoulder techniques. The third one uses "4L axle with stud" but the stud itself has been cut off.

As for the mask, I tried the Mask of Stone, but the eyes were too small and it made her neck look too long.

It's a shame because the Mask of Stone is the only remotely feminine 2015 Toa mask (no, I don't consider the Mask of Water feminine at all :P).

This is definitely a long shot, but do you have the original Hau in black? I think the Hau could look good for female MOCs.

I think Hau is a bit too angry-looking for a female MOC... I'm not saying that women can't be angry but you get the idea.

Thanks for the feedback. I really need to get those pics so you can see what she's like at the moment.

One thing that I need to stress is that, while offering suggestions is cool, I was more asking for guidelines on how to actually build a suitable torso, since, as I mentioned, I'm not very good at building things.

I found it easier to build custom torsos when I saw Voxovan's awesome MOCs and realised that I didn't need to make a 'pure' technic frame that imitates the inika torso. I generally build by starting with the 'skeleton' where I get the connection points for the legs, arms and head in place, and then I fill in the rest of the build and improve it over the next few months. Alternatively, you could start with a central piece or idea and use it as the starting point for the torso, like how Kiina uses a Vahki leg piece. It's much easier to build when you know how the MOC should look, so it might help to roughly plan the general body shape and know what details and designs (e.g. chest) you want to include first.

How you want the body shaped is obviously up to you, so you could go for something looking like a slimmer version official design, or something more proportionally human i.e. more noticeably female. Dangerously anorexic MOCs tend to not look appealing though.

I tend to use a lot of G1 'hand pieces' as they have a lot of connection points and you can slot a technic axle or pin through the socket holes, even if it slightly damages the piece. System bars are very useful for getting more angles, so this could help to get the shaping right.

I found it easier to build custom torsos when I saw Voxovan's awesome MOCs and realised that I didn't need to make a 'pure' technic frame that imitates the inika torso.

Th-Thank you <:L

Thank you all for the advice and ideas. There's a lot of stuff I want to do, but... well, I can't actually figure it all out.

This is why I do stock most of the time, because I'm really bad at compact builds.

I suggest combining standard CCBS torsos to start with. For larger MOCs, building a sort of combined skin and skeleton structure using CCBS bones can work quite well, but when it comes to the standard sizes used for most custom Toa, I think you could make something that works using a few XT4 torsos and double ballcup bones. To get a more typically feminine look, a slight backwards arch in the upper part of the torso is helpful, such that the upper 2/7 of the torso curves back towards the head, while the 3/7 under that curves towards the hips. Replicating this on the back of the torso can also help, and this whole look is quite easy to do with the aforementioned parts and some G1 hands+these for the hips.

Alright, good news, I can probably get pics up of the MOC in her current state tomorrow.

*EDIT* So it turns out my Dad's camera is an overcomplicated thing that half-turns itself off and my Dad is about as helpful as a chocolate teapot because he's one of these "LEGO is just for kids" clods.

Edited October 4, 20159 yr by Lord-Vorahk