My View and History On Bionicle MOC's

I've never been a majorly skilled MOC builder. My interest for MOC's started off simply, and stayed pretty simple even along the path of building.

 When I first started out in being a fan of Bionicle, I didn't build my own characters till later, when I had more parts to play with. This started around 2009 I believe; I remember having fun with the canon figurines, but after awhile I got tired of someone else's character creation, and decided to make my own. Seeing that I had more parts available after a year, I sat down and created my first MOC..who I think may have been Frona.

As the years went by, my mind seemed to rewire itself, till finally I understood building techniques I didn't think I could even grasp. The step probably seems tiny compared to some of the muscle mass builds of avid MOC artist out there; but for me it was a good enough step to express and create decent characters I could call my own for play time.

 These days I can say that building MOC's is not as large of an option for me; seeing that Bionicle has retired, and the parts are out of production, I find I have an issue on my hands which has prevented me from further pursuing the MOC art form.
       During late 2009 -2010 the plastic quality and structure of the limb pieces on the Bionicle toy sets seemed brittle; and at the time it wasn't an uncommon thing for these parts to crack, even when you were being careful with them. I still have my share of sets which have such damages, and I'm highly cautious when playing with them.
       It was easy in the day just to call the LEGO company and request for replacement parts so your toy would be fixed; and so my worries of the limbs accidentally cracking during building sessions didn't concern me so much, especially because I could get the replacement parts for free.
       Then when Bionicle retired, I knew LEGO would stop producing spare parts; and for someone like me, that's a bad sign, because I can't afford to just buy parts in bulk piles off E-bay as some are more fortunate to do. This in turn put my MOC building to a stalemate; for fear of my already fragile sets, I settled with keeping them the way they are, and only making MOC's out of spare parts still in my grasp, obtained through yard sales and such. This means that my MOC characters haven't been tampered with very much since parts went out of production.
       I may occasionally change out armor pieces for a new look, but I shy away from changing the limbs themselves, unless I'm replacing them with a new one that has no cracks, or I'm building an MOC from the base up with intent to leave it built once it's made.

My true desire, to be honest, is to find a way to make my own toys, my own figurines that will never retire with a story; and I have the assurance that if damage comes to the figure, it can be fixed by my own hands, no worries about parts not being available.

 When it comes to complex MOC builds, I've never really done them, since one I don't have enough parts that match in color (which is a must for me; it drives me crazy if it's not matching);  two I lack the skill to build something extravagant, and prefer to stay with only semi complex builds, and in most cases always felt too much bulk distracts from the values of the character itself. I've always been more interested in the personality of the figure than the build. To me, a structure should match the personality and traits of an MOC, not distract from it, but rather work with it. Which in my case, medium builds do the trick just fine in expressing the characters qualities and personality over their mass.

 Because I lack certain skills and parts to pull off most my MOC's, I've always turned to more crafty methods in order to achieve an interesting look without having to use so many pieces. I turn to cloth, jewelry, and outside accessories not of Bionicle. My mentality is to balance out the bare spots of the set by covering it with cloth and jewelry accents, a way of creating an illusion of more body on a figure, when in reality there's not much beneath. This same concept applies to real fashion, where you balance out your form by wearing certain styles of clothing which cooperate with your shape; the same techniques apply to toys.

The MOC art form is fun; and I still enjoy it, only I don't have it down as my official art form. There are some things I still can't pull off detail wise on an MOC, and therefore turn to drawing and painting to achieve certain designs which just can't be built quite exact.

Also, I feel that MOC's shouldn't be picked at so much...after all, there's only so much you can do with standard Bionicle parts, and not all MOC builders have the oddball parts to do the job. But that doesn't mean they can't create a cool character with what they do have; and with just a little cloth, jewelry, and creative wrapping techniques, any MOC can have a drop of awesome in my eyes, with or without lots of fancy parts and a big build. So come on, be creative, lean for unique and well built as a standing character, big or small. ^.~

There you have it, a peep at my view and history to Bionicle MOC's.