How I came to like Bionicle
One evening when I was a young 13 year old, I sat on my bed, gazing off into oblivion (in other words, zoning out) and during this time my eyes drifted over a thin booklet sticking out from a pile in the corner of my room. Suddenly, my curiosity got the best of me, and I went over to open this golden covered comic book, which displayed a robotic being on the front, and had a title in bold letters that shouted, BIONICLE. In my embarrassment, I opened the book and began to read. The more I read, the deeper my interest became, soon leading to a secret interest in the Bionicle story line and toys.
Why was I embarrassed? Lets just say when I was younger, I wanted to be like my siblings, and fit in. Well at the time, my brother felt Bionicle were stupid, and in my derpishness, I went along with his opinion, rather than making my own. Later down the road I had regrets for something that happened before I really started getting into Bionicle; my mom didn’t know I secretly liked the books, and told me to get rid of any I didn’t want, since they were taking up space in my room. At the time, I didn’t realize how much I liked them, because I never bothered opening them and reading them. I’m still kicking myself to this day for not standing up and stating my secret liking to the Bionicle comic books at the time. But the one that survived during that time, and through the months that followed, was the one that I saved because it’s gold cover; that one being BIONICLE “A Hero Will be Revealed” special edition gold cover with Takanuva on the front. (see above)
It’s that one comic book that started my strong interest for Bionicle. I still kept my interest secret for a very long time, swiping any Bionicle comic that came in the mail, and hiding them between the sleeves of my American Girl Doll magazines. Whenever my mom came in, she saw the American Girl magazine, but I was actually reading the Bionicle comics behind my sneaky cover.
Upon reading “A Hero Will be Revealed”, my mind was already cranking it’s creative gears, and I was making up my own ideas. Every time I opened that one book, I became more and more attached. Finally, one day I couldn’t take it anymore, I loved the stories and the toys, and there happened to be Toa Mahri toys being sold at the Big Lots down the road. I had some birthday money at the time, and waited for the right chance to spill the beans to my mom. During a late afternoon when none of my siblings were around, I came up to Mom, chat for awhile, then revealed my secret. She took it fine, was curious to know why I liked them, and wasn’t quite sure why I wanted them so badly. She agreed to let me get them, but was skeptical on how long I’d play with them before getting bored. I assured her I’d play with them, and my words have stayed very true to this day.
My very first Bionicle figurines were three Toa Mahri; Matoro, Hahli, and Jaller. After getting my hands on these three, and building them, I was completely amused by their wide range of articulation. I loved them so much, that I couldn’t put them down all evening.
Matoro became my favorite out of the three, mostly because he had such interesting eye shapes on his mask.
In a short amount of time I started dreaming of how the Toa would be for real, and what their universe would be like; and being that I enjoy inventing my own stories, I thought about how I could include myself to their fascinating universe. This lead to the beginning days of my icon character, Pearllight.
As time went on, and the years past, my Bionicle collection increased, and my character Pearllight became more complex; both in character build, and design.
I met a few friends along the way, ones who either already liked Bionicle, or ones that I somehow managed to suck into liking them.
Honestly, my character Pearllight really started becoming more complex when I started hanging out with Duncan, AKA, VulpesToa. During those days Pearllight’s main color scheme of blue, gold, and white really started to form, and my character was always bubbly in personality.
Later on VulpesToa wrote his own role play series, inspired from our play, and called it Tales of Valor. Curious to know about it, here is the link to his story line on DA. ( http://vulpestoa.deviantart.com/gallery/35791690 )
After about a year of hanging out with Duncan, I met one more person who had no idea what Bionicle was, but she was hooked after we started hanging out with each other.
This friend was the one person who brought out the best of me; she kept me inspired, and kept me enthusiastic in art making, which led to many pictures, ideas, and complex twists in my story telling. Being with her, and playing with the Bionicle, led to the largest, most enjoyable, complex, interesting, and overall magical fan made role play series I eventually named Life of Lewa , a story line I have yet to share bits and pieces of; but unfortunately can’t remember the majority of it, due to not recording it so long ago while it was being played, and having way too many episodes to count, or remember for that matter.
The Life of Lewa series is where the majority of my Bionicle themed pictures originate from, but I also have inspired pieces from the day of VulpesToa as well.
These days I still love Bionicle, and am trying to gain back my story telling ability, and even my drawing mood. My artistic side has sort of been dormant due to certain circumstances that have happened over the years, but I’ve been fighting to bring it back out, and enthusiastically create like I use to. I guess you could say that inner urge to create is battling an overly stubborn apathetic side; which could be why I made the Pearllight sketch, (see below) expressing my determination to keep going, even if it doesn’t seem worthwhile.
I may write more journal entries in the near future, we shall see; but until then, have fun in art making, and imagining.
For better detail and explanation on Pearllight and the history behind this article, please click here http://bionicfuzion.blogspot.com/2011/09/origin-of-pearllight.html
