[Lego] Black light - 70794 + 70795 Combination Model

The combination model for two Bionicle Summer 2015 sets, the #70794 Skull Scorpio and the #70795 Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder under UV Black light.

At the moment of this blogpost, this combination model doesn't go by an unique name unlike most previous Bionicle combinations (in example, Takutanuva,  Ultimate Dume, Voporak, Vezon & Kardas). This seems to be common for the new series of Bionicle sets, together with the fact that none of these have appeared in the story (unlike those older examples above).

However, the LEGO® Shop at Home refers it as a "Powered-up Skull Grinder" in the product description. Makes sense, because in the character biography of Kulta (the Skull Grinder), he equips the Mask of Creation and beats the Toa without any issues. Although the character biography doesn't show him growing in size when he equips the mask (similar to most Bionicle characters in the original story), it would make sense that a Mask of Creation would suffice the possibility of creating power.

When looking at the initial images before building it, the model itself looks to be sized similar to the original Warriors subthemes of Bionicle - a favoured line of larger (and sometimes exclusive) Bionicle characters than the regular Toa-sized sets. I know that not all of the Warriors are huge compared to regular Toa, in some cases they were on the same height, in example Lesovikk, Takanuva and Toa Ignika - but came with their plot-related vehicles to justify a respectable set size.

More information (size comparison with the new Tahu, spare parts and quite some subjective evaluation) below the jump break!

[EMS] So I just found this out earlier today...

Back before Big Bang update hit, doing Crimsonwood Keep Party Quest (CWKPQ) was still popular in EMS before the PQ tended to be broken a few years later. In example, Sigil puzzles (a puzzle feature that requires a certain class skill to be used to complete it) wouldn't activate because a lot of Skill IDs that complete them have changed or have been removed - making it impossible to complete certain stages that heavily relied on Sigils. Yes I'm aware of the revamped CWKPQ that has hit GMS recently and has fixed the Sigils, however keep in mind that our CWKPQ is different as for rewards, even compared to the one from MSEA.

At the Boss stage, every Grandmaster would drop a Mark of Naricain (also known as MoN in the Maple glossary).

Our original Mark of Naricain were Untradeable, not limited to One-of-a-kind (currently known as "Original" items) - creating the possibility to have multiple ones of them. Back then, not particularly broken but just a form of luxury, because Second Pendant slot had yet to be released even in KMS. I'm aware of the Required Level of this equip has reduced from 100 to 96 at a certain point.

This Mark of Naricain used to have only 3 slots. This means that it could be scrolled with (Miracle) Positive Chaos Scrolls (also known as Chaos Scrolls of Goodness) and that it can be applied to Potential, Additional Potential and Enhancements. Because it can have all of these useful upgrades, Mark of Naricain is still considered in EMS a valid option to use if you don't run Gollux/Alien Visitor/Dominator/Darkness or (Chaos) Horntail Pendants. The main issue would be obtaining one though...

The MSEA one that got introduced had 4 slots, but it is (or currently was?) an One-of-a-kind item upon release. This hinders users from having two in their inventory at the same time.

However, after the Big Bang update hit EMS, the drops from the CWKPQ bosses have changed. The 3 slotted Mark of Naricains stopped dropping and have been replaced by the MSEA ones (4-slotted).

Technically speaking, an upgrade for most because of the extra slot, but perhaps an issue if you want to run two of them at the same time, similar to (Chaos) Horntail Pendants, Darkness Rings, etc. You would require the one before the Big Bang hit and one after. Running two MoNs would mean you would end up with at least one with 3 slots and one with 4 slots (in case you don't run two before-Big-Bang-MoNs but one before and one after).

Having recently obtained an Innocence Scroll that would expire in a few days, and not having that many equips left to reset, I knew that I screwed over the scrolling of my original Mark of Naricain so I used that Innocence Scroll on it. However, the interesting thing is, that the 3-slotted pendant has received a bit of an upgrade: it can now have 4 slots.

If this information is for huge (gamebreaking) importance? That's up to you to decide. I thought perhaps this would be interesting to share, who knows who still build with Mark of Naricains nowadays?

That's it for today. I'll see you guys again next post!

[Lego] Black light - 70794 Skull Scorpio & 70795 Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder

On the left: Ekimu the Mask Maker. On the right: Kulta the Skull Grinder.

Set #70795 Mask Maker vs. Skull Grinder, under UV Black light.
This is one of the larger (rebooted-universe) Bionicle sets to date. It consists of two characters, Ekimu the Mask Maker himself, fighting for the Mask of Creation against Kulta the Skull Grinder, leader of the Skull Creatures.

From the entire set, only Ekimu's brain stock and Kulta's main transparent accent colour glows under Black light. Unfortunately, Ekimu's main transparent accent colour is Transparent Light Blue, a frequent colour to be used for transparent blue parts since 1985 (which is the second oldest trans. blue in LEGO®'s colour palette) - it sure looks nice on his design, but isn't affected by Black light at all. Which is a shame because Ekimu's design, with the use of transparent parts, is great in my opinion. Ah well, back to appreciation during day time it is.

One of the few more "common" blue colours that is affected by Black light, is Transparent Medium Blue - which is still rare to see being used in large quantities or in CCBS models. I might want to rebuild my #8732 Matoro, just to see how it looks under UV... (yes, I am aware of #8916 Takadox, and I might search for one in the future)

Kulta is more of the main focus when using Black light, which uses the infamous Transparent Neon Orange. I'm glad to see this colour is being used more frequently, consider I was afraid it would slowly fade away after the introduction of Mars Mission. I didn't really fear about it when it was released with Clikits and being used for the Deep Freeze Alpha Team sets, but after Mars Mission the amount of Transparent Orange felt increasing (to me, subjectively). I have no problems with Transparent Orange, but the less bright(er) neon tone to it on smaller pieces makes it feel less exiting to myself. Both my inner child and young adult being.

As mentioned before on this blog, some of the (CCBS) parts make clever use of wall thickness to give it more glow on a few points. Especially the new rib cage piece, which is used several times this year (including most Bionicle Skull Creatures and the CCBS General Grievous), has quite some reinforcement and various wall thicknesses to it.

On the left, Pohatu with the infected Mask of Stone equipped from the Skull Scorpio set.
On the right, the Skull Scorpio itself.

Set #70794 Skull Scorpio, under UV Black light.
A design that most Adult Fans of LEGO® seem to hate, because of the various different colours that is being used or its shape. Its design seemed to be (heavily?) based on the Nui-Jaga from the original Bionicle wave, using the new "mask grabbing feature" on its tail, which is also a reference to what the Nui-Jaga could do as a toy (they would knock the masks off with a similar motion in ther tail, instead of grabbing - this is because the original Bionicle masks weren't that well secured on the figures, because most Rahi would have a corresponding play feature to knock them off).

As a toy, I think that the model is very sturdy (a wise decision to make the legs fixed, trust me on that) and the grabbing feature is well designed (as you might know, I love play features in sets, but also I love to design them as well). While most people would not like the colour scheme, I actually think it was a clever one to use. Not just for the combination model for with the Skull Grinder model (Yes, I know about it! I have both sets! We'll get back to that later this post ok?), but the use of colours as indications themselves. The body colour scheme is mainly Trans. Neon Green (which is, biased, my favorite LEGO® colour by the way), but the Mask-related-features are using Trans Neon Orange. So the claws up front to grab masks have the Trans. Neon Orange colour - only the movable pincers of it use that colour. The gray pincer is fixated. The brain stock of the figure is also Trans. Neon Orange (brain stocks can be pushed on the back to knock off the mask) and the large blades on its tail (which are the blades that enable the "mask grabbing feature" quite effectively) have some Bohrok eye pieces to help indicate the direction where these are heading to.

I really like the infected Mask of Stone. First of all I'm glad that LEGO® decided to bring back that feature from the original Bionicle line. Second of all, although I do like the solid coloured style of infected masks from the original line (in example, I have the Limited Edition of Ultimate Dume which includes Set #8612 with the infected Kiril mask), I can't deny I like these new combinations of transparent colour with a solid colour more! They feel more qualitative to me, presumably because I know how it's manufactured in the mould and that it uses two different plastic types instead of only ABS... But my inner child prefers the new combination because it looks cooler to have a mask being half transparent.

=================================

OK, back to the combination model. Yes I do have both the Skull Scorpio and Skull Grinder sets. I was aware of it before I purchased it. Of course I want to build the combination model. However, consider the instructions of the combination model are currently not available as of now, I can't build it yet. I know some people have reversed engineered the pictures, I know I can as well, but I prefer to follow the instructions instead of making a proper guess.

That said, you have to bear with me and wait until they'll be available online.
The instructions have been published recently. You can see the combination model under Black light here.

That's it for this post! I'll see you guys next time!

[EMS] Level 209!

Yay!

[YT] Third 300.000 viewed video!

Hi guys! Recently the Kirby's Return to Dreamland - All Mini/Main/EX Bosses has reached 300.000 views. This makes our third video to have reached 300.000 views.

Presumably this video will become our second most viewed video to date in a short while, consider the growth of it is four times the size of Donkey Kong 64 - All main bosses and both are near to the exact amount of views.

That's it for today. I'll see you guys again next post!

[YT] 7 Years of Rayque3 Staff!

Whoohoo! Today is our seventh anniversary of the Rayque3 Staff!

To this date...

- We have created 416 videos in total.
- We have reached almost 7200 subscribers.
- We have accumulated 6,8 million views in total.
- We have finished four complete 100% walkthroughs, with soon our fifth to be completed.
- We have 7 videos over 100.000 views.
- We have 8 videos that are longer than an hour .
(whereas four are almost at or longer than 3 hours each)
- Our longest published video is 5 hours, 53 minutes and 9 seconds long.
- Our shortest published video was 7 seconds long.
- We have accumulated almost 9300 likes.

But wait, there's more!

- 35% of our viewers are female.
- Most views come from the United States, followed by Japan, United Kingdom, Canada and Brazil in that particular order.
- 94% of our views are on the Youtube homepage through a personal computer, 3,8% of them are from mobile devices and 1,5% watches our videos through external websites.

We're still working on our next Single-Part-Video. We currently struggle with the render of this video for the past few weeks; we won't give up so soon yet! It's just a matter of trial and error to find out what is going wrong. There's a good reason why the render has crashed multiple times before... it's almost three times the length of our current longest video we have published so far.

Keep an eye on that, we're not giving up the months of preparation for this one particular video!

Thank you for all the amazing support - today is another milestone in the Rayque3 history!
More is always on the way, so stay tuned!

Rayque & Luxatus Patella

[YT] 7000 Subs - Second 300.000 viewed video - Seventh 100.000 viewed video!

Hi guys! Three major Rayque3 milestones in the past two weeks: 7000 subscribers, our second 300.000 viewed video and our seventh 100.000 viewed video!

We've gained a thousand subscribers in just three months, which is incredible for our standards! Our subscriber growth has been increasing a lot in the past few years...

Our second 300.000 viewed video is the Donkey Kong 64 - All main bosses video. In a few weeks however, Kirby's Return to Dreamland - All Mini/Main/EX Bosses will be the third...

Last but not least, the Kirby 64 The Crystal Shards - All main bosses video has finally reached his well-earned 100.000 viewed title. Interestingly, this video has started with a significant growth in the first two years - its growth decreased a lot over time until it took a few months to gain that last 10.000 views.

What about the eighth 100.000 viewed video? So far there isn't really a video to name to reach it soon. Unless some certain video will skyrocket soon. If that particular one is based on Pokémon, Lux will throw a cake in my face (see bottom paragraph). If not, it will probably be our next Single-Part-Video that will be...

That's it for now. I'll see you guys again next post!