[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.

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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!