Love this design of Nuparu. I remember getting him on my b-day as a kid, and being slightly disappointed since some of the other Toa Mahri designs were more popping and cool from a typical kid standpoint. But then I assembled him and appreciated how unique his armor and weapon design is compared to other Toa. To this day I think of him as the most tasteful and stylish bionicle. If he was a human, I feel like he would always be wearing a suit and a silver watch. 🔥💀

Bro just created my whole childhood.

Knowing that yall had almost no pre-written info and each person did a different figure just makes the combined Mahri team even more spectacular.

Who would've thought that this set being a hand-me-down present from a Christmas party when I was 5 introduced me not only to the world of Bionicle, but the internet where I discovered KZfaq and it all comes full circle back to this.

This is my favourite bionicle by far. Still got him on my shelf! I have never seen art like this on a whiteboard, that is crazy to me

It’s awesome that even though you didn’t know it would be Nuparu, one of your concepts was a small guy in a mech suit, which is what Nuparu started as.

It’s one of the most interesting series I’ve seen on youtube, this unique whiteboard artstyle combined with exclusive behind the scenes of bionicle, truly a gem. Good luck with your art man!

The mini submersible canister would’ve been so cool. Again love seeing the creative process behind these sets!

Nuparu was one of my earliest Bionicles so I am pretty nostalgic for him. Even though his body is a tad underwhelming, it lets him balance out some of the other body designs of the Mahri team (in general, the six of them look really good when placed alongside each other). Nuparu's unique armor piece is used excellently in the winner of the recent Toa Nidhiki fanon contest, where Luhan used two of them on his Nidhiki's shoulders, but flipped around so that the axle hole points up and the wide plane of the armor pieces face the front, with trans neon green Bohrok eyes behind the slats in the armor. Also, Nuparu was one of the last Bionicle sets to have 2-axles in black instead of red, which really helped the stealthy look of the set and kept the color scheme cohesive. I'm also a fan of the rebreather setup on his back; only he and Kongu had something like that. I do wish Nuparu's character as an inventor came through in this set, as it did a little with his Inika version having the shoulder mounted Zamor sphere launcher. And sadly, the Mahri had the worst canister design of Bionicle's run. They were annoying to open, and you didn't have a canister you could really use again, just a plastic frame. I think if you had hit upon that propulsion vehicle design earlier and refined that to be more cost effective then the Mahri could've gotten one of the best canister designs instead. However your description of events is weighted based on the different designs you did and not weighted by time so I could be wrong about timing making the difference.

Such a badass looking character so awesome to hear all the thought put into each piece - please continue making these! I’d love for you to do a whole retrospective of Bionicle 2001-2008

The idea of the lid turning into an aquatic vehicle was genius and it would have added SO MUCH more play value to the entire Mahri line! Thank you so much for this series!

It's fascinating just how ambitious some of these were, on both the figure itself and the packaging. Interesting sidenote that I'm not sure if you'd be aware of: the concept of a character with a launcher mounted in their chest eventually made it into 70781 Protector of Earth (or Korgot as she was known in-story) from the 2015 bionicle reboot.

Extremely cool to see all these insights into the Mahri/Barraki. I always thought they were some of the coolest bionicles of the whole line.

I never thought we would have a masterclass on Lego design. Thank you for uploading this.

I always wondered how the original Aqua Blaster Blade looked like, but I never thought that the shield was that blade, but the function you just explained describes it pretty much. Thank you so much for clarifying that one!

The idea of having blaster inside the body sounds so cool. It would definitely help Nuparu look less bland, since he does share same torso as his previous version. I'm not calling him a badly designed figure, but out of all Mahri, you can tell with him the most that budget was tight. I've always saw tanks on the back as protodermis infused water filters, or something like that, since in cannon Mahri were completely aquatic. And damn, as much as I like current packaging, water scooter sounds way more fun. Current one feels more like fortified position that Toa can fall back to, but something that could actually move would be so awesome. Often I really wonder how some sets would look like if budget was even a little bit bigger than it was. The amount of creativity with some of those designs was astounding. And I definitely would love to see Toa with waist or spine articulation. Mahri were perfect moment for that to happen since in lore they weren't meant to look like unified team with more or less similar looks. As for shield, as a kid I did kinda see it as sword-shield hybrid weapon. Now I can't really say why, but when I was younger, I thought it was meant to have sharp edges and spin around its circular centre, and his arms were perfect to make thrusting motions with it.

I was so angry at the time that I entirely missed out on this line of Bionicle.

its really interesting to see into the development of bionicle which isn't often talked about

It's so cool to get more insight into how these sets were made. It sounds like the design team worked on their own figures pretty independently. Is that true, or was there a degree of collaboration involved on these canister sets?

This is such a rare and fascinating insight into the development and concept process! Since LEGO never really advertised the designers of BIONICLE figures this is making me revisit Pridak and Nuparu in a new light, especially if they were intended to be paired off against each other. I always loved the scuba motif of Nuparu in particular (really accented with the flipper feet and specialized armor elements). It's also interesting to see Nuparu's shield was intended to have a blast effect and that it would have been asymmetrical! I wonder if this shield concept would have influenced Mata Nui's shield design two years later? In the same way that Pridak and Nuparu were intended to play off of each other's design elements (something that hasn't really been discussed since they didn't share any moments together in the story), were there any other notable Barraki/Mahri pairings at the design stage? Thank you so much for sharing this series and for your role in shaping the BIONICLE world! These videos on your BIONICLE concepts have really electrified the fanbase over the past week and I've seen a good number of folk promoting these videos.

As someone who was a fan of bionicle from the very beginning, I just wanted to say thank you and the entire team for defining my and so many others childhoods. Even though they're just toys, your work made the world we grew up in a better place. You're all incredible

Honestly, the shield/blades and breathing apparatus commentary were super helpful and informative. I think these things became something of a meme in the Bionicle fandom just due to how the original ideas behind these elements were never really explained in-canon or via the product descriptions. I love the ideas behind them, so it makes me a touch sad none of us knew about either as kids or even as fans. We all joked about the gaps in Nuparu’s shield, not realizing it wasn’t even intended to be a shield in the first place. >3> Also, damn shame about the aqua vehicle canister idea. I get the feeling if it were any other earlier year, the idea would pass pretty easily, but the budget seemed a bit tight in ‘07 unfortunately. I think it’s a fantastic idea and really highlights the strengths of some of the best canisters of Bionicle: they have a direct play element that can be used with the figure. Throw in some story justification if you can and you have a solid piece of kit right there, which is impressive for something that is ostensively product packaging.

The toa mahri were my absolute favorite line of bionicles you guys totally nailed the underwater hunter cyborg look i just wish those khordak blasters shot continuesly and farther Also wish kongu was taller also those armor pieces you designed are one of my go to for building mocs they look good anywhere

I like the usage of tools for the art. Such a shame that some of the concepts for the canister didnt end up in final draft. Would love to see the vehicle idea in the set.

I truly appreciate how you fought for making the containers meaningful. It adds more than the bigwigs realize. The original Toa and original Bohrok felt complete. The Rahkshi as well. It gave us a piece of the world around the figures. It felt bigger and more real.

All those missed opportunities makes me sad to hear... But budget constraints are what they are. I really like the way you always tried to do something very different than what was seen before, the basic system of building these Toa kinda got a bit boring later on and some variety especially with the articulation or just the general silloute would have really been appreciated! That diving suit prototype kinda reminds me of the EXO-Toa suit from the 02 line, really makes me wish you got to design one of those bigger, titan sets. Felt like you could have done great, unique things with that budget. Though I'm curious, what did you think of the previous Nuparu design from 06 when you first saw it? I know it wasn't part of your design process for this one but I think it would interesting to know your thoughts on it. Sorry for the long read, these video are wonderfully produced and I'm so happy to see the design process behind this series!

Nuparu Mahri was always my favorite Toa for the year of 2007. And yes, I also did perceive the weapon as a shield. Still, what an absolutely great lookback into concepts for what could've the most badass torso design for a "good guy figure" in the entire series. Amazing video as always! (:

Thanks for once again delivering such honest insight into the development process. It's fascinating to see things as fans we're used to seeing in a "final" state, but from perspective they were developed with: be it the lack of preconceived notions, or how much was influenced by budgetary, logistical, and bureaucratic constraints on top of the creativity and inspirations of the designer. The difference in designer concepts, the final set, and the interpretation/reception of it is mind boggling. It's an entirely different lens to view these sets in, knowing even a sliver about how they were built now. Hard to look at any of these in the same way again, which is very inspirational

I didn't know I needed all those canister prototypes and concepts in my life. It's just so interesting how the process can evolve for many different reasons Thanks for sharing these insights once again! Now, I'm wondering which set you're keeping a secret for next week...

BIG SHIELD

Happy Revenge of the Sixth. Many thanks, for giving us a look behind the whole design process. Out of the alternative canisters, the scuba vehicle would be my pick, as its size and axle and pin holes would lend itself for further expansion to a full fledged sub without being to restrictive, plus i figure one could build some nice gates, window frames, castle battlemnts... or an epic villain throne; broadening the parts inventory for bionicle architecture.

He was my favorite at that time!!! Thank you for this awesome behind story!

I've enjoyed these videos so much, thanks for sharing them, Mr. Ellis. I wager the next episode will feature a Titan set; it would be awesome if it turned out to be Karzahni.

The BIONICLE packaging is easily the best toy package ever. I love how every year the canister was always different. It was awesome just seeing them on the shelves and dreaming about taking them all home.

Nuparu was my very first Bionicle set! I've been a fan ever since I very first laid eyes upon Nuparu. I still have him, and he stands on a desk next to me holding his sword and shield. Thank you so much! The sword idea made it into the story in the books and as such the 'shield' was described as a sword, and was named the "Aqua Blaster Blade." Eventually, a competition was held where fans sent in designs for the version of this blade that appears in the story, and a winner was picked. It's a massive double-bladed sword, and if you want to, you can connect the Kordak Blaster to it. What was now described as a shield was given the long-winded name: "Razor-Edged Protosteel Shield"

Nuparu is perhaps one of my favorite of the Inika/Mahri line - he just always had such a stoic look with an otherwordly vibe that mixed familiar with robotic. The Inika with the mohawk and gun but clear mechanical parts, and Nuparu with his shield and scuba gear and almost flipper like feet. Thanks for designing such a cool character! Two questions (1) did you take part in designing his Inika form, and (2) was there any inspiration taken from the previously nonsymmetrical shield for the later Mata Nui figure (the drawings reminded me of his shield quite a bit)

Nuparu is by far my favourite Bionicle, these masterpieces depicting him and the behind the scenes commentary really made my day! :>

Nuparu Toa of BADASS SKULL

My ffavorite of the mahri sets❤

These amazing sketches

I love this--thank you so much for sharing this retrospective, Brian. The tank is a really neat touch, I wish that hadd gotten addressed in the story. It fits Nuparu's role as an inventor so well.

Always loved the Toa Mahri, and Nuparu was always our favorite (mostly due to our love for the black colored sets and the toa of earth before him).

I've been fan of Bionicle since the year 2001. It is so cool to find new things to learn about my favorite franchise after these decades. Enjoyed the hell out of your Pridak video too. Shame that these cooler packages for Toa Mahri were never made into final product. Was never fan of the fortress package. I liked how Nuparu's mask was inspired by the Combine forces from Half-Life.

For what it's worth, I think you made the single best Mahri set; the pieces you ended up having to use due to budget restraints coupled with the distinctive mask and sword/shield really give it the most aesthetically cohesive look among the bunch. Fantastic watch!

IT IS A BLADE ????? HOLY SHIT, my mind just got blown

I'm glad it turned into a shield though because it was such a useful and desirable part for MOC builders to use for both armor and weapons. It also helped massively in making each of the Toa Mahri stand out and avoid the sort of clone-ness that Bionicle had been criticized about for many years.

Nuparu was one of the few Bionicle I actually owned as a kid, and I always thought his design was awesome even though you apparently were limited by the budget. I didn't even know any Bionicle lore back then, I was just happy to have a cool looking black robot with a six-barreled gatling gun to play with.

I really loved how you designed Nuparu back then 😊

I remember getting this set as a kid. I always thought that the shield design was unique for what it was. So often you see the classic round or tower designs whereas what you ended up with for Nuparu looked really cool and felt like it could be both a weapon and a source of protection. It certainly helps that the original intent was for it to be a double-bladed weapon which, after you said it, I was like "that makes so much sense!"

He turned out awesome in the end the neon green parts on the back was a great touch

Nuparu was easily my fav of the Toa Mahri as a kid. I almost always wear all black, so I naturally gravitated towards him. The silver elements added a beautiful contrast, and I loved the blue piece (for a pop of color) behind the mask. Thank you so much for the background on this set. Man I wish I still had him

Nice video, and your art is really cool! I never got this set unfortunately, but this was my favorite Bionicle wave.

Again, thanks for working in the team, thought is not one of the coolest Toa set, I still have it for my 100% collection sets. The shield on the other hand is my top best Bionicle piece of all time.

McDonalds toy of Nuparu Mahri captivated me endlessly

Nuparu has a great backstory. this design definitely gives him the engineer look as well as a warrior. the shield design especially is pretty sick

I've got Jaller from this series, LEGO and Bionicle made my childhood ❤❤💛💛🖤🖤

Nuparu was always my favorite character because of a lot of these design choices. I loved seeing the ring torso prototype and the canister design with the vehicle component. It also makes sense now why in some of the stories Nuparu is said to have an “aqua blaster blade”

Just getting the insight of the creative process when designing a product is fascinating. I want to know and see more. Not just Bionicle.

This dude was by far my favorite bionicle design ever, but i remember this being the line that killed it for me, all the thigh/upper arms snapped so often

Ahh! Knowing how expensive the cordak was really highlight which sets obviously got hit harder. Hewkii's missing hand and Matoro having a shorter arm comes to mind. But then it makes me appreciate Jaller more for having a whole side build or Hali's wings.

This is probably my favorite bionicle. Gives off navy seal commando vibes

Your ideas for the packaging are really inspired, I get why the broken logo wouldn't fly with marketing but this prototype 12:39 looks so cool with the iconic logo crumbling apart and the canister bursting open, it reminds me of something you'd see on a comic book. Bionicle was a truly special line, I have so much nostalgia for seeing rows of sets in the toy aisle and getting overwhelmed with how much variety there was, it would take me forever to decide which figure to get.

Being both a Marvel Fan and a Bionicle Fan Nuparu Inika/ Mahri also kinda reminds me of James Rhodes War Machine from the Marvel Comics

Nuparu was my first Bionicle growing up and I can't even begin to say how happy I am to finally see the man responsible for it. I'm sad to hear you couldn't implement everything you wanted in this set due to budget constraints (especially since the Cordak blaster for the most part hardly ever worked properly on my end). However, despite all that you've given me and a lot of others a really cool toy to play with. (Pridak too, he was my first barraki, I would've never guessed it was designed by the same person, what a coincidence 😂) Thanks for everything man.

I have both Nuparu and Pridak on my shelf. I think 2007 had some coolest Bionicles ever. I certainly had fun with that canister base. Back in the day, there were cool MOCs with wheels added to it, so the thing became a funny car. It still was a cool piece!

The creativity behind the design ideas and packaging is off the charts. Thank you for sharing!

Nuparu is best boy and bionicle taught me how to read, thank you for designing that titanic nerd

That propulsion vehicle design for the canister is so much cooler than the final design, doesn't look like it'd cost more either given it was just for the lid, who knows why it was scrapped, but it's certainly a shame

Thankyou so much dude

A friend of mine recently got me into bionicles thanks to the game bionicle heros and in the game Nuparu was always my favorite character in it due to him being able to fire energy blasts from his hands. Then finding out later he has the ability to fly made me instantly reminded of Golurk from the Pokémon series and the Iron Giant. I’m a huge fan of Nuparu and I was really excited to see you video discussing the development of him.

This guy was my first Bionicle set (i got in a bit late, I know.) I love the design and its relative simplicity making him stand out, and all the thought that went into the design. I will say, explains a lot to learn the designers went ahead of the writers in the production process.

The most surprising thing to me was the packaging prototypes. I already thought the ones we got were cool and creative, but the concept stuff is display shelf worthy on it's own.

Nuparu... Such a great matoran.

THANK you! So it seems that the designer team had proper exclusive recolors that we as buyers never got. It's first time I ever see keetorange Inika shoulder armour, abd it's NOT painted.

12:54 That prototype Matoro looks badass

I also saw the weapon as a shield, but I always imagined it having some sort of an energy barrier that covered the middle gaps, which blocked incomming projectiles but let the ones comming from the inside through. So Nuparu could line up the cordak and shoot through the middle, while still being completely in cover.

This is a good watch! It sucks they couldn't go with the more unique/cooler concepts, but the Toa Mahri turned out great for what it's worth!

Neparu was one of the two Toa Mahri I had so this was so insightful and nostalgic for me. I distinctly remember playing with the plastic base packaging and imagining it was a bunker. Thanks for the fond memories!

From all the super soldier tactical military feel they got for the sea theme toas, Nuparu is my fave as he fits the whole deep sea super soldier navy seal concept perfectly 🗿

Nuparu has always been my favourite out of this Toa team and I was very excited to get the Toa Mahri version because it felt more in line with his character. Also sad that the budget costs forced you to abandon those really good canister choices but oh well.

this is so insanely insightful into the general creation on a lot of bionicle toys and its so cool to learn about like the creative process into these toys I grew up with

Those prototype packages are amazing, and blow the official one _out of the water_

The mask is just so undeniably cool.

Thank you for being a part of my childhood basically! Still sad Bionicle is gone

That ring torso was such a good idea-- a real shame Lego didn't go with that. ALSO, that propulsion vehicle top to the container-- once again would have been so cool to see.

One of my favourite Toa sets! This internal look is extremely cool, especially the prototypes for the set and canister. Didn’t know the Cordak Blaster was from outside of LEGO and that the shield is actually a sword. I can see that.

I know now that it wasn’t intentional, but since Nuparu in the story was an engineer, it always made sense to me that he looked the most diver-like since he was always about function over form. It also fits that a shield is his toa tool, since a man of science would probably favor a gun over mystical swords as a primary weapon.

I had to get a tooth surgically removed when I was a kid and I remember my mom buying this set for me afterwards. Thank you for this!

Funny to hear that the blasters ate up so much of the budget because imo the toa mahri (along with the rest of 2007) were the best designs that ever came out of bionicle. They are still my favourite toa team to this day and I'm sad I never got the chance to get Hewkii and Nuparu. Maybe one day I'll finish my team.

I always loved Nuparu, a shield on a Toa of Earth but now you saying it's actually like a double bladed great sword just blew my mind. You have just explained one of the big mysteries that we have had for so long about the mysterious Aqua Blaster Blade weapon that is Nuparu is supposed to have but we never saw...We did, it was his "shield" I really need you to make more of these vids cus you are answering so many questions about oddities we have had for years.

Spent literal hours on end playing with this figure as a kid. Still have it to this day. Thank you so much for creating it

That propulsor canister would have been so cool: end result was awesome anyway

Never realized that Nurapu’s shield was made to be a sword, but honestly I can see that now!

more amazing info about you and bionicle!

From this point and onwards Toa only had either neon green or neon orange eyes so was there any discussion about bringing back/creating new eye colors for the toa mahri?

Even as the ignikia I Ioved this character!! Hes pretty metal 🤘

I always wondered why there was such a drastic shift in the Mask's identity going from the Ignika build to the Mahri build. That's actually super interesting hearing the order of operations in terms of how design work was handed out. So from how I'm interpreting it, it seems like it was a safe impression to just assume all models of the year were most likely new characters entirely without much else thought put into it until the writers got their hands on the finalized designs. It also is super neat hearing how the year's weapon effects things because I was a bit surprised by how sophisticated the weapon of the Mahri were. That gives a lot of cool insight on it and other implications for other weapons.

Wow, what a video! Those prototype packaging designs are wild - so much imagination and potential. The one with additional vehicle would have revolutionize the way we view Bionicle packaging. Thanks for sharing all this, it’s really fascinating.

The prototypes look so great! I love the final Nuparu, but the ring torso especially would have been such a great mixup!

Nuparu Marhi was my very first Bionicle ever, and gave my my first ever major special interest. Thank you for all that you created and good luck on your future projects❤