The Making of Ascending Depths

What happens when you have a Lego Bionicle builder make an entire toy line from the ground up by themselves? And more importantly, one that has been prominently known for incorporating play features in their builds. Hello this is Tributron bringing you the making of Ascending Depths. Let’s dive in shall we? Back in the fall of 2020 after making various creations and posting online, I would get an idea. One that would spiral me into a chain of events and challenges that I would encounter. From getting back to drawing, to learning how to produce prototypes. Including experimenting with different materials and world building. Though to fully grasp how one human being, such as myself, can possibly do all of this. We must first address a few things about me.

Custom Kapura Build

I began making custom Bionicle builds in late 2016. Being fresh out of high school and starting at a community college, every week I would showcase a new creation. My goal. To create a build more complex than the last. This involved a lot of gears and levers built into my models to activate a function. Wanting to study to be a mechanical engineer, I couldn’t have asked for anything less to do in my spare time. Yet my builds slowly changed over the years after seeing what others have made in the online community. These builds of mine became more cleaned up with very little greeble followed by 4 online pitches to lego for a new buildable figures line between 2017 all the way to 2019.

Yet each pitch had very little success. Now you are probably wondering, “wait a minute, 4 pitches? Pertaining to what I would eventually be making in the future?” 

Though yes that may be quite a lot, the first one was based on my first OC that was not a self insert character. But rather a biomechanical being that traveled across the stars. A ronin seeking justice for those who need it. This character was known as Tayna. She would later be revised a year later with multiple revamps to look more like a Toa of Shadow to fit into a Bionicle AU. The next pitch was BioLegend. Now this one was a little more fascinating as a book was being published to go along with the figures that would eventually be made.

CTM-01

The story, a group of machines in a post-apocalyptic earth that are slowly revitalizing the planet. Yet the more they expand their reaches, more questions begin to arise for not only what has happened before the departure of man but what they themselves really are. With the 3rd and 4th pitches being more-so a continuation and/or addressing of the Bionicle Universe. It is by this point in 2019 that I would have gotten out of college. However from always making a M.O.C., also known as My Own Creation, once a week for almost 4 years straight. There were not a lot of ideas left in what I could really build in a short time frame with the current building systems. These systems consisted of the classic lego brick, Technic, the character and creature building system, and vintage Bionicle elements. The ideas left were just simply too advanced and complex to complete in a short time frame. One of them being a self-transforming Bohrok from the year 2002. Wait, how does this tie to Ascending Depths?

Oh right, set design. Now the reason for why I got such a large following was not because I built stuff frequently, but rather the style method.

“The main reason a lot of people had followed my work was due in part to a few reasons. The main one of course being the fact that my builds looked more like an actual set you would see on the shelf. Though some look down on that due to them preferring something more cleaned up and custom. However, funnily enough it is my weird building methods that also attract a portion of those very builders that want to improve their own creations. Yet as much as I gave my creations a retail level presentation, the big glaring issue was continuing in making them. I would always use more parts than necessary sometimes. Though some are mandatory to have a lot of elements, especially the builds that can walk or do other complex movements that a simple x or y axis rotation based mechanism couldn’t replicate. I would always make my builds simple yet complex enough to where audiences would have difficulty replicating so that they would need instructions just to make them. Now it did cost me quite a bit just to keep up with such a schedule and expectation.”

“It was getting to a point that neither Patreon or Youtube was giving me enough to keep the trend going. It was only when I chatted with a fan in 2020 that I realized that only so many people can build what I was building from scratch at home. Which led me to wanting to make figures more readily available for kids and young adults alike”.

It was then that I would go forth in making Ascending Depths. Yet to do that meant experimenting with different materials and testing out parts before settling down on a final design or system. This involved testing the melting points in various types of plastic, experimenting with resin for minimal usage in prototypes, and coming up with a design language.

These figures mind you, will be using high quality plastics. These included ABS, PVC, and Polypropylene. Yet the design language would come much later. For now, making the parts was the most important while I designed and made my very own injection molding machine capable of pumping out high volumes of product. This involved testing with different types of silicone and plaster before settling on metal casted molds for parts. But this is where things get a little wild. Because I was making so many molds I would use pre-existing parts before settling on making my own parts. What this meant was by the time I started making the custom parts. I’ve also gained a grasp on not only how to make molds efficiently, but gained a firm grasp on fluid mechanics. All the while filming a movie in my spare time in the year of 2021. Though let's be fair, I have been doing that stop motion project since 2018. Now, back to Ascending Depths. While creating new parts and elements I discovered a big glaring flaw.

“As I was making parts it became very clear to me that though other toy lines like Bionicle, Slizer, and Hero Factory were readily popular. A lot of money was wasted especially for Bionicle when it came to having to make a lot of new parts each year. So much so that it would explain the need for it to be on a lot of merchandise, clothing, and other apparel followed by other themes to keep its gears turning. When it came to hero factory they came up with the creature and character building system (CCBS) which helped greatly but it would later die off. To not repeat the mistakes of the past I aimed for a new system. Broken down every creature, character, vehicle, and structure down to their basic shapes. Only then did I see a world geometric in its design. It was from there that I saw the missing link. A building block that wasn’t always a prism, but an object that could be morphed. To transform one thing into another by simply adding another building block. And with the help of a fan I called this new building system in the year of 2021 T.R.I.B.S. (The Tailored Re-constructable Intuitive Building System). With TRIBS you can create anything without the fear of gaps yet still keeping greeble if you so choose. Builds could be completely smooth if you wanted them to. Not only that but with how intuitive the new building system is, it would be easy for me to produce in large quantities.”

It was with this new building system that would allow me to not have to rewrite the story so many times when it came to the character descriptions. We should point out that these new figures being made would also have a fully written narrative for up to 4 years from 2024 up to the year of 2028. But recently that has been shifted from 2025 to 2030 for the run of the theme. Since its launch in December of 2024. Though originally Ascending Depths was supposed to launch in the year of 2022, a few factors held back the production.

Voodoo Island

Ascending Depths takes place on an ocean world in the galaxy of Exobia Vizar. There, live various subgroups of biomechanical beings all living in different regions. Each with their different levels of technological advancements. On the surface sits an island called the Realm of the sky, also known as Sky Realm. It is believed that all life has originated from the waters below. And thus each large area is its own designated realm. It is here that the quite tall bipedal Atolian inhabitants hunt and gather for resources.

Jungles of Kra

Yet they have thrived from what the land has provided and made multiple communities without disrupting the land they lived on. Yet it is only in recent years that surviving has proven to be more difficult. This is mainly due to an overarching villain that has been influencing the other realms to go against each other. With each group wanting to insert their reign and culture upon other lands for what they believe to be how life should be. Some dream of recreating the world of the ancients, gone is the organics of their metal frames for the servos and artificial brains of a sterile world. Some wish to keep the way of life while others want to create a new world order in their image. With the latter accomplishing this through science and magic alike. The time has come for this change as the cycle is closing to its end. For it is at the end of stories and legends long old that this story begins. Where from the cycle of events long forgotten does the great cycle envelopes. A cycle of time itself. Though to learn more about this story, be sure to grab yourself a copy of the comics currently available at AscendingDepths.etsy.com

I hope you found this insightful. As a lot of time and effort went into creating an entire toy line, If you would like to learn more about Ascending Depths be sure to support me in any way you can. For the Cycle of Creativity is taking off into the Time After Time... See you all in the cycle.

Awakening On Lelido