after 30 hours of work, i finally drew every single version of matoro, redesigned in my style! he's my favourite character of all time so i decided to put a ton of love into this drawing. theres lots of little cool details which ill go into more depth on under the cut!
(as always, PLEASE reblog so my art gets circulated!! it would be very, VERY appreciated! thank you, ily!!)
every version of him has a sad expression, though i tried to make it the most prominent in the last three. i think hes just tend to have a sad look in his eyes even when hes not actually that sad.
his 2nd matoran form has the gear part stylized to look like a tail, and i added a shorter version to the 1st matoran form to imply that it just 'grew' over time
his toa inika design has the same tail as the first two matoran forms, but its been broken, the gear no longer on it. it shares the same transparency as the other parts of his design, and is shaped like a lightning strike to call back to how he became a toa in the first place
the toa mahri design doesnt quite have a tail, instead having the tube broken, having the silhouette of a tail without actually being one.
the 2nd matoran design has a scarf, i like to imagine that he wore it almost constantly, but it was taken when he went to karzahni, and he never recovered it. kopaka later did, and ended up wearing it in memory of matoro
every design has the same hair-like mask (originally how i stylize the akaku), and has a asymetric design where one side is a bit longer. the mahri mask looks more like the akaku, however the iden looks less like it, with the ""hair"" being much longer and pulled back. this was to try and show how he didnt really feel like himself as a toa inika, and how that mask was very much so not him (as it was its own separate entity after all) but once he became a toa mahri he felt a bit more like himself again.
i tried to make it look like he was wearing winter gloves in most of the designs, though its most obvious in the 2nd matoran and mahri designs
i stylized the iden a bit so that it looked like he had horns, my thought process there was just kinda "karzahni = hell so i guess it makes sense"
each one has lines under their eyes, with the 2 matorans having ones similar to the markings on the akaku, toa inika having ones similar to the iden that also are meant to subtly look like tear streaks, and the mahri having ones that very subtly are meant to look like the lines on the ignika mask
more red accents on the mahri design, to call back to the red flag, and also to teridax/maxilos
while i didnt draw in most of their weapons, mahri kept the twin cutter and i just made it an attachment to his hand
the red axle piece in the mahri foot piece is actually a piece i thought was included in the set itself. i bought my mahri matoro second hand, and apparently along with him being in bad shape he also just had those parts added there for some reason? so i drew it in thinking that it was correct. just learnt today that that was false. but i like it so im keeping it
there mightve been more details i added, but thats all i remember right now!
