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The Wings
I started with the wings, though I can't say just
why. I guess it's because the wings were going to be the most drastically
redesigned section of the dragon. I had decided that since the wings
were such a large problem with the original dragon, I would have to totally
redesign them. Since I had such good luck with my
Juvenile Dragon
and its cloth wings, I decided I would go down the same path with this
dragon.
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A shot of the two new wings. I was
going for a Pterodactyl style wing with this design. You can see the
three hinge joints as well as the lift arm that would control the wings
vertical movement. This would later be replaced with a thinner lift
arm.
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Another shot of the two wings.
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This is a picture I edited digitally to
simulate what the cloth might look like once attached to the wings.
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The Arms
Next on my long list of difficult tasks were the two
arms. I first took apart and redesigned one arm so that I could compare
it to the original design later. The dragon's arms are a copy of the
functions of Brian Cooper's Dark Gundam's arms. That is, while I
didn't use the exact same design, I copied the movements of all the joints.
The arms, as well as the legs, would have shoulder flap, shoulder rotation,
shoulder twist, elbow flex, wrist rotation and wrist flex joints, as well
as moveable fingers. The legs would not have a wrist (ankle) rotation,
but rather a z axis flex.
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Here you can see the first draft of my
dragon's arm. The dragon's wrist flex was created by the same click
hinges used on the original design. The wrist rotation joint was updated,
but the design was the same as the original, using a trapped technic pin
within the arm. I did not want to have large wrist gauntlets like
the Dark Gundams, which is why I did not opt to use the worm gear technique
here.
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Another shot of the arm. You can
just make out the gear that makes up the elbow joint. Brian Cooper's
design had the worm gear that controlled the elbow attached to the forearm.
I, instead, attached the worm gear within the lower part of the upper
arm. I also doubled it's function by making the 1x6 technic beams that
held it in place also pin the lower upper arm together, so that it wouldn't
split under stress. The red 2x2 round brick is the control knob for
the elbow joint.
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Here you can see the elbow joint in it's
fully collapsed position. You can also see my first attempt at creating
a spike to cover up the elbow's exposed gear. I later replaced the
two arches with two 6 stud long inverted slopes.
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A fourth shot of the arm, fully outstretched.
The upper arm rotation is achieved by a trapped gear attached to
a worm gear. The design is almost identical to Brian Cooper's design
on the arms, but the legs use a slightly different design for less 'wobble'
in the joint. The yellow 2x2 round brick is the control knob for the
shoulder twist joint.
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A final shot of the new arm. Here
you can see the shoulder flap joint very clearly, as well as the beginning
of the flange that would be trapped inside the dragon's body. The
control for the shoulder flap is the exposed worm gear shown here. On
the same axle as the worm gear is a 2x2 round brick, which is the control
knob for this joint.
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I chose to do the foot next because
of the lack of parts, I was still waiting on orders. The foot design
is a modified version of RTTDD's rear foot. Instead of using the throwbot
gear box as the RTTDD's rear foot does, I decided to use the original LEGO
gearbox, which RTTDD uses to control its front feet.
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Here you can see the dragon's foot design.
It's modeled very closely after what a dog or a cat's rear foot
would look like. Visible here are the two front toes, dew claws,
and ankle control knob (the yellow 2x2 brick and cone). The gearbox
would ride on the axle shown, controlling the forward and backward movement
of the foot.
The z axis rotation of the foot is achieved by the foot freely rotating.
The theory here is that if all the other joints of the leg are held
fast, the foot will automatically take the right position.
When standing, a 2x3 inverted slope is inserted under the foot, to
help give the foot the angled look it has. When the dragon would
be sitting, or for any pose where the foot would be in front of the lower
leg, the 2x3 inverted slope can be removed, allowing the foot to stand
firmly flat.
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The Neck and Tail
I wanted the neck and tail of my new dragon to be
very similar to the old one, a very modular or segmented look. This
would make it easier for me to create the neck and tail, as I could just
create sections that were perhaps different, but functionally the same.
RTTDD's tail is very thin and cat like, and while this is a good
thing for a cat robot, a dragon, in my opinion, should have a very thick
and lizard like tail. If all went well, the tail would also help to
counter-balance my dragon as it would if it were real.
The original neck and tail had alternating flex
and rotation joints, which gave them great posability. However, since
the rotation joints also have very little friction, it caused a great imbalance
in the design, and one little bump on the table on which the dragon's sat
would knock the tails over (and the whole dragon if it were standing).
For sake of stability, the rotation joints were totally removed,
except at the base of the neck and tail, and at the base of the head.
While talking with Eric Sophie about it, he gave
me the idea to use toggle connectors to create the joints. This is
illustrated below.
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Here you can see the completed neck assembly.
On the right you can see the start of the flange that would hold
it into the dragon's body. My plan was that if the flanges could
help hold up the dragon's body when attached to his arms, why couldn't it
work in reverse? Why couldn't the body hold up the weight of the neck
and tail? It would be no different than what the design of the Dark
Gundams called for.
The head attaches to the neck the same way as the wrists do, with a
trapped technic pin. Though the head can freely spin, its weight prevents
undesired poses.
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Here you can see the inner workings of
the neck (and tail). Depending on the weight needed, the different
segments of the neck and tail would require differing amounts of toggle
connectors, but the theory is the same. The toggle connector's teeth
line up with the teeth of 1/2 technic bushings. The bushings are attached
to axles which are attached to one side of the joint. The toggle
connectors are attached to the other side of the joint. While it requires
the disassembly of the joint in order to pose it, it is much stronger than
click hinges. I have since switched the positions of the bushings to
be on the outside of both toggle connectors, which makes for a joint with
less sag.
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Here is a shot of the new and old tail
designs. The old tail is above the new. You can see how the
new toggle joints can be almost totally hidden from view.
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Here is a shot of the new tail in a pose.
I liked how natural it looked.
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The design of the legs is just about the same as the arms, except the
upper leg twist is beefier, but unfortunately lost about 5 or 10 degrees
of movement because of it.
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Here you can see the gear housing of the
knee joint. I used technic triangles to add to the strength of the
worm gear housing. In all, the knee joint is far stronger than the
elbow design.
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Here you can see the upper leg twist design.
Like the upper arm twist, two technic beams from the lower thigh extend
into the upper thigh. The two beam ends are attached to a brick assembly
which traps a beam attached to the upper thigh. It's all very convoluted,
but in essence it keeps the joint together, you'll just have to figure
it out from the picture.
How this design is beefier and better, in my opinion, to Brian's original
design, is that the axle which makes up the actual twist joint is trapped
inside 1x2 bricks with axle holes* very close to the round gear that is
used to control it. Brian's design (or at least my interpretation of
what I could make out of his design) had very few axle holes involved near
the gear, which allowed for a lot of twisting against the technic axle (and
eventually could cause the axle to twist and break entirely).
The two beam ends also prevent the rotation of the thigh beyond
a total of 90 degrees, or about 45 degrees in either direction of forward.
The thigh actually only has a movement of 75 to 80 degrees due to
it's different design, where as the arms have the full 90 degrees or so.
*Axle holes, in my definition, are holes in a brick or piece that is
a plus shape, so that an axle cannot rotate within it. A technic hole,
on the other hand, in my definition, is a round hole in a brick or a piece,
allowing for full axle rotation.
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Here you can see the fully assembled leg,
including what little you can see of a finished shoulder flange. The
knee spike is incomplete because I was waiting on more Bricklink orders.
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Here is a close up of the lower leg, which
is almost entirely bricks and plates. Even though there are no trapping
bricks to keep the leg from splitting, a design of trapped and retrapped
plates does the same job.
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Here is the back of the lower leg. You
can see the technic gearbox ankle here, as well as the inverted slope used
to prop the leg up. You can also see how I molded the back of the
lower leg to allow the knee control knob to fit snugly against it when the
knee is fully flexed.
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The Body
After everything else is done, what's left? Now
I had the daunting task of connecting all the little bits I had created
into one assembly.
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Here is a layout of my dragon. It
soon dawned on my just how big my dragon would be. A minifig was used
to show scale (he's in the lower left, left of the dragon's head).
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Here you can see the tail gear assembly
and flange. You can clearly see how the flange holds the weight of
the tail against the body of the dragon, while the worm gear prevents unplanned
rotation. The original Dark Gundam shoulder design used two gears,
but I found that two gears didn't line up right with my worm gear, and three
gears allowed two gears to make simultaneous contact with one worm gear.
In theory it's stronger, I guess.
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The first time the rear section of the
dragon standing. You can see the hip and tail gear assemblies clearly
here, as well as their flanges. You can also see the start of the
spine flex joint, which is housed in a throwbot gearbox.
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Here is a shot of the neck gear assembly
and flange, with beams outstretched ready to be attached the arm assemblies.
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Another shot, later, of the rear section
standing. You can see I have added to the spine flex joint as I prepare
to attach it to the front half.
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Here you can see my first attempts at
standing the two halves up together, so that I could get a good feeling
of how far apart I wanted them. I ended up moving them further apart
than shown here.
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Another shot of the two halves.
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Here you can see the two halves of the
body finally connected and the wing gear assemblies have been attached (a
little hard to see, but directly behind the arm gear assemblies). The
wing gear assemblies also act as pins to keep his body from separating.
The gear system here is the same design as what was used in the Dark
Gundam's hip joint. Two worm gears pin a connector between them. When
both worm gears are turned, they raise and lower the connector. The
lift arm attached to the wing assembly would be attached to this connector.
Also shown here is the fully connected spine flex joint. I wanted
to have this totally covered, so unlike RTTDD, I would need a thicker waist.
I used the longest technic axle I had to create the spine flex joint,
but it still wasn't wide enough. The furthest three studs on either
side of the joint are made up of technic pins and technic beams which are
lined up with the axle of the spine flex joint. It actually adds a
lot of strength (but not friction) to the joint.
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Here the wings have been attached. They
are in their furthest upright position, and could also swing down to level.
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The dragon's first steps. This was
the first time the dragon had stood on all four legs with tail and head
attached. I was surprised at how stable he was, even on a waterbed.
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The dragon's back is beginning to take
shape. Here I was building the back with the spine flex in its predicted
furthest required position, so that I could build the housing around it.
This was also a test at how posable the dragon's body would eventually
be.
You can also see here the control knobs appearing on the dragon's back.
Where the knobs would be offset on the neck and tail rotation controls,
I added a false knob to make it look more symmetric.
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The finished dragon without
his cloth wings. I called this stage 'brick finished.' Yes,
I even gave him a belly button (seen in the 'Glamor Shots' section).
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Finishing Touches
After completing the body, all I needed to do was to create the wing
cloth and attach it to the wings. I also added more red plates to
the finished body to add more definition to his back.
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And voila! I used a very stretchable
yellow fabric I found at our local fabric store. I sewed into it
several lengths of clothes hanger and used the clothes hanger bits to act
as an anchor so I could attach the cloth to the wings. To attach the
cloth to the body, I simply pinned the cloth between two plates. I
could not do this with the wings because they would have lost their structural
integrity.
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Formeathan v2.0
See the stick? Get the stick!
