5.6.15

Thesis: The next few days are going to be dedicated solely to the animatronics model.

Model: Today i put together and adapted a simple rig I had been working on for the past couple of days. The eyes have pretty good movement on the ball and socket brackets I purchased so it will be interesting to see how they perform using the drive from the rods. This set-up is basically a couple of robot aluminium brackets attached together with the metal rods for the eye mechanism fitted in the central apature. (hole for the servo horn) I will then fit brass rods through the screw holes in the bracket for control of the eye functions. At the end of these rods I will fit a simple swivel joint that will be hooked onto a small eyelet that is set into the back of the eye cast (resin). The mechanism will eventually connect together at the ends via another length of brass with corner connectors in each end. This creates a simple U shape mechanism, the servo horn will then be connected to the end of this mechanism to drive the eyes up/down left/right. I used this system on my last project and really liked to results, however there are much simpler ways of doing this using strong string and various other push/pull motions.. but I just really like how this system looks and works so for now I am sticking with it until I come up with something new. 

Feelings

I have really enjoyed spending time just working on the animatronic model as sometimes I feel like im neglecting this element of the project. So it feels great to finally get some time to work solely on the model. 

Evaluation

The eye rig uses the same foundation as the previous model, this was really simple to put together and it feels pretty solid. I did change the heat shrink seals to electrical tape as it seemed to fit better in the robotic U brackets. The only thing I found was that the milliput ends kept falling off when I was transporting the eye mechanism around. To solve this I simply used gorilla glue and its not budged since. I think this will no longer be an issues and I really tried to pull the ends off after the glue had dried and it did not budge a bit so fingers crossed this will no longer be an issue. I also think the eyes look really nice, I never really examined them in detail until now but they are really well crafted. The site I bought them from listed them are BORE eyes, and I keep thinking that ive never seen a bores eyes before so I have no point of reference. Which is kind of good because to me they look really strange with the bloodshot vein detailing around the iris. This gives them a really strange and uncanny look which I think will add to the overall feel of the robot, as you can glare right into them and they are just freaky. 

Analysis

The current situation of the project makes sense, both elements are still complementing each other really well. The more I explore the material aspects of the project the more I see how the practical and theoretical elements inter link. I really believe it would be impossible to re-create this level of material believably using vfx. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, this has been a very useful session as it has given me food for thought in terms of how the two elements of the project interlink. 

Action Plan

I really want to explore the idea of vfx and practical effects by creating some skins using mud box, I have done this before in other projects and found it very useful (and less messy) than using clay. Although I do love clay and if I could keep my kids away from it for long enough to use I would certainly prefer that to using simulation software.