Quick opinion check (It's 3D robot time again)

[classicdrogn]

Do you think the bigger body compared to the ring is better, or the smaller one? If I could have it both ways, I use the scaled-up one in robot mode and the other for the jet, but this isn't Transformers and I don't get to use that kind of space magic.

GERWALK is of course possible - fold up the lower ring, flip out the arms, drop the legs down with reversed knees - but not especially impressive due to having the arms on top of the fuselage, which just looks off. Of course, everything looks off due to being all cubes and blocks and would be subject to much additional rounding and filling, like what happened with the Crazy Bananas if you remember that. For blocking out the transformation, though, basic bounding box blocks are fine, and much easier to adjust to fit together precisely by putting the 3d position and editing numbers into the text boxes.

I could take the body even smaller, actually - the SPEX-09 Coleopter from Cruise Chaser Blassty where I stole that inspired the folding ring wing is still proportionately smaller, or at least looks it due to being a skinnier needle-feet style.

[Bob Schroeck]

While the option phrasing is not one I would have chosen, I find the smaller main hull to be sleeker-looking and more aesthetically appealing.

[classicdrogn]

Eh, it's a whimsical way to put it, I guess. All is for my lols. Thanks for chiming in, though - I might not get as many responses here as if I stuck it on SB or MacrossWorld, but I know the folks here so it means more.

[robkelk]

I think the smaller one looks like a Vulcan ship from Star Trek Enterprise, while the bigger one looks more... sleek and menacing, like a high-quality blade. Just one person's opinion, of course.

[Star Ranger4]

Kind of going to agree with Rob. So, my thought is it depends on how you want to spec it. If its meant to be a fast striker style unit, go with the smaller body proportion. If its meant to be something more akin to heavy support, then the larger.

[classicdrogn]

Don't really have a role for it, it's just a model design that appealed to me, and they look of the wings in robot form instantly mad it a favourite after I saw it, even beyond the original Coleopter's version that keeps the lower wing fully folded instead of splayed out like the mantle of an evil god

Including a giant gun (in this case, I've been calling it a Hyper-Velocity Cannon) is a nod to the VF-27 Lucifer in relation to that, but will at the least be de-emphasized in any way I can possibly manage it; including a primary weapon in a transformation sequence is far from the worst sin a robot design can commit but partsformers are just inelegant when the 3D puzzle aspect of changing one shape into another via solely mechanical transformation is a big part of what fascinates me about them. The transformation might end up entirely redesigned to that end, but the question of overall proportions of wingalingaring to the rest is still relevant even if it does.

I guess the big gun would probably make it a fast "shoot-n-scoot" ranged support unit if it's mass produced instead of a hero or villain custom, but eh, who knows.

[Star Ranger4]

Strange thought. Your using blender now, right? maybe set up a second scene where the 'main body' parts are linked to the first only scaled to 75%? Then you could work on the one and have it reflected in the other until you get a better feel for what you want?

[classicdrogn]

I already did that right in this for the mirrored side wings, actually, to avoid having to continually delete and replace old versions. Really though, once I get to the stage of fitting the other parts together into a proper fuselage it's past the point where the changes would really apply to both in the same way.

By way of reference, here's what appears to be the only official line art available of the original Coleopter design, and a couple photos of the model someone with entirely Japanese-language twitter posts apparently made or saw or something:





As you can see, it somehow manages to be a much chunkier monkey despite also ending up as a considerably smaller humanoid in proportion to its ring, which is itself only as similar to mine as any two swing-wing fighter jets are to each other. Also, I cannot see a way for the ring to physically transform past the legs, be they folded or unfolded. It apparently can because while I can't get to the page with the full size image for some reason Google Image Search persists in showing me this tiny preview of what appears to be the same model in humanoid form, but that may be a disassemble/reassemble situation, which is the same as peeling the stickers off a Rubik's Cube and reapplying them to "solve" it as far as I'm concerned.

[Star Ranger4]

huh. must have made changes to blender then. cause it wouldn't matter as far as the mirror modifier in the versions I remember. You'd apply the mirror to the 'original' size then just a scale modifier to the other version.

[classicdrogn]

Oh yes, the changes would work just fine on both sizes, what I'm saying is that once I decide on a transformation and start fitting it together the parts will be different at different sizes in numerous ways. Mostly around the wing parts that aren't changing, but you can see it even in that simple rendition where the gun added at the scaled-down size interpenetrates the head/cockpit block when scaled back up because of the way that works out where two separate ends of the armature come back together.

edit: Oh, brainwave! I know what I'm calling this now - Coatl, after the development program got "rainbow viper" as a random two-letter designation, and the team testing the prototype painted the ring with bright bands of colour.

I'd involve this guy specifically if I could, because it sounds like a great totem animal for a war machine:

- Jumping Viper (Bothrops nummifer)

Jumping Vipers can be found in southern Mexico and in Central America: Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama. Locally they are known as "timbo" and "mano-de-piedra" (stone fist). They inhabit rain forests, but also plantations, wooded hillsides and rocky elevated places.

This chiefly nocturnal snake comes out in the early evening hours to feed on lizards, rodents, and frogs. It likes to hide under fallen logs and piles of leaves which makes it difficult to see.

As its name implies, the Jumping Viper can strike with force as this short powerful snake actually leaves the ground and may even stir up a cloud of dust. Its venom is haemotoxic. People have died from the bites inflicted by large Jumping Vipers.

(source)

[classicdrogn]

This alternate transformation looks so good!



It's a real shame that it DOESN'T FUCKING WORK!!! Aaarrrgh... I'm... just going to go do something else for a while. Maybe some magic space gnomes will fix it.

[classicdrogn]

In more detail, either it can have hip joints, or it can have the intakes that fold down over the upper legs like tassets or whatever the thigh guards were called on samurai armor, the sides of the fuselage flipping around the cockpit are kind of sketchy, and connecting them to the nosecone to turn it into a head probably isn't as difficult as it looks on a glance if I kept at it but the other two things put me off a lot. The real killer is the hips, though, because they have to cam inward and back but the top, visible hip cube ends up only having side-to-side splits motion with a second forward and back joint needed, as on the VF-9 or VF-1000, though the cams are much shorter than the 3K's:

VF-9 Cutlass (note hips attached to the solid blue part):


VF-3000 Crusader, with the hips on long sideways-folding levers:


With the arm storage being an intentional VF-9 reference I don't mind the slightly awkward jointing as such, but I couldn't find any other way to get the intakes out of the way for G and B mode, which was disheartening enough to put me off further effort on the nose. Not having built the intermediate front-to-back hip joint yet this was hidden while I was working on it, as I was incorrectly rotating the hip cubes during the working transformations.



The cockpit itself just flips down on a double joint over the arm crossbar once it's turned sideways, into the classic vertical chest location with just enough space between it and the tabs the shoulders are attached to for the side pieces to slip into. Closing the last gap in the side of the fuselage between those and the intakes and possibly a bit of the inside of them might require making those tabs thinner, but was another part I hadn't looked at closely yet along with the gap between the shoulders on the bottom of the fusilage.

[classicdrogn]

The Digi-Gnomes came through!



Man, those little guys are just awesome.

[classicdrogn]

First the general nose/torso area this morning, then some detail parts that turned out amazingly well





Feels like I really got ahead today