Wicked Makers

DIY Animatronic Progress!

Added 2023-06-14 13:52:15 +0000 UTC

This is going great!! We've got the wiper motor all wired up with a speed controller and the torso is rotating back and forth nicely! It's also standing up tall on the PVC legs without issue using the custom PVC joints and flanges that Jay designed. :)

We also designed a rotating PVC joint using a bearing for the neck/shoulders which gives it some secondary motion that can be seen in the video above. Basically as the torso tilts back and forth, gravity naturally moves the freely rotating shoulders and head. This should also cause the arms to swing back and forth a little as it moves. The idea is to use a single motor but get 3-4 motions from it without needing complicated linkage to do it, just using gravity! "Secondary motion" is KEY to making things look good.

Patreon only lets me attach one video at a time here but there are more pictures and stuff on Discord! As a patron, you get access to a private channel where we share quick pictures and progress each day!

Join it here: https://discord.gg/wickedmakers

Just make sure to connect your Patreon and Discord accounts in the settings and the #supporters-chat channel will show up for you. :)

This video should be out end of next week is all goes well from here on. The next big challenge will be building the fur suit well enough to actually capture all these subtle movements...

~J&J