The armature for the full-scale dragon sculpture is formed and mounted. Read More
Funnel for Ice Cream Bar Mold
Carol got two nice ice cream bar molds on Amazon (mash fruit, add yogurt, freeze!), but putting the mixture in each bar cavity was a messy pain. Read More
Magnetic Pen Holder
I never have a pen nearby when I want to scribble something on the grocery list pad which is conveniently mounted to the fridge with a magnet. I’ve looked around for a simple magnetic pen holder, but couldn’t find something suitable… so I made one! Read More
Tail mechanics!
Here’s a shot of my first “4-way tentacle control”. I can’t say enough about the DVDs from the Stan Winston School of Character Arts! I’ve watched most of 3 DVDs, and learned so much, including how to machine parts for the tentacle control, and how to 3D print parts for the eye mechanics. Here, I’ve combined the two by 3D printing the spacing discs (think “vertebrae”).
In the Stan Winston terminology, anything that looks like a tail that swings back and forth plus up and down is referred to as a tentacle control. This is the basic mechanism for the chest burster in Alien!
Eye Mechanics Making Progress
I’m not done yet, but pretty happy with the progress on “eye mech” – the mechanical part of the eye movement control.
First dragon parts
Its been a few months since I did any 3D printing, but now that I’m exploring the inner workings of the dragon kingdom, I’m back into it.
This morning I designed some eyes, a pulley (which I ultimately decided I wouldn’t use, but went ahead to try the part concept after all), and a small plate for mounting eye parts and mechanics.
It went pretty well. Read More
Animatronic Dragon
So my family has the Renaissance Fair bug. Big time. Me, too.
Of course, I can’t just be satisfied with a wizard outfit. Now I’ve got it in my head that I want to develop an animatronic dragon to sit on my shoulder and “wow” the crowd. Read More
3D Printed Cars!
An article in USA Today highlights a Chandler company that is 3D printing cars! How cool is that!
NeoPixel Gas Mask at Arizona Fur Con
The NeoPixel Gas Mask from the Adafruit Learning Center was completed and Franklin wore it to Day 1 of the Arizona Fur Con. It was quite a hit! Read More
NeoPixel Gas Mask Mod: Daisy-chain the LEDs
The NeoPixel Gas Mask, as presented by the Ruiz Brothers on the Adafruit web site, wires both LED “data in” ports to the GEMMA’s “data out” port. This means that lighting up “pixel number 1” lights up two pixels: pixel number 1 on the 16 LED ring, and pixel number 1 on the 24 LED ring. Read More