Week 13 -- On A Steady Roll

  This past week I sought to finish the tail's form. It was given ridges and fins similar to the rest of the body. I then wanted to include a mechanism that these pieces are joined together by. After a lot of trial and error a simple ball joint sufficed beautifully. I gave it ridged tracks with which the pieces can appear to swivel around. After playing with the edges that take each ball joint in, I was satisfied with it's finished result.

  I smoothed the tail end to see what a possible finished mesh would look like and I was very pleased by the results. The AO render is by far the most pleasing. It's simply a matter of imitating the same structure through the other joints. I decided to leave the head after adjusting the visor / windshield. I cut faces to make way for the fins, but wanted to flush out the body.

I moved the pivot point of the tail fin into the ball joint and started swiveling it around the axis. I am very pleased with the maneuverability. This mechanism being present in the rest of the model will provide a lot of flexibility and can likely allow me to animate from scratch if parented correctly.