Since last time I posted about this project, I've begun building parts
based on my most up-to-date design plans in Blender and on paper. So
far I have a pretty good start on the head and chest.
I just started my second attempt at making the chest block, constructed
as a hollow shell built out of 1mm styrene plates. The earlier version
was accidentally built from an oversimplified and outdated version of
the design, so this second attempt was made straight from the Blender
model, using the "unfolder" script to turn a simplified 3-D mesh for
the chest block into a set of papercraft-like plans.
The new part came out slightly too large - about 1mm along any edge I
measure. I think the places where I joined plates together didn't
quite go flush. I plan to fix the problem by block-sanding the thing
until I get the right measurements. In the future I'll probably build
this sort of thing from thinner sheets to minimize the problem. I cut
out the holes for where the shoulder joints are going to be mounted and
for where the backpack will sit - once the rest of the chest block is a
bit closer to spec I'll move on to refine those areas.
Project page:
http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/models/Projects/1_100_Zaku_Kai/
Current progress (chest block):
http://1-4-4.home.comcast.net/models/Projects/1_100_Zaku_Kai/chest_build.html#20070118
