My hobby pursuits have been in an extended slump. My last progress update on my Zaku Kai build was seven years ago. Stagnation in the hobby and an unfortunate encounter with Plamo King Jackass and his League of Pretentious Shitbags sent my self-confidence through the floor, and a horrible destructive mishap in my workspace destroyed […]

SCGMC is only about a day away, and for me that day is a travel day. So, sadly, the Zaku FZ won’t be ready. I actually realized yesterday that I had run out of time to make molds for the parts that needed to be duplicated. By the time a new 2-part mold would have […]

With SCGMC looming, I have at last set myself to work on the Zaku Kai project once again, with the goal of getting it into some kind of presentable shape by the time of the con. Lately the work on this project has been pretty intensive, as I’ve done my best to get back to […]

I haven’t been real happy with my first attempt at the Zaku’s lower legs, so recently I’ve been trying to do better. The first version I did, the plan was to build the common parts of the leg (the area above and in front of the pods – as these areas are the same on […]

It’s been a while since my last update to this project: the Zaku project goes on and on, but there’s always other things I want to do, too. After all, I still haven’t finished my Armored Core group build entry. (close, though) Still, there’s a fair bit of new stuff to share.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update to my Zaku Kai project: much of that time has been spent on other pursuits, but there’s also been a fair bit of work done that I simply haven’t found time to document fully. Most recently I’ve been working on the shoulder joints and the arm […]

My last progress update for this is now about three months back – since then things have been progressing slowly (lots going on)… Here’s the photos, showing the current state of things:

There were a few problems with my first Zaku Kai walk cycle (I’d messed up a keyframe which caused the left leg to intersect the foot during the stride – and additionally the animation had an excess of hip movement) so I did a new one and rendered it properly. It turns out rendering on […]

Yesterday I finally tried my hand at animating a walk cycle with the Zaku. This is a bit tough for a few reasons. First off, the Zaku’s lower legs and feet are huge, which makes clearing the ground in the passing pose a bit of trouble. Second, the way the Zaku is modeled, in its […]

I recently picked up the book The Essential Blender and have found it very helpful in learning more about the Blender application. With the animation chapter as my guide I produced a simple animation of my Zaku Kai mesh – the robot itself is standing still but the camera spins around it… I know it […]