So I realize that I trapped myself with a design solution so early on that it stone walled me into some undesirable results. I wanted a portion of the dragon body to be both a beautiful extension of the dragon and a lever mechanism to cock and fire the tiny bolts.
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| Version 1.0 with Rear body as a lever |
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| Version 1.0, Big & Bulky on any Finger. |
I failed to be convincing and felt cumbersome. I tried twists and turns, texture and even ripped arms. Wasn't happening, so, I got rid of the lever mech all together. I figure at this scale, the need for leverage is mute and the new shotgun cocking action is almost as sweet as air drumming/ guitaring to one's favorite jamz.
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| Version 2.0, No Body lever, tighter, & meaner |
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| Version 2.0 Extended Arms gone, replaced with asymmetric coiling. |
Then there was my dilemma with ammo/ bolt capacity. If a repeater couldn't hold more than three bolts, well that's pretty lame. This meant a taller body and more bulk. Not likey, so I went diagonal, maybe got more two or three more bolts in the chamber, adding more angles and interest and concealment with minimal bulk. Who knows maybe add-on clips will dramatically increase that capacity to harness the repeating crossbow's full potential in the future.
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| Version 2.0, Diagonal Bolt Chamber. |
Speaking of bolts, how will I come by them suckers. During my Jr. highschool crossbow making dayz, I discovered q-tips made excellent arrows, especially those plastic hollow tube types. Cut them to fit the chamber and weight the front tip with wax, dirt, boogers whateva, and viola, clouds of boltz blotting out the heavens. Now I believe the distinction btwn arrows and bolts are length and tail feathers to stabilize flight. Boltz are less accurate and meant for shorter range incursions.
When considering propulsion, resin may not have the properties to behave like laminated wood, but even wood at this scale is ineffective. A vitruvian design some 3000 years old utilized twisted twine for slinging inflexible arms to propel arrows. Been there, done that, but no real power at size twice as big. So I kaiboshed the extended arms for asymmetric coils to accommodate the simple tried and true rubber band.
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| Version 2.0 Coils left and right will track a rubber band to the dragon's hands (anchors) |
So, not including rubber band and boltz, there will be four pieces to this design. Dragon head Chamber, Ring bottom, and the two rear axle piece (chain link-esque). Here's hoping that the test firing phase won't disappoint. Of course that won't happen until they're cast in resin. Peace.
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