Animating your pilots

[Dirt Biter]

Ever since I saw Peter Wales heli transporter driver turning his head when he was towing the trailer out to the take off point I wanted to animate the pilots that are going into my CH53E build. The biggest problem at first was finding the damn pilots! 1/18th scale military / aviation figures are hard to find and anything of quality is even harder.

I opted for the 3.75" characters from a Delta Force set as they had the most points of articulation and were not too far away from being "realistic". OK, they need a bit of work to complete them but for what I want they will suffice.

Here they are in their mock up seats. Some work with the Dremel and a couple of micro servos, threaded rod and voila, heads will turn!

[YOUTUBE]

Pilots Action (0 min 21 sec)

/YOUTUBE]

Currently they are running slaved to one channel but I will split them to give independent movement and then rework their joints to have their arms and legs move with the cockpit controls.

Sorry about the video duplication but I am not the sharpest pencil in the box when it comes to stuff like that, give me a handful of tools any day!

[zeeflyboy]

That's cool man - I know it's hard to work at such a small scale too.

Mine isn't finished yet but here's a look at what I'm doing for my current build along similar lines (camera for a head since it's FPV)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myu7E3FoCEo[/ame]


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_FY0Tb3lIM[/ame]

[yf222000]

Originally Posted by zeeflyboy

That's cool man - I know it's hard to work at such a small scale too.

Mine isn't finished yet but here's a look at what I'm doing for my current build along similar lines (camera for a head since it's FPV)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myu7E3FoCEo


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_FY0Tb3lIM

Very impressive. Bow down.

[Dirt Biter]

zeeflyboy,

That FPV Pilot is freaky, it reminds me of something out of Hellraiser!

Excellent control motion! My hat is off to you.

[wqtaylor3]

25 years ago my dad built a Goldberg ultimate bipe with a pilot that would turn his head and check his wing tips and everyone always loved it but that fpv camera is flat out amazing ill have to show him since he recently purchased a used ultimate bipe...this way I can watch the wheels turn lol

[zeeflyboy]

Just remembered this thread, thought I'd post an update to where it's at now

[erospawn]

Here's some pretty nice Animatronic pilots..


http://shop.all-scale.com/pilots.aspx