This is a crosspost from Hydromecha.website

I didn't end up finishing anything this past month, but I did make some pretty good progress on stuff. I started listening to Symphony X recently and holy shit do they make good music. I'm not sure how I hadn't heard of them before. I've also been rewatching Tentai Senshi Sunred, which I had forgotten about till I found out there were Figmas made of some of the characters a few weeks ago. The figures released in 2012 but I originally saw the show back in 2017/18. It's fucked up that I was a high school senior then. I'm not sure who thought it'd be okay for me to be an adult with a job now. I definitely don't feel like an actual adult but here I am a couple years out of college. I'm also starting to become rather unfond of that aforementioned job (I'll save you from my extended kvetching), which I'm told is also a part of being an adult. The passage of time needs to be stopped.

Anyways, you're here to read about stuff I'm working on, I think. If you're here to listen to me complain about work see me after class :^)

Plague Machine Progress

(You can see more angles on my website)

I posted a WIP pic of this thing last month, and here are some more. I said I'd probably have it done last month which, uh, clearly hasn't happened. I am pretty happy with how this is turning out. I need to finish up on the terrain paste (made from sand, glue/mod podge, paint, and a whole bunch of junk plastic from my 3d printer, among other things) and then glue a whole bunch more foam panels to The Plague Machine itself. I also have a thing of hemispherical beads I've been meaning to use for rivets/bolts. I also gotta paint it, of course. No clue when this'll be done seeing as the next thing I'm gonna talk about is taking priority this month.

Tankman Figure 2.0 Progress

Like I mentioned last month, I'm working on a new version of the Tankman action figure I made for Pico Day last year. So far I've got all the joints printed out and assembled. I also have a rough block-out of the figure itself in Blender. These new joints are made of Pro PLA (a more durable blend of PLA, pictured above in dark gray) and TPU (a flexible plastic). The old figure is printed entirely in PETG, and its joints have almost entirely gone loose over time. I've heard other accounts of 3d printed friction joints that're made of the same kind of plastic go loose over time for seemingly no reason. I'm hoping to avoid that by using different types of plastic in these joints and using tighter fits. I've also given myself way more time to work on this than last year's figure so I was able to print all of these parts with a smaller layer height (more precision). I've got a deadline for this, so it'll definitely get finished this month.

New Bugalo Page

As is tradition, Wonderful and Fancy High School Bait Club got a new page with this Wrapup post.

Closing Thoughts

I did get a couple more animations for one of the SECRET PROJECTS I talked about last month, but then I shifted gears to focus on the Tankman figure. I'll probably get some more progress done on that after the figure is complete. I didn't really get a chance to work on a lot of other stuff.

In unrelated news I want to try and spend less time on the computer so I can catch up on my reading backlog. I find I end up wasting a lot of time on the computer and won't actually start reading any of the comics/novels/etc. I keep getting unless I turn the thing off. Right now I'm bouncing between The Illusion of Life (book on classic Disney animation), a collection of H.G. Welles' short stories (just finished The Time Machine), Mind Fields (Jacek Yerka/Harlan Ellison), and Chainsaw Man. There are a couple other books I started and need to get back to at some point.

In plastic robot news, I got the new Magmatron figure (pictured below) recently and it is probably one of my favorite things in my collection. I've been wanting to get some version of Magmatron ever since I saw his design in a comic when I was a kid. Now over a decade later I finally have my hands on it. If you don't think the idea of three dinosaurs (yes I know pterosaurs and plesiosaurs aren't actually dinosaurs but calling them all prehistoric reptiles doesn't have the same zing to it) combining into a giant evil robot isn't cool as fuck, I don't think we can be friends.

If you want to be notified whenever I post these Recaps, consider signing up for the Newsletter.