Well, I said this was gonna happen, and sure enough, here we are.
Last Christmas, I found myself in possession of an updated, highly accurate, highly durable, highly desirable and highly expensive set of items that I’ve been hoping to acquire for most of my life. While I never gained the original, I managed to land something far better. I am of course talking about the revamped, 2017 model Dinozord Megazord. I’m talking the OG Megazord, the 5 Dinozords of the hit 90’s show, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Black Mastodon, Pink Pterodactyl, Blue Triceratops, Yellow Sabertooth Tiger and Red Tyrannosaurus. They assemble into the Megazord the exact same way as they did in the show. Green Dragonzord is also included, but wasn’t in the set. He is also compatible with the other 5 for its own set of transformations, including Dragon-Megazord and to combine as the mantle on Megazord’s shoulders. Being the 90’s kid that I am, I HAD to jump onto that wagon as soon as I became aware of it and the fact I have lots of money helps. Trust me when I say, this is the Megazord set that child me could only dream of. And child me is very happy right now, as this is fulfilling a long childhood dream and I am just loving the vast improvements on this over the one I wanted as a kid. It just feels so right that seeing them in my room, it’s like they’re home. They were always meant to be here. Shiny and new, presenting themselves to be like the new guardians of my room, the old ones awakened for their real duty. It’s a piece of me that feels completed.
That being said, why is this being posted in WIPs? Because, I have begun a project that will be a very very serious undertaking, but I’m planning on making this pretty much my 2021 goal. If I get it done sooner than the end of 2021, then I can at least complete the year with the satisfaction of knowing it’s done. If I don’t, then I can at least say I’m closer to completing it than I was at the start of 2021. I’ve got 11 months after this one, I’m hoping to get this done within that period. But as always, we’ll see what life throws at me. But that’s the plan.
The project? Why, making the Dinozords in Blender, of course! This will be an interesting project, on the account I’m using real life models to make the meshes and then using the Zords, both real and in Blender, to measure each other. They are all individual machines, but they combine into a much larger machine that is in itself composed of many smaller parts, much like the individuals are. So by using the pieces to measure each other, every Zord will be pretty much guaranteed to be to scale with each other.
But it won’t be enough to make the models. They’ll need to be rigged as well. However, the rigging will complicate the process of animation because of the sheer amount of movements involved in themselves individually, but also when assembled. So my project has many aspects to it. Here is the current plan:
-Make the Zords individually. Each Zord will have their own Blend file, mesh-only.
-In new Blend files, make copies of the individual Zords. Each copy will be rigged in a different manner:
1, for the function of the Zord as an individual.
2, if the action is complicated enough, for the action of transforming into Megazord.
And of course, 3, the Zords together as Megazord, rigged as a single entity for its own articulation.
After all, why make the Zords if they’re not going to transform into Megazord? That was one of the HUGE appeals to the show. Even now, I get nostalgia waves just thinking about making the sequence shot-for-shot - and hopefully with matching music! It’s one of my bigger Blender goals, and I really hope to get that done. Call me childish, but this is something I need to do for my own mental health. And who knows? Replicating the TV show in Blender might get seen by the right people, if I do it well enough…
That being said, for those of you who don’t know how the show goes, here is the sequence and the benchmark for what I’m trying to achieve: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mQuHh1X4H4
And yes, I know it’s probably kinda cheesy for you folks in this age, but back when I was a kid, that was the bomb. And you can’t deny that transforming machine animals are the pinnacle of 90’s kid enjoyment. To me, Mighty Morphin’ will always be king in the legacy of Power Rangers.
This is the topic where the updates to this project will be posted.
