Well, I did it. After watching repeated attempts of this character lose his legs, his wheel, and in turn, my sanity, I got an idea as to how to solve all of my headaches in one quick stroke. Make this man one legged. Or one and a half I guess is more appropriate. I chopped off the lower half of his back leg so the wheel could be directly attached to the servo, and that half leg would just move on the same axis as the outer leg still attached to the wheel. Yep.
It seemed to have worked just fine; I dare say even better than if I had gotten him rigged with two legs. After I solved that issue, everything else fell into place pretty easily (The head servo could utilize the exact same code as the wheel, and the limited rotation of it matched perfectly the rotation I needed for the two heads). Here the bad boy is in action!
As it stands right now, I'm really happy with it. I had to make some changes and consolidations but it turned out great. Simple, charming, and effective. It also matches almost exactly what I had detailed in my original sketches. The only real change in my drawings of the character are the colors. I originally intended on coloring the character and his bike, but halfway through his suit I realized a black and white color scheme fit the character much better.
If I had more time, or chose to take it further, I have a few ideas to improve the piece. For starters, I would rig that back little wheel to move much like the front (either by moving with, or just hooked up to a third servo. Another thought I had was to create a moving "ground" that would cycle at the same rate as the wheel to appear as though he is actually moving. We'll see if I really want to take it that far.
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