Build Journal: Papercraft Zizy Vehicles

This combines two of my favorite obsessions, Papercraft and Zizy Vehicles.  I was thinking about the Paper Silos I posted about on Monday while driving to work one morning when I passed a tanker truck.  My mind immediately shifted to designing a papercraft tank to fit on the trailer of a truck.  I felt that since building "realistic" tanker trucks was sort of difficult in Lego that this might be an easier technique.

Since my initial silo build used 4x4 Round Brick w/Pinholes to form the core I retained that but mounted them sideways on Large Jumpers, keeping the 1x1 Round Plates to secure the paper on the other side.  The paper pieces are 2.25" x 2.5" and are standard copier paper.  There's no central shaft holding the Round Bricks together so securing the initial two points of contact may be a little difficult.  In 6P Scale the tank is roughly 10' diameter by 20' long.  The deck is 20' long by 15' wide in 6P scale.  2 Hits will destroy the tank and the deck it sits on.  It will take 4 more hits to destroy the rest of the trailer.

Tanker Trailer

Parts

And the best part about this?

No Brackets.

I actually made two different Tractors to haul the Trailer.  I made them different to highlight the nature of independent truckers and the differences between 3-wide and 4-wide design.  Also, because I already have a Tractor done up in Octan colors. 

The first one I built was made to look big and powerful.  It will take 2 or 3 Hits to no longer be Cover -- depending on where you are in relation to the attack.  It will take 8 Hits to completely destroy.

The second one is meant to look more "sporty" -- hence the color and the more streamlined design.  It will take 2 or 3 Hits to no longer be Cover -- depending on where you are in relation to the attack.  It will take 7 Hits to completely destroy.

Group Picture

Once again, I hope people like this continuing

exploration of using paper in terrain builds.

Zizy's Books

 It's been a while since I've talked about Zizy's work.  Apparently he has a webstore where you can buy digital versions of some of his books.  All of the text looks to be in Japanese and there are other minor issues with purchasing them but, this is a way for people to finally get their hands on these publications.  So to speak.

Build Journal: Zizy Vehicles 2

Last year I hopped on the Zizy vehicle bandwagon.  I'm returning to those vehicles because I have this idea for a table-setting that involves cars and because I'm on a creative streak.  This time around I took it in a different direction and went civilian.

I also figured out a way to make a shorter, four stud long vehicle.  This one involves sticking a Friction Pin between the two Travis Bricks that form the axle.  It's loose but it prevents the axles from pivoting too far out of line.






One thing I've disliked about this design is the three stud width of the chassis.  This basically limits you to 2x3 and 3x3 Plates stacked on top of the 1x? Plate "spine" to form the body of the vehicle.  And looking at later builds from Zizy I see he's moved away from it too.

But, if we keep the same "axle" set up of three Travis Bricks linked by 1x1 Round Plates with 1x1 Round Bricks attached we can attach that to a 2x6 or 4x6 Plate in the same manner it attached to the 1x6 Plate.  Except this time it's easier as we're inserting into anti-studs as opposed to clicking into the mini-bar pieces that are on the bottom of some Plates.


This allows us to make vehicles that are a little sturdier, with lower part counts, and can be made with more common pieces.  It also allow us to make vehicles of varying widths, 3x and 4x, to make our scenery a little more varied for a better looking game table.  Also, as you can see from the pictures above, you can use standard Lego wheel arch pieces.

Build Journal: Zizy Vehicles

Years ago, Zizy posted a set of vehicles to his blog and they caught the imagination of the MFZ community.  Zeekhotep talked about them on his blog.  They were discussed on the Hangar.  And they've been discussed on the Discord channel as well.  Zizy calls them 1/72 scale and Zeekhotep says they're perfect for 7P scale.

After the discussion on the Discord channel I figured I'd take a crack at them and see what I could do.

Here's my first attempt at the chassis.  This worked, but the rest of the vehicle was only attached by one stud and was able to rotate out of position.

Here's my second attempt.

This version held the top steady

and didn't allow it to rotate.

Here's what it looks like fully assembled.

After assembling the proof of concept and seeing that it
worked, I decided to try and change it into a better
looking color scheme and make it look a little "sportier".

Then I went a little nuts and built a bunch more, including an "18 wheeler".

Here's a size comparison shot.

Here's the Brickshelf gallery for these builds.

Hopefully this gives you the first step you need to assemble your own.

Even More Zizy!

Thanks to +Bryan Rombough over on G+ and The Brothers Brick, we now know that Zizy has a Flickr stream!

Zizy Magazine?

Apparently Zizy has a magazine out, and it appears to be filled with instructions.  Thanks to +Adam Piskel on G+ for the notification.  I guess he needed something to go along with his two books.

Spotlight: Zizy

One builder whom everyone should be familiar with is Zizy.  He's been building mecha and posting them online since sometime in 2003 as near as I can tell.  As far as I know, he's never officially built anything for Mechaton.  He has been copied extensively by other builders though.  Hell, even Soren Roberts has copied his work.  In fact I think it's one of the rights of passage for the Mechaton/MFZ community; copy a mecha just by looking at a photograph, build a Zizy Frame, etc.  Of course people like Kashiwa and Omnipotent might be taking it a little far.

Zizy has so many different pictures in his Brickshelf gallery, which is here, that you can get lost in there for hours.  One of his most prolific builds is the AF Frame.  The best view of which can be seen here.

Here's a couple of my favorites built off of that frame.

He also has a "proto" frame, seen here.

Which looks like this when additional parts are added.

Of course he switches things up again with the Vertical Machine frame.

Here it is with armor and weapons.



I don't think it's unreasonable to call him the Michaelangelo of the microscale mecha community.  Go.  See. Copy.  Learn.