Quickie of the Week #11: I love mini ball-joints! and some design highlights

In my current project, I am slowly endearing myself to the mini balljoints introduced by LEGO recently (found in Mixels and Chima Legend Beasts)... and my conclusion; I love them I'm gonna stockpile them by the dozens for my future use.

The component above started off using rigid hinged parts but  I couldn't make them to fold to desired position to form  robot feet,  so I modified it by introducing the mini balljoint.

And the result is very very satisfactory. The 180 degree turn allows the (black) feet to be swivelled out..

The design above is not final as I have yet to bulk up the lower legs. But the formation of the feet should be final  with the flexibility of the balljoint now becomes the ankle-joint as well,  The heel is suposed to extend further back as you can see,  Reason? Bigger footprint is required to stabilize the robot mode and his "substantial" kibbles.

SPLITTING HEADACHE

One component of my MOC can be splitted into 2 halves and transformation require some swiveling as well.. and the only way to make that happen is to use the trusty ol' 1x4 hinged part (2429c01)  that can be swivelled 180 degree. (pic below)

But the problem with such part is that it has a half circle protusion that almost hindered the merging of the 2 halves. I have to hollow out  the splitted component so that the hinges can be tucked in, ending up with what you see below:

• Left half only have one hinged part
• Right half is using 2 hinged parts
• When merged, there are "holes" on top and bottom of these hinged parts to accomodate their opposing sides.

SHOULDER BALLJOINTS

The photo below showed a typical design for shoulder connections and also one for the head , too. These balljoints only exist as dual jointed rather than one, so they're interfering with the neck joint.

By connecting them like what I did above, actually is not "legal" as well in a sense that the blue pin /neck joint is causing stress to the shoulder joints. And from another angle below ,showed a slight misalignment happening (refer to yellow lines aligning with their respective shoulder joint above them, but both lines are not aligned with each other). In other words... both shoulder joints are slightly bent.

Solution? Use a different neck joint of course! 

ps: I have amassed quite a number of light gray "sticks" above  due to them being LEGO preferred way of making projectiles (where you flick them with your finger to fire them). I almost have zero use for such part until today. 

For those who are observant over my posting frequency and pattern, I usually post quickie like this when my WIP is nearing completion. So I guess you'll be expecting to see this MOC sometime next week =)