Giant Green Robot-lizard : 7 Steps (with Pictures)

Lizards are nice: they are green, large and beautiful. Robots also are cool.

I believe, robot-lizard should be as cool as robots and as nice as lizards. In this instructable I share my experience, I earned while was making a giant, green robot-lizard.

Step 1: Materials and Tools

The idea of the project is to decorate a robot car as a lizard's head, then attach to the head few carts as body and the tail.

Thus, the central part of the project is a robot car. I used Qoopers by Robobloq, but you may use anyone you have access to.

Also, we need some small carts. Lego Duplo is ideal.

For head and body forming, we need:

• Some cardboard;

• Hard paper. I used 200 g/m2 density paper for drawing. It is hard enough, but not very convenient for painting due to smooth texture;

• Soft craft paper or old newspaper for paper-mache;

• PVA glue (aka Elmer glue);

• Hot glue;

• Necessary tools for paperwork (scissors, cutting knife, cutting mat, a ruler, pencil, and eraser);

For painting:

• Acrylic paint;

• A set of brushes.

We need a pair of glass ball for eyes.

Step 2: Robot Assembling

I used Qoopers, if you are not familiar with it, you may check my previous instructable Getting Started With Qoopers.

Besides parts, included in the Qoopers robotics set, we need one roller from a rolling chair. All parts, needed for robot assembling are presented in photos above. We also need a lot of M4 screws and nuts, which also included in Qoopers set.

1. Start assembling with a motor section. Screw motors to C-shape plate. Put motor's wire as shown.

2. Add small beam to make the motor section harder.

3. Put the large plate, the battery box and the controller like a sandwich and fix them by four screws.

4. Attach the motor section to the large plate.

5. Add the roller and the big beam.

6. Connect motors to the motors slots and power to controller DC input.

7. Add the small plate.

The robot is ready to become a lizard's head.

Step 3: Convert the Robot to the Lizard's Head

As far as we prepared the robot, we should decorate it as a lizard's head.

1. First, make a pattern of the head.

2. Fold the pattern to be sure, the pattern is symmetrical. Cut out the cardboard according to the pattern.

3. Attach the cardboard part to the robot.

4. Use hot glue to attach a wide paper strip to the edge of the cardboard part.

5. Add two paper strips crossway to outline the head shape.

6. Make a pattern then cut out a backside cardboard part.

7. Add more strips to form the head.

8. The controller has two RGB LED on board and I wanted to use LEDs as Lizard's eyes. Cut a paper strip a bit wide than glass balls and cut out two holes, a smaller than the ball. Those holes become eye-pits.

9. Add more strips to form the head.

10. It is time to make the head more realistic by paper-mache. Remove eyes to keep them clear befor starting.

11. Dilute PVA glue by water and put diluted glue on the head by a brush. Tear soft paper into small pieces. Then one-by-one makes a piece wet and put it on the head, flatten each piece.

12. After the first layer got dry, add one or two layers more.

13. When all layers got dried, color the head by acrylic paint. The papier-mache texture makes painting quite easy.

14. Insert glass balls into eye-pits and fix them by hot glue.

The result.

Step 4: The Body and the Tail

Lizards body consist of two large carts, the tail is the third cart. All those parts are joined by M4 screws and nuts.

All parts are made of cardboard and have a simple shape.

"Body part 1" and "Body part 2" are placed on a Lego Duplo cart. There are two square holes for Lego Duplo bricks.

The tail as the thinnest part lays on a small roller (included in Qoopers set).

It is time for decorating.

1. Draw patterns for each part.

2. Then cut out two identical details for each body-part and the tail.

3. Fold the spine and glue two details with PVA glue (Elmer's glue).

4. Make it cone shape a bit.

5. Glue to the edge of cardboard with hot glue.

6. The result

As far as we made body and tail, it is time to paint them. The paper I used has a polish texture, so it was quite difficult for painting. So, I painted it in two steps.

Firstly I used very watered (not dense) paint as base paint.

The result looks not well, but it was ok because I made the second layer. The second layer I used with dense paint, with minimum water (dry brush). Hit by brush to get the texture.