Merging

Remember the discussion about where to place the horn? It turned out to be an easy decision on the virtual 3D model. Put it on, spin it around, rotate a little, move back and forth - Done.

In reality aligning the horn to the platform was one of the hardest tasks. Only then we discovered the true meaning of degrees of freedom. It had to be perfectly in line with the vertical symmetry-axis of the head. And most importantly we had to get the angle right. Too much swept back and the horn would lean backwards, looking totally dumb. Too much to the front - the horse would starve. The positioning was a no brainer compared to rotational alignment.

As you can see: The magic arm proved very handy again, holding the horn in position, while the modelhead + platform was movable. Nevertheless it took us at least two hours, realigning everything from scratch multiple times, measuring angles, comparing with the simulation and digital imagery.

Laminating the junction didn't even take half that long. Three to four layers of 300 and 160g/m^2 covered with the usual finer 3 cm wide fabric tape, with no moulding, worked way better, than we had expected. A little electric tape was added to get the edges flat.

Next: Cleaning edges, filling, sanding the junction. No big deal. We decided to paint the lowest fifth of the horn the same way we did with the platform: Green with aging. It's supposed to look like the white horn is bursting out of it's bronze cover.

For weather proofing, a sprayed transparent epoxy-based layer was added.

This is the final result:

Unicorn Junction 360 on Vimeo.

Everything in place. We were good to go.