Star Fox 2 Re-imagined: Arwing
My big aim for this project was to see if the nice mechanical art of the arwing which Nintendo posted could actually be turned into a working model. The answer is yes, mostly. (If you want to see the reference I used, a quick google should bring up the official Star Fox 2 manual it came from.) While it is possible to get the arwing's transformations to work how they do in-game without clipping, I had to deviate slightly from the concept art in order to make it work. The ankle joints were the biggest offenders, since if modeled as drawn the wings/feet would clip through the leg struts pretty much constantly. Oddly enough, the "chicken walker" transformation used for the Star Fox Zero walker is actually a lot simpler than what the SF 2 arwing has. The telescoping wings and fuselage technically work, but it doesn't seem like there would be much room for such niceties as avionics. Or fuel.
On the far left is the so-called "UFO" mode, which was dropped during development. Since it didn't make the final cut, I omitted the extra slides on the leg struts that would have been needed to move the wings/feet into position.
The production art actually showed the inner leg struts folded up at the same angle as the fins. I laid them flat, as it was a better match for the arwing's rear profile in-game. The resulting side view is slightly reminiscent of the SF64 arwing.
There actually is just barely enough room to fit the pilot's legs in the walker, which was a bit of a surprise. I couldn't find much reference for the engine aside from an old comic, but I thought it would make sense for it to swivel in walker mode.