Longer Tail A'la Hook, H2O, Fishtails...

[OceanWhisper]

Pearlie, if you would stop crashing around and throwing your molds and supplies on the floor, you might be less short in the future.

Hahaha

[Echidna]

Short or no, I agree.
I love elongated tails and vertical flukes, but imo it cannot work.

If you plan to have your legs/feet like in that sketch, the flue will chop up and down as Keiris said.
If the mechanism is supposed to move the fluke from side to side while in that position, you will move vertically in front (dolphinkick) and the fluke will somehow be moved horizontally.
Now that will make for an awkward sight!
And the eye is very quick to pick up unnatural movement.

In some other thread years ago, we talked about this too, and I brought up an example of a vertical-fluked mermaid.
You can do this in SL with the right animation kit.
Maybe I can upload a vid of said animation when my main PC can be salvaged, but however:

In said animation you can see the movement one would have to be able to do to swim with a vertical fin in a reasonable fashion.
It's basically a dolphinkick done horizontally, which isn't possible with a human spine and knee joints.

[Marinus Mortimer]

I apologize if I was short with you earlier. I was annoyed by other things, and had a pretty trying afternoon.

I would be interested in following if you do decide to explore this as a project.

Don't worry PearlieMae but I'm not making it vertical many the sketch looks that way but it's a horizontal extension I'm aware that my spine is not mention to move like that , Keiris I doo want it to swim right I'm a competitive freediver here in P.R. so I'm mostly going to use my tails at sea, so an efficient propulsion mechanism would be ideal, I don't want to die (but I would die happily at sea) I'm trying to upload the other sketches of the prototype models. many those would look more practical.

And again PearlieMae don't worry about it, I'm like one of your biggest fans, and I love your work and adore the unique style of your art.

[Marinus Mortimer]

this looks like the typical extension but it's made or will be made out of Polycarbonate plastic sheet , I added the spring because I think it could add stability, plus I can imagine that when I kick the spring will aid in the kick (open to any suggestions), in between (1) and (2) the stainless steel spring will be located.

[Marinus Mortimer]

This is the reverse version of the first one I posted non of these are supposed to be vertical.


And this one is my latest sketch I'm still working on it, trying to figure out the spring mechanism for the inside of the prototype where the two pieces meet. Still got some thinking to do.

[PearlieMae]

Don't think in terms of coiled springs. Think leaf springs, like in a car suspension system...flat pieces of spring steel, maybe two or three layered...

https://www.google.com/search?q=leaf...IVze-ACh1Naw2h

[Marinus Mortimer]

Don't think in terms of coiled springs. Think leaf springs, like in a car suspension system...flat pieces of spring steel, maybe two or three layered...

https://www.google.com/search?q=leaf...IVze-ACh1Naw2h

I really can't imagine how a leaf spring would work on this but with your brains I bet that you'd make it work. but what i was trying to say is, imagine a coil spring that you push down it pushes up and vise versa it should look something like this.



inside of the red area