Overgrown's Armadillo Drill

The development process of this modification proved incredibly challenging and required extensive research. In search of inspiration, I turned to video games such as Fallout and, specifically, Ark: Survival Evolved. Although Ark itself doesn't contain steampunk elements, there exists a mod with that aesthetic for this game which became the main source of ideas. One of the drills in this mod particularly impressed me with its aesthetic.

I really liked this style and decided to recreate it in Minecraft. After numerous trials and errors, I created a model that resembled the drill from the game externally, but it didn't fit into Minecraft's vanilla style at all. I continued my search which ultimately proved unsuccessful until I received a request to create an Origin based on an armadillo. While researching these animals, I came across a photo of an armadillo skeleton curled into a ball, and that's when the idea came to me: what if the drill resembled part of the arm that protects it?

The search for inspiration led me to an obscure figurine with a mech suit that used the concept of a drill replacing part of the arm in its design. I wanted my drill to look like a heavy but sufficiently portable device that would securely protect the arm. To maintain consistency with previously created steampunk items, a similar color palette was used. The most difficult stage turned out to be learning block animation, which caused significant difficulties.

I hope you like the result - working on it required a huge amount of time on research and mastering animation. Honestly, even now I'm not entirely confident in my knowledge. I incredibly want to sleep...

For users of versions below 1.21

If you're playing on client versions below 1.21, you'll need to install Optifine or, if using Fabric, CIT Resewn.

Texture features

The armadillo drill is activated by simply renaming any vanilla pickaxe.