Building the Bombardier Beetle Cannon

As promised, here's the next step of the designs for this Bombardier Canon....gotta come up with a cool name for it! What I did here was lay a sheet of tracing paper over the original drawing of the Bombardier Beetle, so I could block out his body. When I had a light outline of the beetle itself I started sketching the mandatory components of this artillery piece. I would like the end result to be something which has been decorated by it's users and well used. In doing so it's easy to lose track of how something works. And that needs to be a priority, the construction needs to appear as though it could work. So this canon is operated by a rider who pulls a lever (A), which through the workings of some gears and pulleys pulls a hook (B) which is pierced into the clavicle area of the beetle. The chief 'herder' will position himself at the head of the beast (which is shrouded to ensure the beast's confusion, and response to the hook), and push a long pole with a fork at the end under the head of the beetle. By pushing the beetle's head up, the tug of the hook is more uncomfortable. When the beast feels threatened it will release a volatile fluid from its abdomen (D). The ant rider 'steers' the abdomen in order to aim the burning blast. In hopes of better focusing the spray the ants will often fasten a cone to the bombardier's abdomen.
And that's that. It sounds like it could work...kinda...it's a comic of bugs, work with me here! The cool thing is that Bombardiers really do spray a one hundred degree fluid from their abdomen as a defense mechanism. The typically make a loud 'pop' noise when it happens as well. In any case, the next step is some more tracing paper, and moving on to the extra stuff, the bells and whistles, and then I'll throw some ink into it, and we should have a pretty rocking artillery piece!