The idea itself came from a combination of a discussion with Tracy, and with some of my previous work. Tracy was the first person to agree that there wasn't enough basis to make a whole unit based around a single picture done in my robot style. So I instantly thought back to my back-catalog and remembered that I've done a few pictures in chunks. So I decided to combine the nature of two of my previous pieces here. The first was a picture I did for school, where I repeated the same pattern but used a different technique for each. The second was a picture I did for a robot contest where I had to make three pictures that formed one. Each one worked on its own but became something greater when combined. That was something I liked.
Design-wise I wanted to make a departure from the more over-designed big bots I was used to so I looked back to some of my more traditional robots. My soulbot style was out the question as it was too skinny, and wouldn't give me anything to work with. None of my other existing ideas worked either so I had to come up with something new. The final design used elements found in quite a few old pictures as well as an injection of something new. It was going to have to be humanoid and accessable but charming at the same time. Bucky was a good place to start here. I also used The Highlander as a key reference as it was the best indicator of where my style's currently at.
For the cinema 4D chest I didn't immediately find inspiration anywhere. I just dived straight in there and started building. But as I worked and came up with ideas, the animated film Robots began to spring to mind very often, It became especially important as I began to toy around with physics engines to do some slight animation work with him. The madcap contraptions of Wallace and Gromit were also helpful when creating the feel for it.
For the Robotic Fineliner arm my main inspiration was of course, myself. This was the big glory-hog project and this is the most show-offy part in it. Of course I'm my own inspiration here. The key inspirations were the (at the time) half-drawn dragon and my citybots, as I felt like it needed to be very detailed. Bigger Chris proved to be a useful guide as a fairly similar approach was used here, essentially using my robot technique as overcomplicated colouring for half the project. This arm allowed me to continue that pictures ideas, especially the more advanced way I've been trying to use detail recently. Whilst the detail is mostly used to create form for the robots, it's also very useful as a way to throw attention around a picture. Here I tried to condense it to create points of interest and accentuate the key shapes, whilst glossing over others. I'm loving this effect and I got to use it to finish off the dragon too.
The vector arm was a nightmare. Inspired by the confidence from my second project, I thought it would be easy. I was so very wrong. As well as Home Sweet Home, I had to look to other places for inspiration, as the arm was looking too blank to call finished. The first idea I found was in one of my favourite character designs of all time: Glados from Portal. The way she's so inhuman in design yet still shows a degree of femininity is genius. But what i was interested in here was the way each section was broken up with lots of cabling. It's nothing new in my pictures but I really loved the way it was used here. I also borrowed a few tips from The Iron Giant for the hands, particularly Kayla Miller's fantastic poster design, trying to make them inviting rather than terrifying, as I feared the fineliner hands were.
I don't imagine I'd have started trying out my fineliner rendering had it not been for the work of Kei Zama. She's a Japanese artist known for her incredible ink rendering. She does a lot of Transformers art but isn't officially tied to them or anything. She just loves robots. I was also inspired by traditional pointillism techniques (which I actually used on the glass) and these helped to form my basic knowledge of how to shade with the medium.
I've skipped over the pencil thighs as pencil's such a done-to-death technique it's basically impossible to be inspired whilst using it. The next part to be made was the collage. Despite being loosely inspired by my own previous work in that medium, I also wanted to bring something new in. Despite having a lot of ideas plotted out, my main inspiration came from my material. I had to work with what I had. Thankfully this included a whole host of Which magazines as well as a few photography and music ones. This gave me pretty much everything I had. To get started I also made a couple of mood boards as I hadn't done any for this unit yet. I kinda regret this. Whilst they were a nice confidence boost, they used up a few too many of the best pictures from the magazines. Probably should have done these after.
The final part of the robot was the comic leg. The array of inspirations here is so incredible. It's essentially inspired by every comic I've ever read. predominantly it's superhero comics though, as those are big-budget enough to have both a penciller and an inker. It's also really impressive how much difference there is between finishes here. The main inspiration I'll use here comes from Olivier Coipel. He's one of the best Marvel-employed artists around and whilst his work has it's roots in traditional comic, art, the meticulous quality here is incredible.
I've already mentioned the influence of Transformers Devastator in the final setup of this robot but I feel like there are a few more ideas in here. The idea for the desert came from the incredible PS3 game Journey, and all the mysterious shreds of culture lying around in the sand. There's something really interesting about sand, and it also felt like it fitted the colours incredibly well. I'm just annoyed I spent a week making a 3D workshop first!
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