Hi all! Following advice, I wanted to share this concept that I did some months ago.
Lore:
There was a droid named R2-H5. R2-H5 was created to help people with their daily tasks and to make their lives easier. But as fate would have it, a big war broke out and R2-H5 got separated from its owners.
R2-H5 wandered through the war-torn galaxy for what seemed like an eternity, trying to find its way back to civilization. Along the way, it helped many people, using its programming to fix broken machines and to provide medical assistance. But despite its best efforts, R2-H5 could not find its way home.
Finally, R2-H5 came across a group of rebels who were fighting against the empire. They were in desperate need of a droid like R2-H5 and they quickly put it to work. R2-H5 used all of its skills and knowledge to help the rebels in their fight against the empire.
The war ended and the rebels emerged victorious. R2-H5 had found a new purpose, a new name (Adam) and a new home with the people it had helped. Though it would always miss its original owners, Adam was content knowing that it had been able to use its abilities to make a difference in the world.
Years passed and Adam became a legend among the people. Everyone knew the story of the droid that got lost during the war and how it had helped the rebels to defeat the empire and bring peace to the galaxy.
About technical & concept:
The model was done in Rhinoceros using common tools and commands. I recommend doing some sketching first to have an idea before modeling, this is going to help us save some time during the process. We could say the hard part of the job is when you must join almost everything into one piece. Each part should have a function related to the robot itself. Antennas for connections, Speakers for communication, hard case for protection, etc. Of course, I attached some “aesthetic” items to give to the robot some visual “complexity” but also these parts have a kind of function.
Booleans, tons of sweeps and fillet edges. In these cases, it’s clever to work directly with 3D shapes and not curves. Of course, that was because the concept was quite clear to read in 2D so I found a better approach directly with 3D. I recommend working with 2d views and blocking out the shapes from “less” to “more”. After we are “good to go” with the result, start putting some detail. Macro, Mid, Micro.
I recommend checking surfaces all the time, and also using our best friend “sel bad objects” or “refreshing shade” when Rhino start to collapse because of the data.
Rendering:
I rendered a lot with Vray for Rhino in the past, but now I’m rendering with Blender. So I took this model and export it in FBX. I know the data is not perfect, but we can start working directly in Blender with it. I preferred not to re-do anything in Blender because of the common topology problems so I started doing some rendering without UVs, etc. I prepared some materials, some lighting and started doing some tests. Here you can see some close ups.
Stickers were made in Photoshop. Postproduction made inside Blender. Nothing fancy, just a bit of Glare and some color correction. I tried to create this kind of cinematic lighting to feel the character inside a movie or something.
Finally, I don’t spend too much time on these projects. As designers I think we learn how to produce in no time for personal purposes because we don’t have too much free time to work in these kinds of things. Of course, I found later a lot of stuff that can be improved, but I learned long time ago that the process is quite important so I can implement that knowledge in the next one.
Hope you liked and feel free to reach in case you want to talk about these topics.
L
