Robot Concepts

To get a sense of my final robot, I designed 4 different concepts with one goal in mind: Automations designed for helpful usage. These are the results:

Concept 1: Underwater Express

Since the tentacle assignment I still had the ocean fresh in my mind so I created a very slow moving robot that is capable of traversing the ground underwater. The reason for the amount of legs this robot has is to enhance it's grip on the ocean terrain. I also wanted to explore a robot made from scrap, different pieces of different plates bolted onto the main chassis as if it was built on a budget. I quite liked this design and would like to see it expanded upon.

Concept 2: Coffee Heater

In 1983, Doctor Robert Markus discovered that if he left his morning coffee alone for 10 minutes, it would soon go cold thus spoiling his much wanted brew. So he built a moving bipedal cup warmer.

I love the idea of small automated contraptions being built from everyday objects whilst still retaining their use. Like this lighter for example, It can move and hold coffee and do things a normal lighter couldn't do. But at the same time it can use it's regular lighter function; sparking a flame. Combining these two attributes made the interesting result of a small robot that can probably do more than just heat coffee.

Concept 3: Automated Interplanetary Technician

Whilst designing this robot I wanted to try out a humanoid robot. I didn't quite get the proportions right but I think the concept is still depicted clear. The advantages of having a humanoid robot with all the functions of a human would be that special tools and equipment wouldn't have to be designed along side it, instead it can just use already established well known concepts of tools. Such as screwdrivers and wrenches. Which is why the idea of a technician robot felt so appealing whilst drawing this.

Concept 4: Seeking Roller

For this robot I had no real function other than it included tank treds and a lens attached to it's servo with a small weapon all powered by a small energy source like a battery. I think it could be designed to help people who are otherwise unreachable by humans or maybe to find lost objects. If I were to expand upon this I think I would add a definite function but I think the beauty of such a simple robot is that it can do so much more than it would seem.

Robot MoodBoard

Final Tentacle Creature Concept

Here is my final tentacle creature concept, which I based off my first design 'Ocean View House Monster'. It took a lot of fussing around in Mudbox to get the detail I wanted but I think the result turned out pretty well. If I could I would like to come back to this project and expand upon it much more into something like a small village, or perhaps making the Ocean look more believable.

Here is the original design:

Here are some stills of my final creature:

FRONT

BACK

LEFT

 RIGHT

OVERHEAD

And here is a turntable video of my final creature:

Tentacle Creature Concepts

To imagine what my final tentacle creature's qualities or actions would look like, I created 6 different concepts for a tentacle monster. Each moderately different than the other. With the mood board alone I didn't have a solid idea of my final creature but now with these sketches I think I have a pretty good idea of how the monster is going to look.

Concept 1: Ocean View House Monster

This design started as a giant squid emerging from the water, but I wanted to try something different. The monster instead has a house for a head, with one occupant. I tried to shape the head into a small island rock with some wildlife and plants growing from it to act as a sort of weird safe haven. The two eyes are the windows from the house and above them is the door.

I think is idea is one of my favourites because I could expand on this to make the entire creature a small village. With the main house being the creature head, and the other houses hanging off the individual tentacles.



Concept 2: Arachnid type tentacle creature

For this design I wanted to combine a spider and a creature with tentacles. Spider legs move like most insect legs do; Place on ground, Grip surface, Move body, Lift leg. With this creature I wanted to explore a tentacle monster having the same surface gripping properties as a spider but with each tentacle being able to move and twist into any direction, making the tentacle monster startlingly agile.

I didn't complete much of the body for this design but If I think it would be an interesting result if I were to expand on this concept.

Concept 3: Giant Armour Plated Squid

For this concept I wanted to keep the squid's ink trait in the tentacles but at the same time create an exoskeleton for the tentacles. This was an interesting idea to explore since now the natural movement of the squid would be limited due to the armour or exoskeleton. I only did create one of the tentacles but If expanded on this I think it would be an interesting task to design the exoskeleton of a giant squid.

Concept 4: The Fisherman's Pet

In this sketch I wanted another helpful tentacle creature, one that didn't necessarily attack but helped people out. I wanted to include the ocean again however I thought that the ocean tentacle monster had been overdone a little. So instead I based the monster in the sky. I also wanted to draw as many tentacles as possible to reveal the true size of the creature in the sky. I think I like the contrast between the looming creature overhead turning out to be helping a man have a fishing session at sea.

This is probably my second favourite concept and I would really like to see where this would go if I were to expand upon it.

Concept 5: The Hermit Monster

Still sticking to the sea theme, I wanted to design a creature similar to a hermit crab. Rather than a tentacle monster living inside a shell I think it turned out to be a tentacle monster that had taken over a hermit crab's shell and made it's home there, making holes to accommodate the many tentacles. I like the idea however I do not think I will expand upon it.

Concept 6: Fridge Monster hungry for Apple Juice on a Jet pack whilst being filmed

And this is the design where I completely ran out of ideas and combined things to see what worked. I have no idea why the monster is coming out of the fridge, why it has an insatiable appetite for apple juice, why the apple juice is strapped to a jet pack or why this entire situation is being filmed by a flying camera. But what I do know is that I probably will not be expanding on this. Ever.

Tentacle Moodboard

Here is a mood board to start off the development of my Tentacle concept:

House UVW Unwrapping

For this task I was given a pre-made house model to unwrap and texture. I had trouble with this because I had forgotten the proper techniques to manipulate the uvw unwrap and as a result, struggled to texture some elements of the house. I think unwrapping complicated static objects like this house is one of my weak points.

Here is the original house:

And here is the house unwrapped and textured:

Sci Fi Gun Low Poly Modelling

For this task I was given a reference image for which I was supposed to replicate the model shown in the image under a polycount restriction of 1500 triangles.

Here is the reference image:

And here is the low-poly model on a turn table: