Build it up Concept Ideas

Concept Idea

With much discussion, our group managed to come together with a concept that fed off all of our design ideas. By breaking ourselves into sections of the design process, we came up with an idea that we all felt happy with. We wanted to give the art style a less futuristic feel, to keep in line with the older idea of architecture (historical buildings) but to use robots instead. We automatically came to the conclusion that a pre-war, 1930’s style was perfect for this sort of idea. Reason being is we can make the game entirely fictional because of the lack of robotics during the Victorian era. Alongside this, it would also appeal to our target audience as it invites them to use their imagination within the design, but to also keep the idea focused on older generations with the designated art style. Using this theme enabled us to experiment with the histories of older mechanics and what things would’ve looked like during that time frame.  It became familiar with the ‘steam punk’ feel, but wanted to steer away from that idea due to the clichés that already exist, so we kept steady with what was outstanding in history and used it to our advantage.

The 1930’s was a very rustic and industrial time. The colours usually included dark colours like, browns, blacks, rusty oranges and steels. Also colours like dull greens and reds were used as they were often used to represent military rank or status. I constructed a colour chart to get a rough idea of the palette I would use to apply tonal work to my finalized robot idea. I wanted to give him this industrial, war machine type feel, as if it was constructed for a robot army in upcoming war. After sketching and playing around with modernized colours and shapes, i wanted to take a more complex approach to show the workings of how the robot would function, just like in the 1930’s with steam trains or sewing machines. Here are some images both representing this, and tonal range:

As clearly shown, most of these mechanics show the works on and around the outside; it wasn’t very well concealed as items today. We tend to hide the inner workings with plastic or metal casings, for both a better appeal and also to give the item a longer shelf life. From these images I can understand that in order to make a successful 1930’s looking robot, I had to adopt the older designs. With that in mind, I wanted to focus on the facial structure of my older robot, as I believe it can be the most important feature of a character. To aid me within this process i used my current knowledge to pick out existing examples, where both video games and movies have adopted a similar style.

I chose two main character designs that  i believe represent our chosen era, and the art style i want to produce during my Photoshop work. These are 'The Big Daddy' from Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game called 'Bioshock' and 'The Iron Giant' animated movie made by 'Warner Bros'. Both of these media have successfully researched and portrayed a style of robot that resembles their chosen historic period (1930's-1950's) which is the same as ours. It was interesting to see how they used the rustic colours i implied earlier and also showing the inner workings on the surface, such as bolts, screws, metal and chains.

From this close analysis  i wanted to construct a facial feature that represented victorian warfare. I wanted my robot to have a very military look and feel so i thought of the perfect idea. Instead of adding jaw lines or major facical structures, i simple made the head into the form of a 2nd world war gasmask. Within using this idea i can not only adopt the style of the era, but also add the militant and warlike feel. However, it didn't seem alien or robotic enough for me, so i decided to have one large central eye instead of two standard sized ones. As this added to the fictional feeling of 'alien' with this mechnical creature, and to fully add that concept of and older design. From this i can now shape the body in a tradtional way by using more simplistic shapes but also keeping in mind the complexities of the innerworkings viewable. I believe within using these factors i will be able to successfully create a robot that is sufficient within the time frame we have chosen for this board game idea.

:)

Bibliography:

. Google Images