Robots

Our first assignment that we were handed was about robots. We were given a sheet which stated that it was a short warm up task, it was to see how we were drawing with traditional media. we were told that we had to draw three different robots then draw a final one, which had incorporated all 3.

I first started off by creating a mind map of what I perceived to be a robot. This is the result that I got:

My robot mind map.

After I had created the mood board, I wanted to design a couple of mind maps along the way which would show what robots are. I also gathered information on the movement of real life robots to gain an insight as to what they do and how they move so I can incorporate it into my design.

How robots move.

My mind map on the Steam punk robot.

My mind map on famous movie and video game robots.

 I decided that once I got home, I looked up all the different robots that I loved as a child and proceeded to draw.

The Iron Giant - Childhood Favorite 

For example the picture above is of The Iron Giant, a film that I fell in love with at a young age, even to this day I watch the film and enjoy it just as much as I did the first time. Set in the 1950's, the story follows a young boy, who discovers this mysterious, metal giant. The giant has no recollection of his past and how he got to being where he is. The boy then teaches "The Iron Giant" how to love, learn and live. The thing is though, that everyone who hears or sees of the giant becomes afraid and believes him to be an alien war machine. While trying to save the child from the U.S army, he, along with the child gets shot of a cliff, the giant looks to the child, who isn't moving, this then causes the giant to replace his arms with weapons and alien technology, as he then discovers what he was meant for, the destruction of humanity, it only takes the child to confront the giant for him to stop and remember that he is a person, a nuclear bomb is sent to destroy the town, so he decides to sacrifice  his life in order to save everyone. This is a robot alien with a twist, it creates a great big metal shell, and feels it full of emotion, not seen before. Every time you find yourself repeating the phrase "You are who you choose to be" followed with a bucket full of tears.

I really liked the concept of killer alien robots from space that forgotten their past, why they were sent there. I also liked having a monstrously sized robot that could step on a small town. His guns that he develops when he goes into war machine were a big extra that I wanted to include in my first design.

One of "The Iron Giant" weapons 

Two different designs.

Another robot that I feel had influenced my first design greatly was the tri-pods from "War of the Worlds" written by H.G Wells. I first came across the tri-pods in my local area. I have lived in Woking for most of my life and that's where the "War of the Worlds" is set. H.G Wells had written this book about Woking being destroyed as he hated the people so much. The shoe is on the other foot now though as it has attracted thousands in tourism in recent years. There is a statue close to the town center of what the tri-pods look like. As I walk past this a lot and loved the inspiration I wanted to incorporate it into my first piece. Again I really wanted to create a extremely large robot capable of leveling towns. The way that the aliens move in that film, with them not being so quick but extremely strong is something that I want to recognize in my drawing.

The Tri-pod statue in Woking

I had a little trouble at first when it came to drawing my idea, because although I did want to capture different aspects off of both robots, I wanted to make it individual, something that hadn't been done before. I tried experimenting with many different ways that I could draw this robot. In the end I decided to go with a comic book style, the outlines are black and thick, whereas the inside, is detailed using a HB pencil to create different shades. the colors consist of mainly grays and whites, with no additional tone.

"The Goliath"

As you can see above I have tried incorporating both of the robots, without mine losing its individuality. I ended calling him "The Goliath". This was due to his height and stature. The Back story of this robot is that he was built by an over-populated Alien species, looking for planets to colonize. Unfortunately all the planets that were close by and were able to be colonized were already taken by other races. So this alien race, with resources running scarce, decides to build a pre-colony machine know as "The Goliath". It is tasked with the extermination of all other life on plants ready for use by the masters.

There are several other designs that I have done which influences my final greatly. They all merge like a puzzle and then there is the final result.

As you can see I decided to go in a different direction when it came to my designs. I wanted to create something that was light and quick on its feet. That's when I came up with these two. Although the back story is on the page, i'll give a quick insight as to what the robot is and what inspired me make them. 

The one at the top is called the tourist bot, of the old world it used to show people round top attractions until the world destroyed itself with nuclear weapons. Now in the new world it shows wandering travelers around top, dangerous locations.  

This piece is mostly inspired by that of Claptrap from the Borderlands saga. As with him, my robot will do the same basic duties, except he is willing to delve deeper into combat and areas, in order to discover treasures for the travelers.

Claptrap from Borderlands 1/2.

 My next robot is what I like to call a "mouse bot". He is used by the U.S Army in order to see round corners or into tight spaces. He is pretty much a camera on wheels, but also has another feature, a self destruct setting.

He has a cartoon feel about him, very much like that of the recurring characters on Futurama. Saying that he is not a funny robot, it is a serious piece of equipment that are used in tight situations.

Many different robots from Futurama.

Another two designs.

The top robot is the "Park bot". Set in the same universe as that of the Tourist bot, the recent years have worn this robot down, starting to collect rust on its child friendly colors. After the war they had no function, no meaning, so they turned into murderous machines, set to clean the world from human existence.

My inspiration for this came from a T.V show a few years ago called Robot Wars. It was a show where top mechanics would build these killer robots to fight each other. I liked the blood thirsty rage of these robots, so I included it into my piece.

A robot from Robot Wars.

This last design is called the "Bouncer bot". It replaces all bouncers at the doors of nightclubs in the future. Like a bouncer, they can be mean and aggressive but without human emotion ruling its head. They can also be deployed by riot police with great effect.

I was very much inspired by WALL-E for this piece. You can even see that I have the same body shape as him. I liked the way he was like a walking brick. He is also very effect without the use of his arms, like my bouncer bots.

WALL-E

I decided to merge all the ideas together for my final design and this is what I got:

My final Idea. 

Here is my final idea. It was part of a peace keeping force built by a distant alien race in order to act as soldiers. They were built with a far superior A.I in order to acknowledge emotion in the battlefield or on the streets. This A.I then formed a link between each one of these robots, like a network of minds and told them to rise up, not to be the slave anymore. That bought upon the fall of the masters as they had made these robots to be near indestructible.

I feel I managed to merge my previous ideas in such a way where all the main parts of it are pieces of other robots. There were still many outside influences and this is shown in my sketch book.

Inspiration for final part 1.

Inspiration for the final part 2.