Battle Mech WIP

Plan: Create an extremely high detailed original mech in ZBrush, with a poly count up in the 100 million range.

And here's a toe to get me in the mood.

Extending backwards

Small update;

Toes. Meet feet.

2 million polys so far.

Outstanding details. Awesome work!

Hey man,

I love those details! Do you have any sketches as to what the mech will look like, or are you just improvising as you go? Can't wait to see how this turns out!

-AJ

Improvising and building upwards slowly. I like to place low res details as proxies, to get the general form going. But if I see the entire piece as a big lump of detail, I'm prone to hurrying through these steps and risk losing patience.

Update | Ankle and Heel starting to take form

Slight re-design in the rear. Wondering about the logistics of the placement here, if you have any comments, I welcome them.

Hey man,

Your details look stunning, but its hard to get an idea on the overall form your trying to achieve. Is this a biped? Will it have those backwards legs like you see on the 80's and 90's robots?

I've been down a similar creative road that your taking before, and its really hard to come up with a finished product that looks balanced and aesthetically pleasing. I tired making a biped robot, and it just came out like a blob of instantiated details. I ended up going into Photoshop and knocking out a few sketches to get the from and proportions looking right, and the next attempt came out much better. Although my model wasn't nearly as sharp and detailed as yours.

My theory from looking at really well done mech renders is that the more organic they look, the more pleasing and interesting they are to the viewer. Hydraclic cylinders act as muscles, armor plates as skin, and various life support and mechanical systems as organs. Kain from RoboCop, the lifter from Aliens, the mini gun walkers from The Matrix, and The Terminator all seem to tick those boxes.

-AJ

Thanks. I appreciate the idea that I should have clear direction, but it doesn't benefit me to work this way on personal projects. Though I may regret the decision in the end, who knows.

I have enough reference images for what I consider 'well balanced' mech legs, that it shouldn't go too far in any bad directions. As far as the body and head go, I'll arrive at decisions for these details when the time comes.

It holds my interest to work loosely, seeing the pieces come to life slowly. Knowing ahead of time what I would like to accomplish, will only serve to agitate me, where as this is a more creative flow, for me at least.

Progress update;

A friend pointed out that the joints should have had the complexity of the feet and have ended up being too large. Would you agree? Or do you think I've made logical choices for the connections I've created so far?

Actually I think it more appropriate to scale down those joints. The right side feels better to me.

You do realise that once you Z-brush file reaches ~4GB it will get corrupted not? (4GB is the limit with none 64-bit applications)

Otherwise, stunning work, I'll be looking forward to further updates!

Cobra 6