GAC #11: Nikola Tesla - The Eclectic Electric Eccentric

#1

Name: Nikola Tesla

Age: 149

Height: 6’ 4"

Weight: 170 lbs (w/o weapons)

Birthplace: Lika, Balkan Peninsula

Fighting Style: Narodno Rvanje and Real Aikido

Weapon: Tesla Gauntlets

Backstory: Not alive, but not dead, Nikola Tesla walks the earth a vessel for the energy he sought so faithfully in life. Enraged by the hubris and brutality of men like Edison and Marconi, Tesla fights a Luddite’s war, destroying the world’s most important machines in a quest for simplicity and peace. Trained in traditional Serbian wrestling, he also spent a decade studying under Grand Master Ljubomir Vracarevic, who studied under the O Sensei, Morihei Ueshiba. He has enhanced his physical prowess by building a pair of powerful electrical gauntlets which help him to control and manipulate the energy that threatens to consume his very existence.

Concept:

Model:

*Note: Concept and model are still WIP, will only post most recent and accurate concepts here at the top.

#2

WOW, Nikola Tesla! I have always been a big fan of his work, in the field of energy

Best of luck to you and I can’t wait to see what you do with his crazy inventions

:buttrock:

#3

nicola tesla would so kick edison’s ass.

#4

but he wouldn’t stand a chance against the Edison Twins

</obscure public tv series reference>

#5

great choice Adam … but darn it, I was gonna do tesla… :sad: are we allowed to do two of the same??? :deal:

#6

aww! i didn’t even think of him! please tell me he’s gonna use tesla coils as powerful as the weapons in command and conquer: red alert?

#7

some early concepts:

Am thinking of going a sort of Ayame Kojima Dracula route - big, ostentatious jacket, etc. Am wanting to kind of avoid the cliche steampunk look, but having a hard time doing so thus far. Had typed up a very long, elaborate version of the backstory, but I accidentally hit ‘back’, and lost it all, so am pissed, will try to rewrite most of it when I get a chance.

#8

Hmura - I have no problem with it, can’t wait to see your take on him!

Bent - Edison twins? damn - I thought I watched a lot of PBS! I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about man :slight_smile:

Devil,Geese - I hope that I am able to do him justice. Want to involve the coils in his design somehow, and his other inventions as well, but do not want to just make him a steampunk mad scientist dude. Will be working on some full body sketches over the next few days!

#9

First full-body concept. As you can see I opted to go with the cliche steampunk mad scientist look :stuck_out_tongue: not sure what to do about the boots still, i friggen hate designing from the knee down, I think it is the hardest part of designing a character. The gauntlets will be attached via hoses to an ornate, victorian-looking backpack, with some of those cool pointy light bulbs sticking off it on the back (hello alpha-maps). Tesla’s gauntlets are used to control and channel the energy that is barely contained within his corporeal hull. He uses the apertures mounted on his palms to steal people’s souls, and replenish his own youth. Would like to be able to do 2 totally different gauntlet designs, one “positive” and one “negative” (a la Ikaruga and MP2) but that will take a lot of time and screw up the model mirroring…but it might be worth it, i dunno.

#10

Hey Adam, great work on the concept! (now I know what not to include in mine :slight_smile: )
This will look awesome in 3D. Keep it up!

#11

ok just finished pencils for final concept:

Have to play around with some sizes still - i think the left hand is a tad too large, the right hand is way too small, head is slightly too big, lower legs are a tad small. Will mend before inking and coloring tomorrow! Otherwise am pleased with look in general. gave him “angry capcom villain” face also.

EDIT - quickly fixed most of the proportion problems in photoshop, sketch looks much better now…can view old, weird-looking one here to see changes: http://lastchancemedia.com/adam/tesla/tesla-full-2.jpg

#12

just finished inks and photoshopping to get nice lineart:

#13

some early colors:

EDIT - added a close-up of the face:

#14

great concept so far, the colour has certainly added to it. i love the style, its very steampunk, and would fit into fighting game very well, along with some killer tesla gloves moves. cant wait to see the progression to 3d

#15

Cool idea! Tesla kicked so much ass… Nice colors on the concept piece.

According to popular legend (and thanks to a piece by Laurie Anderson), Tesla and Edison worked together briefly, but their styles clashed so badly that they eventually became rivals. The story goes, Tesla would always come to the lab dressed for the opera, in a white tie and waistcoat, with spats on his shoes.

I’d say the boots you’ve got on Tesla here look somewhat strange, I think he’d look much more imposing if he were in formal white tie and tails (and spats!), wrapped in the eerie glow from his coil-energized fists…

/jzero

#16

to both, thx for the kind words!

jzero - from what i have been reading they were just dramatically different kinds of workers, much beyond the way they dressed. Tesla would sometimes go for months without accomplishing anything, before suddenly having an epiphany and inventing AC electricity, or flourescent lighting, or the radio. Edison was, as he himself classically quoted, “10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration”; Edison was a trial-by-error, plow-through kind of guy, while Tesla was more like the everything-must-be-perfect-before-i-build-a-working-version kind of guy. all of this outside of the fact that Edison (rightly) saw AC electricity as a very dangerous competitor, since all of NYC was wired up by DC to Edison’s power plant at the time…

One of the more popular stories (similar to a story from Atari’s heyday about Steve Wozniak and a Breakout arcade machine) about Tesla and Edison is that when Tesla first came to America, Edison told him that he’d pay $50,000 for Tesla to fix all the problems Edison’s DC power system was having, assuming that it would be impossible, it was basically a joke. Tesla fixed everything in 3 months and asked for his payment! Just the beginnings of their troubles…

Eventually Tesla found a patron of sorts in the form of Mr. Westinghouse who would sort of funnel money into Tesla’s lab in exchange for the benefits of these occasional eurekas. I had a lot of this written up for Tesla’s official backstory, but I accidentally deleted it in the text entry window here and was too lazy to write it all up again, so I just posted the last paragraph of it (which is more succinct and interesting anyways).

Phew :smiley: sorry - anyways, regardless of all that, the boots are currently my least favorite part of the design. Right now they are supposed to be long, pointy steel-toed boots based on long, pointy boots and dress shoes popular in the 1800s, so on the model they will look slightly dressier than they do in the picture. I thought it would be cool to have metal on them so they could spark when he was doing sweep-kicks and stuff, keep working the electric theme. A lot of the source pictures I was working from featured the full 3-piece suit and dress shoes, but I tried some sketches with just a full pant and it looked boring.

I think the zip-down collar around the lower-leg is going to disappear by the time the model is finished…I wanted to tie in some element from the upper torso design, plus incorporate some adventurer/pirate elements, but a lot of my friends have complained about that part of the character already, so I will be coming up with some sort of replacement. I just don’t know what yet!

#17

He could of course wear rubberised boots :slight_smile:

#18

Very cool concept sketches! I love the look that you have for this fellow.

I feel like someone should make Marconi and have Tesla and Marconi do a simultaneous electric/radio wave combo attack. :slight_smile:

Btw. I really agree with ArcticWolf that he should have rubberized boots.

#19

thx for comments - am still up in the air over the leg design in general, I think i need more references…I have started on the model, and have a good deal of the torso done, plus the general proportions of the rest of the character. i’ll post pics when i get back from vaca tomorrow night!

edit - am worried about doing big, clunky rubber boots because i keep picturing KISS! am going to try and come up with something worthwhile though…

#20

Excellent concept - looks really colourful and ‘capcomy’!

Those things on his wrists remind me a little too much of the guy at the start of hellboy with the metal thingies on his arms though… rasputin, was it?

Anyway - keep it up - nice to see you have a good concept to start with (unlike mine)

Lets see some polys!