This is my first game art project. My previous work is more high poly focused so I'm really excited to give low poly a try. I'd like to make a clockwork war machine/robot'ish thing that Archimedes made in ancient times but only recently became known. Here's the bronze monster's long and drawn out back story for people who like reading things...
A little known invention that Archimedes made late in his life was the "Wrath of Archimedes". A giant robot designed to protect Syracuse from the Romans. It was almost complete when the Romans sacked the city. A roman soldier stormed into Archimedes’s house to find that he was just about to place the 2nd half of the clockwork brain into the beast. The soldier killed Archimedes and then, with the help of dozens of soldiers, restrained the furious machine. It was then sent back to Rome along with the other half of its brain to be reverse engineered.
On the way back to Rome the boat that carried the machine ran into unfavorable weather conditions. This may have been a factor in the ships sinking... an angry Greek Poseidon smashing it with his trident may have also been a factor. The Wrath of Archimedes was free but on the ocean floor.
For thousands of years is searched for the other half of its brain. Unfortunately its lack of intelligence hampered the search as it kept looking in the same place millions of times. Recently it was caught in a fisherman's net and brought to the surface. The fishermen were astounded when the machine was dropped onto the deck and immediately started shouting about its lost brain.
The fisherman brought the Wrath back to the dock and told it to wait a moment while they get its brain. This calmed the machine and it waited patiently while the two men rushed to a local museum. They explained that they had accidentally caught a very angry artifact that apparently lost its brain. The museum's curator replied that a mysterious object with lots of gears was found in the same place during 1901. It was named the antikythera mechanism and believed to be an ancient computer for tracking the movements of planets. Maybe it’s actually just the missing part of the machine’s brain. Some quick book work revealed that it currently resides in the National Archaeological museum in Athens.
The fisherman went back to the dock and told the Wrath that the rest of its brain is in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Before they had a chance to give it
directions to Athens it angrily stormed off, wandering the globe looking for Athens and destroying everything in its path. The fisherman decided it’d be best not to worry about it, it’s someone else’s problem now.
I'm thinking the character will be large and bulky. Lots of bronze machinery and gears with wood acting as a major support structure. A giant Archimedes face will be on the front. The arms and legs should use a pulley system to move. His eyes could use mirrors to focus sunlight to burn its victims similar to the mirrors that supposedly burned Roman ships. An Archimedes’ claw can be mounted on its back that would catapult out and pull its enemies down. I'd like to incorporate a lever as a weapon to. I was thinking the crowbar is a good example of a lever but Gordon Freeman already took that as his weapon of choice. Also an Archimedes screw should somehow be used. Maybe a jet of water shoots out of his mouth or something.
height: 3.5m
weight: a lot
temperament: unquenchable rage
fighting style: powerful but extremely clumsy. This character would be really difficult to control, maybe every time you play the character the controls are remapped. That’d be a great way to drive gamers crazy. It has absurdly powerful weapons but sometimes faces the wrong way or injures itself.
I’ll get some concept drawings up soon.
-Jay Gambell