Rough 'em up

rough robot silhouette mixed with gesture sketches

Been doing some rough sketches for a robot design.  I was influenced way back by my colleague (here's his blog) on making gesture drawings to start off a design and its pose.  I grew quite accustomed to gestures that I almost use gesture drawing every time even in blocking off silhouettes.  It's not so obvious here but I did start on a lot of doodles and waves before coming up with those shapes.

Here I just started randomly stroking shapes into a body to make a humanoid robot.  There was no category or type of robot I wanted to do.  It was all spontaneous.  This could spell another more envisioned design for a robot.  For now, I'm just contented on drawing up these type of works until I become successful in making time for my first true transformer.

About that...

Around 6 months ago I tried to do a transformer robot of my own.  The project was a prototype for something bigger I was planning.  So I breezed through modeling and headed straight to rigging and animation just to know if I could pull it off.  Sure enough, I did.  The transformation was basic but it had the logic in it.  I said early this year I would create a better looking and more detailed version of the prototype robot.  I actually did some rough concept art but didn't find enough time and energy for it in the recent months.  Here is the latest test animation I did for the prototype and some of its concept art:

As of the moment I'm putting this on hold or rebooting it as I'm focusing on the first step of a project which is concept art.  I do hope some of these roughs will continue on to see a ton of refinement and tweaks and at least two more shades of gray. :)