It wasn’t even the plan. It’s a flying droid, and it has arms or legs that will be outfitted with various tools. I designed it to be able to stand, and even walk if necessary. I put globular, glowing modules on the tips of its legs to help it gain purchase on surfaces. But I hadn’t conceived that it could gallop at a clip.
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3D can be harder on the would-be digital artist than 2D, in some ways. And then movable 3D can take technical difficulties up a notch. Animatable, rigged 3D gets even a bit more sticky, bringing us into The Convoluted Zone. Because I plan to ATTEMPT to animate the droid — if my laptop can handle the heat burden — I had to rig the legs. Rigging means assigning a hierarchy of elements, so that one controls the other: ex., the shoulder will rotate the elbow, and the elbow the forearm, but not the other way around (though that is another option].
Even if you don’t plan to animate your droid, the advantage of rigging it is that you can then easily pose it, for one or lots of glamour shots. It also forces you to think about how the various pieces interrelate, and how they would plausibly operate.
My droid’s legs fold up into the bottom of the main body.
Hey, it’s got 4 legs, but what’s that disc thing in the middle that’s collapsed into body of the droid?
Let’s take a closer look.
Ah, yes, it opens.
It can open to 90 degrees, if needed.
Apparently, the droid can gallop while lowering the disc. It might even be able to use that extra appendage for jumping, but that’s certainly not its main purpose.
Here it’s in about a three-quarter standing position.
Right, it’s got a metal detector. Good for combing the beach and meeting beach blanket bikini droids. OK, the disc on the end of the appendage is intended to allow the droid to attach itself to a larger machine — a spaceship, battle star, larger robot, death star, submarine, tank (you get the idea) — after which it will use its various tools (coming shortly] and perhaps its weapons to compromise, disable, or destroy the larger machine. You see, just flying, it can get in a handful of shots in a pass-by attack, but if it can hold on to its target, its very difficult to defend against. Y’know, if it’s attached to a battle star, fighters can’t really fire on it without risking hitting their own mother ship.
The disk is an electronic magnet, but will also be outfitted with a suction cup, and a drill or two or three or four. Not every surface is metal, or magnetic, or non-porous. It the target machine is in gravity, and is relatively stationary, than the droid doesn’t need its apparatus.
I’ve got a ways to go, even with just the modeling itself. I haven’t done anything with the back of the droid, and it will have a propulsion unit similar to the front, as well as comparable mini-wings rotated perpendicularly for steering purposes. Ah, it needs some antennae and sensor action on the top. The sides will need some doodads ‘n doohickeys’. I’ll surprise myself. Much of the design happens in the making, and re-making.
One last pose for prosperity:
Thanks for watching, and tune in a again for another exciting episode.
~ Eric Wayne
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Art & Crit by Eric Wayne 