Robot - Silhouette> Concept> Design> Modelling> Lighting
In the first class of 3DCG in Digital Media Design at Red River College, we were asked to come up with a Robot.
In the following posts I will be talking about the journey of building the Robot.
The first thing we went through is the basics. We drew basic preliminary sketches of robot silhouettes. These silhouettes would provide us with enough of an idea to start the concept.
- This Section I will talk about how to make a Silhouette drawing into a concept, and little bit of Design -
The silhouette is a shape that should be recognizable with even seeing a single detail of the figure, or in the case the robot.
An example of a strong silhouette design can be found from the Feng Zhu School of Design videos here: http://bit.ly/qBFGVB. The video has a part 2 which I highly recommend watching.
Once you get the idea of the quick preliminary sketches which should take about 30secs to 2 mins for one sketch, you can now work your way onto detailing. Note: you should make about 5-10+ quick sketches and try not to build on-top of another sketch meaning try to draw something different every time.
Detailing a silhouette can be done just to give yourself enough reference to start working up a basic model. If the design is to be passed onto another person to model then you will want to go into a lot of detail. Colour is never required although sometimes its cool to add a little bit to give just that much extra detail.
When you are the artist and the modeller there are several things you'll find while doing these silhouette drawings. The first thing that humans are good at is finding a face. What I mean by this is if you're silhouette has a head you will see a face, then you can build on it to further the design of the character.
A character will have repetition within itself. Certain characteristics of its face can determine the characteristics of its body, armor, weapons, colour pallete, and its animation / movement.
Wow that's a lot to think about, but here's an easy way of starting:
First pick your subject > Today's is Robots =)
Now think of a something that already exists on this planet as a basic template
-or-
use your imagination to think of something new (chances are it will look like it has characteristics from something that exists on this planet already)
Okay so we have a basic idea of what this will look like.
Now we are going to draw, whether its digital or traditional.
Try and draw it as fast as possible not worrying about proportions but general shape instead.
Now it's a silhouette so fill it in, if there's a hole in the middle of the body then don't fill that in. (I think you get the idea now)
Now do another....x5-10!
Here is an example of what I did in class:
Okay so now you either have a bunch of blobs on your page or roughly some good silhouettes.
If you don't think you've managed to make a good one in 5-10 sketches don't worry!
Sometimes its better to just start detailing anyways, but if you're really not sure ask a friend on which ones they like. All alone? stand back from your work and see it from a distance, if you can pick out a good characteristic of one of your drawings then you can start.
Now you can begin rough detailing. You still want to go fairly fast but not as fast as the actual silhouette. Don't worry about shading just get some detail in there.
Here is an example of my rough detailing:
The ones I wanted to model are the ones indicated with a red dot.
Also if you are creating these for a client sometimes if you want them to choose the ones you like, putting extra detail, adding shadows and a bit of colour will help direct the eye. The composition of all the drawings helps as well.
Okay if you've managed to read this far then bonus, you can now high five yourself or just simply reach out to your monitor with both arms and nod your head.
*Ahem* did you actually do that? Because that would be awesome if you did.
Now we have a detailed silhouette, its now your choice whether or not you would like to give it shading, composition and some colour, or develop it into an actual concept drawing.
Here is the one I selected for modelling:
The next Post I will be talking about the start of modelling the robot.
