RUST ~Final Major Project~ Research and Daily Sketches

PACIFIC RIM (2013) ~Guillermo Del Torro

Watched this movie as was recommended to me by a friend in my list of sources of references and inspiration for my project, and its a good insight into a more recent movie that utilizes robotics as a major movie focus. The movie is essentially a big monster movie, that sees a world where alien monsters have broke through into our world to destroy it, and mankind's only chance of survival and combating them are the huge mechs (or 'Jaegers') that humans pilot to fight against them and even the playing field. It's pretty much just a brainless action movie, with predictable plot lines and generic characters, but its the large scale on screen characters that shine: the designs of the monsters and the mechs are fantastically detailed and a lot of time and attention has been put into bringing them to life on screen. The mechs themselves all have distinct design traits that reflect the nationality of the people piloting them (american: standard heroic design. Russian: heavy/stoic build, nuclear powered, etc), as well as all being designed to be as believable as possible (with small detail paid attention to pistons, pivots, joints and vents). The film was very obvious in its homage to Japanese Anime cinema, and i think has done a good job in portraying the mechs and monsters in a western style, especially making the scale of the mechs seem believable within the world that movie depicts.... even if there are some slight discrepancies with this, such as several choppers carrying each mech which is supposed to weigh around 2500 tons.

The level of detail spent on each mech's design is an area im definitely taking note of and studying, as an area that ill focus on in my own robot designs. Though armored, the fact that my designs will be robots that have been left neglected, i want areas of their internal structure to be exposed to reveal the mechanisms and wires underneath that make each part work. One of the benefits of making robot characters instead of organic ones is the lack of stretching of texture surface i have to worry about, though regardless of this fact i still need to make sure all the joints and limbs work realistically enough to be believable. 

Final Thumbnails

These are the final set of thumbnails i have created before now choosing my favourites to develop into the final three characters. I have some clear favourites, but what i will most likely do is narrow it down, and any aspects i like from others i will merge them into my final designs so i get the best possible outcome for each character.