Mecha! Are there any mecha and anime fans out there? Critiques please.
-
Awesome design! I really like the paneling. I just joined the forums, and later on, I will leave a more detailed comment, I am a very big mecha fan and I am curious, what's the story behind this particular suit?
Edit: Never mind! you had very thorough description, I only looked at the title and image since I had to answer in a hurry, my bad!
-
Ok, now onto an actual critique, most of my comments are mainly about the mechanical and practical design of it. For the most part, it has many interesting shapes, but I see some flaws in functionality. For example, your torches are attached to the shoulder of the mech, which seems to be a very mobile joint, specially during work. The point of having torches in vehicles is to provide uniform lighting on the front, which is where the driver/pilot will focus his attention, and is where the road/enviroment to be traversed is, so if they are on the shoulder, during travel they might be fine, but while interacting with the environment, they wont provide uniform lighting, thus the pilot won't be able to see what he is doing. You might want to have a way of lighting in odd angles/not the front, so as a secondary set of light they are fine for that purpose, but as a main source of light during rescue operations it might prove problematic.
Second, the mobility on your legs seems very limited at the hip/torso joints and also on its ball and socket joint that connects the upper and lower legs, the second degree of movement. Mobility during flexion, which in this case pertains to a reverse joint, is very great, something like 120+ degrees or more to the front, but in extension it seems to be barely over 0 degrees. If this was a regular "front knee" design that is not a problem, but since this is a reverse joint, it severely limits mobility. I can't "see" the back of the legs so your design might have a back socket/canal/space that permits better movement than what I describe or it has another compensating mechanism, but as is, in this view, it visually communicates stiffness in a vehicle wich, judging from tis function, should be very mobile and nimble. I think you tried to do a reverse joint, as in avian legs combined with a more hominid like proportions, and it can work, but you need to keep these movement considerations in mind.
My suggestions to these problems if you decide the critique is accurate or helpful, are to put the toches, or an additional set of torches, on the sides fo the cockpit or over it to provide uniform lighting, and to offset your knee joint int the legs, turning more into a hinge with ball joint to preserve abduction and adduction which is why i suspect you used a ball and socket joint there. I can draw to you my suggestions if you'd like too!
Hope this helps mate.
-
Hi, thanks for the critiques! CesarAndradeArt, those are good points you made. I saw what you mean, so went back to the rough line art and I did a redraw of the legs and also added lights on top and in front of the mech. Hopefully it make more sense now. TessaW, thanks for your input, it was hard finding the right info on light reflections, like you said, there are many ways you can do reflections. Usually the reflection is of the light source and environment around the subject. Sounds obvious, but it didn't occur to me when I was designing something from out of my head. Now I have to figure out what kind of environment is around it that can be reflected.
Here is an update of the line art I have been working on. It's been ghosted out so I can redraw on top of it. I plan to clean up the line work once I figure out the inner mechanics and hammer out the overall structure. Thanks again for the input!
-
I did another mech with legs that had a similar Chicken Leg design to the one on the original post, but this time I kept the design simple and tried to focus on putting such legs in perspective. I am still working on the other piece, but just trying a different approach to figuring out how the legs work and the mechanics behind them.
Comments and crits are welcome!
-
I have been doing some sketching trying to figure out the leg mechanics of the SAR Mecha. I am not sure if I am making progress or just fudging it - I might be exaggerating the proportions of the parts I am drawing when in different positions. Also it might be right in my head, but it might not be able to bend that way in real life.... I haven't done much technical drawing, or at least not enough to get satisfactory results from it. So, I am not sure how I can figure out how the legs would work or function properly IRL. Is there is a better way of how I could improve my understanding of the movement of the leg mechanics?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks~ -
I finally got the revisions done on this piece. I re-colored it and added some more darks, as suggested by TessaW, but I am not sure if the lighting is working yet. I am having trouble figuring out how the light works as some of the sources of the light comes from the mech. Otherwise, I am not sure what else I can do to improve it...
-
I like your design @alexsen , and I like you and @CesarAndradeArt are working the technical details of functionality good points. What @TessaW said about the reflection on the glass is important for getting that believable quality, and taking your work to the next level. That advice about the reflection will also apply to the entire mech you need to make decisions about the materials and lighting condition. look up these term, 'ambient occlusion', specular highlight',The design is cool and good thought is apparent in the proportions, but the rendering is not complete.
-
Neat design! Reminds me a little of the Destroids from Robotech.
As for getting the lighting right, I'd suggest not worrying about the light from the mech itself until you've got the primary lighting done. (key lighting? I dunno, but I mean shade it and light it as if there's no extra light coming from the mech unless there's, of course, NO light other than those lights. Anyhoo!)
Pick a primary light source direction. Identify the basic shapes that make up the mech. Place shadows and highlights. Once that's all done you can fiddle around with bounce light and light from the running lights on the mech.
Is the exterior of the mech reflective, or dull?
It's coming along nicely. I think once you figure out the lighting it'll look really cool!
EDIT
I may do a draw over later on if that's okay.
-
@art-of-b
I haven't actually thought of surface texture, but thanks, good to know. I haven't seen a rescue chopper or vehicle in real life, but I imagine they would be shiny. Yeah, go ahead, have at it!~ A draw over would be awesome.
-
Such an amazing design Cesar! Mecha enthusiast here.
For the critique:
I would make the line work thinner and add some texture to the armor (Brushed metal)
If you want to add reflection on PS do the following. Draw some white shapes on top of the glass cabin and set them to soft light mode. Then make the edges softer with the eraser.
Last but not least get a soft brush (White) and decide where your reflection will go.
You've inspired me to work harder on my mecha designs!
