Coal Miner Robots (Critiques Welcome)

JoshMcCann

This piece was meant as a sort of social-political commentary on President Trumps promise to bring back coal mining jobs. No matter how many regulations he dismantles at an attempt to bring back jobs the fact of the matter is that machines have replaced people, and those jobs are never coming back. He has duped the people of those coal mining communities into thinking their jobs will return. 

Brian "Panda" Choi

I feel like making the head much less human like would have butressed the original inception of the idea better; make it less familiar.  Otherwise, I can't tell much how this relates to the Trump-Coal relationship.

JoshMcCann

Thanks for your insight. I guess I never really thought about it. My thought was that fact that it was a machine rather than a person, but I get what you mean. By removing the bot even further from humanoid would have pushed that concept even further. Thanks again, always good to hear how other think to push my own creativity further.

Polygoblin

I like how you designed the legs. the head could use work. besides the wobbly shapes and confusing mechanical assembly, your detail frequency is heavily favoring the arms and legs. The head looks to be an afterthought, with little design consistency and little emphasis on the face. Take some of the cool gizmo-work you did in the thighs/bicep to the bot's head and abdomen for a more cohesive look.

Speaking of cohesion, the pickaxe looks rushed. out of scale and questionable materials. Robot workers aren't constrained into using tools meant for humans either so it'd serve the theme to perhaps design a 'factory-issued robominer pickaxe' or something. 

kmacneil91

This is an interesting concept! The black and yellow contrast nicely. I agree with Polygoblin in that some more detail could be added to the head. It'd also be interesting to see a couple variations of the bots  - it could be fairly subtle changes. Colors, poses, etc. Just to have some variety in the crowd of them. 

JoshMcCann

Polygoblin said:

I like how you designed the legs. the head could use work. besides the wobbly shapes and confusing mechanical assembly, your detail frequency is heavily favoring the arms and legs. The head looks to be an afterthought, with little design consistency and little emphasis on the face. Take some of the cool gizmo-work you did in the thighs/bicep to the bot's head and abdomen for a more cohesive look.

Speaking of cohesion, the pickaxe looks rushed. out of scale and questionable materials. Robot workers aren't constrained into using tools meant for humans either so it'd serve the theme to perhaps design a 'factory-issued robominer pickaxe' or something. 

You are absolutely right about the head and abdomen not having the same level of detail, and that was not intentional. I might have been getting anxious to finish it, but since you mention it I completely agree. 

As far as the pickax I suppose I did rush it a little, but I intentionally wanted to use a pickax used for humans. I thought it would add a little crossover, make it feel more like a replacement. 

Thanks for your critique I do appreciate it.