mechanical / armor designs. How to?

_Shimmer

Hi Polycounters,

lately I was on the job hunt. I spent years over years making my portfolio and well, I think I pull off some decent art. I spent all my time focusing on character art mostly organic modelling. But often my folio got some nahs and gahs and I got the conclusion that my armor designs just sucks hard and my mechanical modelling is literally non-exsitent. Everytime I am out, I look at facial features on people, look how people move and what shapes their bodies have. I never really look on engines, cars, props or whatever.

So my question is, how to achieve good mechanical designs besides real life studing? I mean, yeah, experience in doing it is most likely the main key but aren there any tricks or techniques to get better in a decent amount of time? How can I improve in my conceptual skills? How can I turn my organic experience into a mechanical armor stuff.

I realized how some people do that really well, turn their organic knowledge to a good consitent armor design like BoBo, on the rat-man from the cgchat challange / Ironlore project.

What do you use for refrence? Toys, googling for engines, blueprints? How can a person like me handle this?

Urgent help needed. People who experienced the same with their own stuff.

Rhinokey

you can get a lot of ideas by just going outside and looking at cars, take a close look at how the panels come together, and how the shapes flow, a lot of times even the most inorganic objects have a verry organic flow to them, notice how objects fasten down, and how hinges work, and more. a lot of tiem when people make armor and sci fi stuff htey throw a lot of bolts and levers and such on things, but when you look at a lot of real machines theres few bolts, mostly rivits and interlocking panels, (heavy vehicles and such like tanks and tractors will have more obvious bolts) i imagine the best way to learn is just to observe with a purpose, and practice,

StrangeFate

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What do you use for refrence? Toys, googling for engines, blueprints? How can a person like me handle this?

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All of the above and more ?

I'm not a tech guy either, i can't tell a car engine from a time machine.
What would you do if you had to model a dog, or an elephant ? research i guess, that's what i do. I'm modeling roman/gothic architecture etc at work, so i google for tons of photos.

For tech stuff, depends, there's defferent styles. If you wan the overdone industrial style, watch movies (aliens etc). If you want it all organic and dynamic, watch animes and mangas, if yuo want western SciFi, look at spinefinder (sp?) etc and movies/comics.

You can dissect every style and find the elements that define it, that usually makes it easy to stay true to the style over time and design your own things.
It's pretty common to prepare yourself for the task at hand doing all that, i'm afraid i'll never find a job where i can model only skulls all day (which is good actually).

If you need images to any specific style, i can hook you up with quite lots if you want.

_Shimmer

nothing specific
You know, I can make decent armor designs, but give it per128 for 2 seconds and he rushes over 20 lines which makes the armor design fukcing interesting.
So, I not always want to gett to per for suchr reasons.

Yeah usually I try some research, not much really but I´ll try. Its just so hard for me to make me armor design as freeform as my oragnic ones you know. I model without thinking, when it comes to armor design, it hurts my brain...

StrangeFate

That's because Per is used to do that stuff. There's no special trick. If all you want to do is 1 portfolio piece then it's for sure not gonna be as cool as if you were doing that stuff for a year or two.

You'll have to find out what looks cool and what not, something someone with practice doesn't have to think about.

I saw your hipoly armored guy and it's pretty much a smoothed lowpoly model. There so much stuff that can easily be added to it.
I'd really recommend consuming SciFi/tech material. Look at other people's work and hipoly models. The old leaked Q4 hipoly marine shots would be a good start.

You sure have what it takes, more than enough of it, just need to dive into it.

Sage

_Shimmer you may want to add interesting patterns to your armor to bring them to life. I usually look at comic books, Lord of the Rings weapon guide that came out, anime, cartoons. Look at how the armor of the Transformers or Gundmun Wing is simple yet interesting. Also looking at real armor helps make your designs be functional, you may also want to look at real life robots to get joints to look right. One of the things I used to do when I was designing armor was to have a character in front view relaxed pose and then I would block out large blocky shapes and try to create contrast with the softer silhouette of the character. Try not to think to much of the details you are going to put in the armor, just doodle in some bevels, shapes or lines and see if you can get something out of it. Do one piece at a time and see if you like the look of it try to repeat some elements in the other pieces of armor. Hope that helps.

Alex

_Shimmer

Hrey jo, I dont know what I wished for in this thread anyway. Mario, I guess you just right. Expereience is the key. However, thanks to you Sage. Copy and pasting can be a very good detail adding progress. I think I´ll buy a book about machines or something like that.

Thanks fro you help guys. If somebody could tell me more. I would like to hear some ppl experienced the same and how they got their armor designs rockin.

ScoobyDoofus

Part of what makes Per's, and other armor designs look good is really just graphic design. Placing interesting shapes next to eachother. Nothing to do with "real life" stuff, IMO.
I don't know that studying real engines is going to jazz up your designs, although it will help the realism of your illustration.

_Shimmer

heh so I should know how to after learning 3 years of graphics design ?

Nah the princuiples of variation, copy paste, rythm compositing isnt the hard stuff. I am just a person who has just human shapes in mind. Preferably boobs.

Gungriffon Geona

actually, a good way to design armor is to mesh it with the organic material. make it seem like it's part of the body, but also make it look very foriegn, like something you wouldn't normally see on the body. armor doesn't always have to look like armor.

but I guess I have too much of an eye for cyborgs, so I probably shouldn't be talking.

Toomas

Model the armor around the body*, break it into panels**, add hinges, laces, rivets etc., decorate with paint or relief.

*-try to think how it would be made.
**-most important is that it is possible to actually put the armor on and that it offers atealst some manuverability (it depends of the purpose and if its a mounted warrior or travels by foot or with jetbacks and what kind of weapons he uses)

Also its worth to note that armor offers protection against cutting, blows (because its rigid it redistributes the force from the impact to a greater area) BUT also deflects*** them (that is the reason why tanks are not a box with a box on top).

***-it is a good idea to deflect blows away from vital regions, for example you should not deflect a blow that hits the shoulder to a neck but rather away from it

Also note that padding is to be used under rigid armor to make the blows softer.


This is a good armour, its functional, it looks interesting and yet it has minimal decoration.

Steve Schulze

If I'm not mistaken, thats cavalry armour. Its designed more for protection from lances and the like than for freedom of movement. Note particularly the shoulder pads flush with the breast plate - he's not going to be able to be doing much more than holding his own lance/spear/pike/battle standard and is going to be pretty much screwed if he gets thrown off his horse.
His tiny field of vision isn't going to be much use for battleing on foot either.

Just a couple of things worth considering if you were to use this fellow as a reference.