My plan was (is?) to make a mech scorpion based on excavator parts, but after modeling and rigging the base leg (excavator arm) I got bored and appended an old car I’ve made on-top of it, and I kind of like… Might keep the car, and still go for the scorpion stinger thingy and claws…
Awesome! The arrangement of the headlights is very reminiscent of some spider families (like Lycosidae in this chart https://imgur.com/gallery/0TFKyU3). I’m not sure a stinger would make the image stronger but I’m curious to find out.
Made a quick mockup of the claws and stinger by just duplicating the the legs and moving them around, and I starting to think it would be better to skip the car and have it be more mech-y with perhaps just a basic seat and some control sticks, or perhaps keep the car but skip the stinger and claws and have just be a car on legs basically…
Would love any and all input before I start adding details
I think the car is an extremely unique twist on a fairly familiar mech structure- I would keep going in the direction you’re going, keep the car, keep the stinger and claws, and really lean into the uniqueness of this. I think when it comes to texturing, you’d do well to draw even more attention to the car- make it a bright color, and make the rest of the mech more subdued and metallic. This will really give it a “hand-welded in some seedy garage” look. I’m not sure if that’s what you’re going for, but that’s the vibe I’m getting so far
Thanks, you are spot on regarding the vibe I am going for!
I’m getting close to finishing the detailing of the legs, and I starting to really understand why many artists talk about blocking out the silhouette first, before going haywire on the details - it’s really hard to find a shot that shows of the model in a good way… And by that I mean in a way that shows of all the details that I’ve painstakingly added
Hopefully that’ll sort it self out - at least a bit - when I’m done with the modeling and UV unwrapping, when I can start having unique poses per leg (currently 5 of the 6 legs are just collection instances)
Started some sloppy UV-unwrapping with lots of Smart UV project, but even then it gets real boring, real quick… That one leg consists of ~170 objects does not help…
Finally done with the modeling and unwrapping of the legs so that I can create individual rigs per leg.
I’m not sure how to distinguish the “stinger” from the legs, the main parts should probably be them same (or at least very similar), but I’m not quite sure which end piece attachments to use.
The ripper, which I have currently, is the real-world attachment that I’ve found that fits the concept the most, but it’s a bummer to have the legs and the stinger be identical.
When it comes to the claws or what ever you call it I’m thinking of modelling something like this:
Any and all input is welcome!
That’s really cool!
I think the spare wheels (and maybe the fenders) are somehow hurting the integration of the car and mech parts, being too reminiscent of the original car architecture, but that’s just my 2 cents.
Love the direction!
I started this project just thinking it might look cool to make a scorpion looking mech based on excavator parts, but now I’m a bit bothered by the “stinger” it doesn’t really seem like it would be useful for anything other than making it look scorpion-like.
One thought I had was putting like a machine gun on the end the stinger instead and have it be some kind of ultimate zombie apocalypse machine, but then it’ll probably start looking less and less like a scorpion…
After many years using blender I can confidently say that I am quite a good modeller and I’m starting to get decent at texturing, but unfortunately I’m a real shitty concept artist
I like the idea of the machine gun- or you could also lean into the idea that whoever welded this together started with an excavator and a car, and had some scrap parts lying around. Maybe switch the stinger for a big bulky sword that looks like it was angle-grinded out of a sheet of scrap metal- something like Cloud’s sword from Final Fantasy VII?
I’ve made a few knives in my day in a parking lot with an angle grinder and old suspension steel from cars, it makes a very practical but very starkly industrial weapon (or cooking implement, once you get the rust off ). I think scaling that up and bolting it on the tail here would look super cool
A giant, industrial style sword does sound cool, but I’m thinking I would have to make the mechanics of the stinger quite different for the sword to be (theoretically) useful since with the limited mobility of the current excavator mechanics it would be hard to slice anything with the sword other than the vehicle itself
This of course apply to the current iteration as well. I can’t really think of a way of having the stinger be made from excavator parts while still looking like a scorpion stinger AND actually being able to have any sort of useful reach and mobility.
But then again, does it have to be useful or is it enough that it looks cool?
My initial plan was to make it look even more home-made/primitive, something along the lines of this (not final quality
)
I think the uselessness of the stinger would bother me less in this case since it has more of a feel of something that someone just built in their backyard/garage for just for shits and giggles
Claw’s coming together very nicely! Congrats for all your recent progress!