Old Nicolas Rusty

Artwork Finished Projects
1

Dear BlenderArtists,

It has been almost a year since I last posted anything here. So I thought it was about time to stop watching from the shadows at all your wonderful work and post something of my own.

http://th05.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2014/152/7/6/old_nicolas_rusty_color_experiment_sheet__by_ristridyn-d7knlxg.png
old_nicolas_rusty_color_experiment_sheet__by_ristridyn-d7knlxg.png1191×670

Old Nicolas Rusty, or in short Old N Rusty, is a greenhouse automaton commissioned by the Royal British society for science in 1912 to look after their collection of exotic Flora.
However, after the greenhouse was abandoned many years ago, Nicolas kept looking after whatever grew in the decaying building as time took its tall on the little robot.

This was a little school project over the last 4 weeks. I had to Texture a robot, but disliked the robot model provided by school and designed my own.
This is the cinematic model made with a 25k triangle polybudget.

http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/152/a/b/old_nicolas_rusty_character_render_by_ristridyn-d7knksq.jpg
old_nicolas_rusty_character_render_by_ristridyn-d7knksq.jpg1600×900
I have always been inspired by pixar, dreamworks and Disney when it comes to digital stylisation and really wanted to give this character the feel of one of their movies, meaning that I explored the border between realism and cartoonish stylisation.

Here are some screenshots on the character design process:

I started out with a series of quick sketches, not paying attention to anything and particular but just drawing whatever came to mind, Design #8 caught my attention.
After that is was just a matter of evolving the concept and making it mechanically plausible.

It took me a week of drawing to reach that stage :confused: yeah sorry I am one slow artist…
Modeling took me yet another week:

http://th08.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2014/152/1/f/_wip__old_nicolas_rusty_mesh_only_by_ristridyn-d7knidc.jpg
_wip__old_nicolas_rusty_mesh_only_by_ristridyn-d7knidc.jpg1020×784

And as it turns out I was now far away from the original concept… but hey, that’s the perk of working on your own.

After that it was pretty much unwrapping, Texturing and making the final renders you can see above.
But here is one last shot I want to share with you guys, because you cannot see this clearly in the final renders.
Its the text on Nicolas’ Back:
It is adding those kinds of details that really make me get lost in the texturing process ^^ Eventhough most people will never read it.

I am a student right now, and really trying to develop a decent workflow, and create results as close to industry standard as I can get. This means That I really need feedback, critique and advice from people reading this and watching my work. So please do feel free to command because I am always interested to learn more.

Have a great day!

Software used:

Blender Modeling (LP&HP)
Photoshop Texturing
Xnormal Backing normals/AO
Cycles Rendering inbetween
Mentalray Final Renders (School requirements)

NicolasThumbnail.jpg512×512 49.5 KB

2

Hi, thanks very much for sharing all your experiencie, about this work, I like overall.
mm about the feedback, I dont sure but maybe you can add translucency to leaft, but I see all good :).

3

Very good work.

4

Awesome result, this little robot could be really fun to animate. Great work

5

awesome work

6

That’s a cute little robot, nice work. It definitely belongs in a cg movie… or a game.

7

You could have done it like him among some pots and then he moving parting scene of the glass so it would be more interesting though is Fodastico ja!