Phillip, robot actor.

Working on another character to go with Hugh. For a series of short form comics and hopefully some animations I am working on in my spare time.

Hugh is a young inventor who lives with three robot actors of his own design, F. Lorn Fellow, Jake, and Phillip.

Phillip is the ‘youngest’ of the three. A perinial optimist, he has an annoying habit of being overly peppy… Every time I actually type this out I swear it sounds weirder and weirder.

Overall I am not really happy with the head at the moment. I still need eyebrows and I am not sure I can get the range of emotions I will need with no mouth, but this is still in WIP mode so I shall continue weighing my options and any input offered.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/quelkron/models/The%20Fellow%20Players/Characters/Phillip/phillip.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/quelkron/models/The%20Fellow%20Players/Characters/Phillip/phillip_hands.jpg

In my opinion, the orange part of the torso combined with the orange part of the bottom give the impression of a dress, creating a more femine robot, if there is such a thing. But it is a nice model.

I’ve been following your cartoon landscape & characters for a few months now, and it’s always great to see new updates!

I like the hands a lot; the joints there look good. Somehow the border between the orange and silver in the close-up shot looks a little funny, mostly on the left-hand side.

The lack of eyebrows is a little weird, but the mouth didn’t bother me much. I sort of saw the orange lower section of his head as forming a smile-like shape. Perhaps that could be deformed to act as the mouth when showing emotions?

Your latest creations are quite nice, alistair. I really think they fit the mood of your cartoon landscape quite well, and the style being consistent across the major players really helps to evoke a nice imagery.

This character is very interesting i think. I do wonder though about how to produce emotions in robots. I always find it odd to try and reproduce emotions with such a mechanical object (we lose so many nuances of facial patterns when its just metal and bolts).

Have you considered using some other sort of visual indicator for emotion? Eye color has often been used in the past to convey simple emotions in mechanical beings… that might be an idea? or some other light on the robot somewhere to change colors with emotion/mood?

couple that with exagerated(sp?) body movements, and you can probably convey most of what you want to get across…

can’t wait for more! :wink:

Looking good so far, only thing so far that I do not like is the head, the orange jaw line just looks odd. Keep it up though!!! 8)

I agree with Khnum, the jaw is extremely odd, It gets all my attention and I just stare at it going “ugh, thats really odd looking, is it ugly or really stylish?”

Maybe try a different design see what comes out of it (if you have the time). I also agree that the layout of the orange make it in a way feminine, The top looks like a tank top and with a skirt well you get my idea. Unless this effect is wanted.

Hands are very well done though. And about the mouth, I havnt done character animation yet so I can;t really help you on that one.

Slepnyrl

nice the only thing I dont like though is the legs.

Thanks for the replies. I’m not sure that I get the same skirt vibe from the bottom, but I guess I see what you mean. In regards to the emotion pld, I think I can show it sufficiently with just eyes and eyebrows but if I can work a mouth in it could help.

I’ve destroyed the head and am trying to make a new one, in fact I’ve been starring at my screen all day. Well, with any luck I will eventually come up with something.

I think that having his shoulders point out horizontally like that looks awkward. It makes him look too stiff (even for a robot) and wide. When he’s in a relaxed state, I would have those ball joints point in a downward direction.

I love the model. I didn’t see it as feminine until pointed out. I found the jaw-base interesting and not especially disturbing. It’s a unique looking model with a hint of “The Jetson’s” about it :slight_smile:

I recall the makers of “Short Circuit” faced the same “expression” dilemma with their robot “Number 5”. It might be worth taking a look at the movie to see how they got around the problem. The eyes are the windows to the soul and you may only need to add an adjustable iris to control a range of expressions that complement appropriate body poses. The shoulders look like they’d be capable of moving a fair bit so you immediately have access to sad (droopy shoulders) and bold (firm pulled-back shoulders) and so on.

Excellent modelling. I’ll have to follow the thread from here on.