Finished Punch Bag Welder robot

This is the Welder from Punch Bag, nearly finished. The polygons are about done apart from the wires and cables. These will join the various sockets that are already waiting at the joints.

The right arm ends in a welding unit; based upon various real-world robot welders.

This is obviously pre-rigging. The final robot will stand as the rough one did in the previous post.

Punch Bag Welder Robot with roughed template limbs

This is how the welder robot should look with arms and legs. These limbs are rough ones, added to let me play with the weight and posture.

The torso had to be angled forward more. The hands are welding units, the details of which will be based upon real industrial robots. There will be lots of cables on the arms, to carry prodigious amounts of electricity from the generators on its back.

With the stand-in limbs turned to templates I can start the actual limbs; pistons and everything.

2nd Punch Bag Robot Maya build

This is the start of the second type of industrial robot in Punch Bag. This one is a welder; able to get into smaller spaces than the big heavy robot.

It s adapted from a pencil design  for a War Droid that I drew while on the train returning from last years Bristol Animation Festival (I was reading ABC Warriors from 2000ad at the time).

Obviously the weapons are being replaced with tools' etc. The polygon model is sticking pretty close to the original. I really like wanted to make that odd spine joint with the two pistons and hinged joints. Should be interesting rigging!

Punch Bag Mechanic / Engineer character maquette

This is the beginning of the human character, which will also be animated in Maya.

For the mechanic / engineer I have decided to create a clay maquette and scan this in to create a 3 dimensional template in Maya over which I can sculpt a polygons body.

The sculpture is supported by a square section aluminum wire frame fixed to a chip board base. The wire is held together with thin wire and two part epoxy glue.

Successive layers of New Plaste clay are built up to match the front and profile view silhouettes.

I was never too happy with the legs in the silhouette designs so I am building them up a bit in the maquette.

More soon...

Refined Maya polygon modelled Robot

Now that I have got the basic shape as I want it I have started to refine the existing geometry and add some detail.

The cables are dummy ones to see how they look.

All of the piston tubes have been improved; a third tube between the other two will allow for great extension and the tubes have had edge loops added so that I could give them ribs and dips.

Lots of the finger and thumb joints have been given raised and sunken areas to make them look like strengthened metal.

The socket in the hip area now has some raised detail.

Once I was satisfied with the shape I aligned the parts for finishing off prior to rigging. I am now attaching the sockets for the cabling that will be created using n-cloth.

First shots of 'Punch Bag' Robot

These are shots of the first Maya modelling for on of the Robots from my new film; Punch Bag.

 The joints are a mixture of ball joints, pivots and hinges. Most of the joints have pistons as their driving force, but some are missing otherwise the image becomes a little crowded.

 The cables will be created using N-cloth so that they move realistically an bounce off of the body.

 Each hand currently has nineteen pistons on it. The hands are very important as they are they primary way that the robots; which are mute, can express themselves.

The retro power packs / generators on the back, and the aerial on the front will both have 'Metropolis' like overlapping rings of energy constantly moving up and down them.