Blunderbus Designs

While working I have started to think about the designs of my characters, specifically who they are designed for. The original project had them in the starring roles of a family game, designed to be played by families with the older members of the family controlling the Blunderbus.

This brought the idea of who the Blunderbus had to appeal to. The girl character of Lucy is obviously designed to appeal to the younger gamer, but I felt that the Blunderbus failed at attracting older gamers. My own perspective would be playing the game with my nephews or niece, and I don't think that the robotic character would be that appealing to me or other gamers in my position. Considering the only reason the character exists is as a glorified babysitter for the younger player, they would have to be appealing for the older player to actually play as. Obviously I cannot rely on game mechanics to convey this - as there aren't any - so I have decided to look at the character and redesign him to fit with the (probably) male players that will control him.

This is a redesign of the factory background. Modelling the industrial robot arms made me realise how little the Blunderbus looked like any kind of industrial robot. The specific question was raised, how can he actually fix anything?

Working my way from the top to the bottom of the character I have started reworking his design, keeping recognisable shapes while adding more masculine forms and tools to allow him (Notice I always refer to the Blunderbus as a he? That was my main reason for deciding to make him more masculine) to actually work as a repair robot/janitor. Notice the robotic welding arm and the vacuum cleaner added to his midriff.

I am only working on the left side of the model, planning to mirror parts for the right side. The lights on the shoulder are emissive (light casting) textures rather than actual scene lights to keep the render time down and the lighting controllable. Although the 'codpiece' has been reworked, I am yet to start on his hips