You guys voted and, as promised, I will now start uploading and describing the relevant WIPs of my work on the Diamond Claw.
I hope I don't become annoyingly "tl;dr" with my descriptions, please let me know if I do.
Make sure to check back periodically as any further uploads will be done here in the OP.
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>> Let's start with my very first sketch - as I did with the Smelter, I wanted to envision this bot before the infection while grounding it in practicality. How would a mega-corporation whose ultimate goal is maximizing profit design a mining bot? As far as the main hull, it would definitely be a bare-bones construction, saving on hull plating and relying on the chassis to act as a rollcage of sorts to provide minimal protection to the internal components. How about the mining itself? I did a bit of research on modern mining/boring machinery and sketched a 2-in-1 system based on the shape of the original Diamond Claw: dual drilling tips and lateral boring heads, I figured four of these in a zero-g environment would get any kind of tunneling done.
>> I then became a little obsessed with that 2-in-1 idea for the Swingarms. So far all my models have had very simple animations and I wanted to try and incorporate something more complex here so I designed, modeled, and animated a transforming drilling/boring swingarm as a proof of concept.
[youtube]WA8c_UluJRU[/youtube]
(There is further information in the Video Description)
>> Having established all that, I began work on the actual post-infection hull (the actual recreation of the model). This is a very early sketch when I was still looking for a direction in which to take the model while I "established" notable external components. For example, that "structure" in the middle is the Energy Pulse Emitter (fires those plasma balls) while the components at the bottom left and right are the receptors that charge up the pulse emitter by absorbing excess energy every time the shields are hit with energy weapons. But I was very unsatisfied with the shapes of the hull. (Oh and I know... Those thrusters look like R2 units
)
>> Then, I had an epiphany and decided to "go back to basics" and sketch my Diamond Claw using much more aggressive shapes and "pointy ends". I soon found inspiration on modern stealth fighters, specifically the F-117 and began thinking of the virus' use of the DC as a stealth assassin - which kind of matches up with its in-game AI. I also scrapped the original idea of the Swingarms, going back to the good-old claws.
>> Things with the hull finally climaxed one day when I got extremely inspired, grabbed my Wacom, and let the juices flow digitally:
>> A more stealthy color theme:
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At present, the sketching phase is about finished and I'm almost ready to begin 3D. I still have to finish concept work on the Swingarms since I scrapped the 2-in-1 idea. I am also working on both a 2D CAD concept (with some internal components) and a final digital sketch (similar to the last upload) based on those CAD views.
I have quite high ambitions with this model. Whenever I work on the CAD I toy with the idea of modeling each armor plate and component completely separately so that I can add in major internal components. We shall see where it goes, but I would love for it to get to that.
As always, thank you for your support!
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>> *UPDATE* Here is the final sketch of the hull all done in CAD. Since I'm very happy with its general look there aren't any major changes, I just needed to do this in CAD because I wanted to actually figure and settle on values for all the major angles as it will make the 3D workflow much easier. Now I'm working on a rough CAD (nothing like this) of the side view as well as trying to settle with a final functional design for the claws. I will post as soon as they're ready - see you guys soon!
(Holy crap Patrick Stewart as Gurney?)
