I have some more visual development stuff for Missile Mouse: Rescue On Tankium3. One of the main characters in this book is the Galactic Security Bot Robot 44. He’s a loyal partner to Missile Mouse and proves to be just as tenacious as the rodent himself.
I began sketching out designs for him on my story writing pages. At this early stage I new I wanted a big black dome for the head because I thought it looked cool.
The idea developed further as I played around with proportions and little details like the joints. My editor felt like this design looked more like a guy in a spacesuit than it did a robot and you know what he was dead right. Plus he said there’s no way for anyone to relate to this character if you can’t see any sort of face. Right again. Sometimes I get too hung up on a design and I forget the practicality of it.
So I went back into the design trying to go for a more clunky robot look, and began working out an appealing robot face.
Didn’t like the above sketches all that much, but these guys below started to get close to something I liked.
As it came closer and closer to actual production time on the book I had to go with something, but I didn’t think this guy was quite there yet. Then it dawned on me to stick the dome head on the new body design and give him a glowing digital face projection, not unlike Eve from Wall-E.
Here’s the data sheet and cutaway I did for the World of Missile Mouse section in the back of the book:
And finally, here’s Robot 44 in action:
Loving these MM background explorations of character designs Jake! Just awesome robots!
Cool to see these! I think Robot 44 was really a hero in this story.
For the eye I see some ‘Robot and the Sparrow’ some Lego, and indeed some EVE influences. But after reading the story I know he’s really something else.
Its so cute I want to eat it.
Woah.. I love how your brain works. Really awesome, Jake. Thanks for sharing
I think it was a really good idea to go with the dome head rather than the visor/mask. It looks cool, but the design you used for 44 made him much more accessible. The visor/mask ones look like riot cop robots.
YOU ARE THE MAN. It’s a fact.
Great design and nice colours.
Jake! This is amazing, I love how you showed your design process from beginning to finish. It’s really cool to see, thanks for sharing.