Tuesday, 25 March 2014

Northern Iron - Research and Development - creating the player character

Where would a mech combat game be without the mechs? To that end we needed to create a mech that the player would use, and as such, it had to fit the aesthetics of the Northern Resistance. To achieve this, the concept artists Adam and Andy would develop thumbs, which I would then give feedback on based on the aesthetic style and thematic qualities of the lore and game world.

The mech used by the player was dubbed the Weapon of Sass Destruction almost immediately, a name inspired by the personality of the pilot and my friend who had partially inspired her. This name stuck, and allowed us to develop the finer details of the mech, primarily the decals and paint scheme.

Adam's initial sketch of the Weapon of Sass destruction had the right basic idea, but felt too generic sci-fi and bulky for a Northern Iron mech. There was also a severe lack of anything to suggest it was built using 1940's technology.


Bouncing off of Adam's idea, Andy then developed a rough version of the WoSD closer in style to the 1940's aesthetic of Northern Iron.


When designing the WoSD we soon hit on the idea of using 40's style cars as the base for the design, prompting Andy to develop several thumbnails to work from.

Based on these thumbs, Andy soon developed a version of the WoSD that we were all happy with, but still required a few tweaks, made from feedback from myself.


Once we'd reached the final iteration of the design, Andy drew the WoSD from all angles that I would then take into Maya for modelling. He also incorporated a Pin-up design that would be favoured by the WoSD's pilot, Rachael Chadwick.


Once we had achieved a turnaround we were all happy with, I then set to work in Maya, modelling a rough version the WoSD, which Adam then cleaned up, making sure the actual model was closer to Andy's Concept art. The model would then be sent back to Andy for texturing.

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