Case study
Case study
The French fortress mech
The French fortress mech
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Standing tall on the battlefield, this walking fortress is capable of protecting friendly soldiers as it's moving towards enemy positions. It provides a lot of cover and possesses defensive cannons and turrets.
It's an armored transport, not an assault vehicle, so it wasn't meant to have a lot of mounted guns, but onboard soldiers still had to be able to engage the enemy. I came up with bunker-style windows to fire rifles and machineguns from. The top bunker is a retractable spotting post, and the bridge is located underneath the mech to protect it from artillery fire.
Inspiration board French architecture
Besides being heavily influenced by the French army during the period of WW1, I also took inspiration from French chateaus and (specifically Parisian) architecture. This is especially noticeable in the shape language.
Top-view shape influenced by the 'Arc de Triomphe'
The feet are shaped like the French 'Fleur de Lis'
During the sketch phase I was mainly looking for shapes I liked. These designs were all "placeholders" which housed elements that I'd combine into the final design. This is how I like to tackle a design, taking the best parts and merging them together.
Explorative sketches
This mech went through several designs before me and my supervisor were happy with the final shape, but even that one ended up changing multiple times during the modelling phase. Designing the legs was the biggest challenge.
Some of the iterative steps during the design phase
The legs needed to be suitable to support the large structure, and I wanted the mech to have a shielded command center. I re-designed the entire lower part of the mech to accommodate for these features.
This design kept changing during it's entire production. Even with the concept sketches most parts ended up looking off and needed restructuring. I also sketched out the armor plating to find the best looking and most logical layout.
Exploring color schemes
Sketching out armor plating
UV's and rig
Animated by Janovich, my supervisor
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