my robot friends - 2009 October

Archive for October, 2009

6 items.

26Oct

#004 : Jack/Snarlax

Posted In: Robots

Meet Jack. I’ve been friends with Jack for… going on 7 or 8 years now. We went through college together, in the same program. Jack has moved on to a life of puppeteering, puppet making, and puppet awesome…ising? Anyway, Jack works as a puppeteer now. Really, that job is super fitting for him. One thing Jack has always done, and done well, is come with and create these creatures, and give them elaborate lives and worlds they inhabit. So, I thought it only fitting that of all the inspiration that could be drawn, I’d have to go the Jim Henson route. Specifically I went in the direction of The Dark Crystal. Remember the Garthim? Giant hulking crab-beasts that were unleashed upon the other defenseless creatures? I thought, what better robot for Jack than a giant hulking beast robot, driven by a smaller robot? The actual giant robot went through about 4 or 5 different iterations/variations before I settled on this one. At first, it was more ape-like, with a muscular upper body. I thought better of this, thinking that was too humanoid and not bestial enough for my purposes. In the end, I landed here, I’m satisfied overall, I hope you all are too. Jack, if you’re reading this, maybe one day you could make a puppet version of this, and we can add it as an addendum to this post. That would be awesome.

Tune in again next week!

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19Oct

#003 : Ben/Agent07734

Posted In: Robots

This is my friend Ben. Ben works for the NSA. Put simply, I’m not allowed to know what he does for a living. That is to say, he can tell me his job title, but can never talk about the things he’s working on. It’s secret government work. My theory is that he is some sort of espionage agent, and he shields us from information to protect us. Hence, the super secret agent drawing today.

Today’s style is old-school 8bit graphics. Ben and I both share a love for 8bit games, music, technology from the early 80′s, so I figured it would be only fitting to draw his robot in that style. (I also snuck a calculator joke into the title) It is surprisingly hard to draw in that style! I sketched out basics of what I wanted, and then went about the tedious task of making little squares to define the areas. I’m sure there is a more efficient way to achieve this look than actually placing things square by square, but overall it was not an unpleasant experience. It’s actually rather fun to figure out how to render something just using squares. I suggest you all try it!

It also sort of reminds me of those “math detective” games I used to play at school when I was very little. You know, on the old Tandy2000 machines? Not intentional, but also sort of fitting…

Come back next week!

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12Oct

#002 : Nick/Robocanic

Posted In: Robots

I figure since I started it up with Trish, I may as well make the next one be her boyfriend, Nick. Nick is an all around nice guy. Loves biking, and bikes related stuff, and even works as a bike mechanic. He’s helped me out a lot when it comes to handling/fixing a bike, and even hooked me up with a REALLY good bike when one came through the store, so of course, his robot needed to be related to bikes in some way.

What came into my head almost instantly was Gizmo Duck, remember him? From Duck Tales? He was sort of like a Duck Tales Robocop. It seemed almost too perfect for Nick. A robot that rolled around on a single bike wheel, with all sorts of gadgets and whatnot? Perfect bike mechanic robot! So, it was done. I tried to stick to the general Gizmo Duck/Robocop flavor of mostly wiped away facial features, and “tough guy” upper body, but made his gadgets and such less “aggressive” and more about making and repairing. Ultimately, I really like the way it came out.

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5Oct

#001 : Trish/HW4.6

Posted In: Robots

First robot of the site is actually the first robot I drew for this project. I know it sounds weird to say that as if that is different than normal, but for me that IS a departure. Normally I go through about 4 or 5 different things that I throw away before I settle on an actual “first” in a series. This one was different, though, it came together pretty quickly in my head, and actually came out decently close to what I had envisioned.

This is my friend, Trish. She’s a vegan chef/baker. Excuse me, an awesome vegan chef/baker. (check out her blog!) Also, she’s crazy. Not crazy in the “murder you in your sleep” kind of way, but crazy in the “I will make more food than is humanly possible for this party” kind of way. (Ok, maybe the first way too, that is still in debate) For her robot, the first thing that came to mind was a Jetsons inspired futuristic housewife model robot. I tried to convey her uncanny ability to act as a one woman catering team through what I think is her actual secret. Mini robots.

Hope you guys like the first of many robots to come!

5 Comments

4Oct

Coming Soon

Posted In: Robots

Be patient. It’s coming.

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4Oct

Welcome to my robot friends!

Posted In: Blog

Hello, internet.

Welcome to my latest project. This blog will be chronicling my adventures of imagining people as robots. Every week I’ll be posting a new robot friend for everyone to enjoy. Each robot will be inspired by someone that I know and drawn in a style that I think would be suiting for that particular type of robot/situation, while still trying to keep my “voice” in the illustration. The comic will always be above, with it’s title/description in the box below, while my blog posts (such as this one) fall just below it.

If you guys like me, I’d really appreciate you spreading the word by using the convenient share buttons located along the side, emailing your friends, or linking to me however you like. (if your preferred method of sharing is not listed on the right, feel free to leave a comment here on the site and I’ll add it for use in the future) Also feel free to leave some comment love on the actual site.

This is the first post, marking the unofficial launch of the site. The “official” launch will happen tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM when the first illustration goes up. After that the site will update every Monday for the time being, with an additional day of updates possibly added in the future if I can keep up the pace. Thanks for visiting my site and I hope you come back for more!

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