Concept art influence - Robots

I have looked at various Robots from pop culture for inspiration.

One of the first television shows that came to mind is Futurama, as it features a wide variety of robot characters with differing appearances. I based my first robot head design upon the main character Bender - an industrial working robot who has a simplistic yet easily identifiable humanoid design.





A particular robot character that I find to be very unique in Futurama is Hedonismbot, whose design is based off an ancient robot hedonist.What makes him stand out the most is the fact he is his own couch (also known as a Triclinium). In addition, he is one of the few robots in pop culture that is shown to consume food - in his case he is almost always shown to be eating grapes. I could look back at Hedonismbot when trying to design robots with more quirky and unique appearances



For the majority of robots in Futurama they are based on female anatomy and share a similar buxom concept. Two characters that have this characteristic are Fanny and Angle-ine. I could use this concept when designing female robot characters.



Next I looked at Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet. He is a 7 foot tall robot that uses a light organ for a mouth and was operated from the inside by an actor who wore Robbie as a "suit". He possesses a more mechanical design with only a few humanoid traits (his legs and arms). He was one of the first robots to be used in film, and later became a popular robot icon in movies and media. Because of this, I feel it would be a disservice not to include at least one robot concept based on Robbie.

The franchise Star Wars boasts a large number of robot characters, but I will focus on a prominent duo: C-3PO and R2D2 - who both acted as companions to the main protagonists. Firstly, C-3PO is a bipedal humanoid protocol droid with gold plating. He served a young Anakin Skywalker (Darth Vader) and his mother performing household chores. R2D2 is an Astromech droid (an automated mechanic) who could perform a wide variety of tasks with a range of gadgets. He is just under 1 meter tall, silver and blue domed head and has three legs with wheels. Despite him having a less human-like appearance than his counterpart, he is the more adventurous of the two and quite a cheeky personality identified by his beeps. Not only am i planning to design characters based on this duo, but I will also make them a "tag team".



The film Blade Runner (1983) features androids that look identical to humans and possess organic qualities - they would not be distinguishable from the latter if it weren't for their non-existence of emotion. In addition, they have far superior levels of strength and intelligence in contrast to the average human being. Appearance wise, replicants tend to wear typical attire to help themselves blend in to society. I could design a bio-organic robot that possesses these same qualities and make subtle hints that they are in fact not truly human via quotes and moves.

The franchise Transformers features robots that have the ability to transform into an alternative form (mostly vehicles). The two main factions are the Autobots - the protagonists, and the Decepticons - the antagonists. The Autobots typically transform into road vehicles, whilst many of the Decepticons turn into aircraft - but that does not strictly mean that Autobots cannot transform into aircraft and vice versa. In addition, many of the major characters in the franchise are depicted as metal behemoths, often towering at around 20 metres tall. The most widely known character is Optimus Prime - the leader of the autobots. He is often shown as being able to transform into a firetruck, although he has been known to transform into other vehicles in alternate timelines. I could design a character who can take on multiple forms in order to adapt to his opponents.

The origin of the word Robot comes from the czech word Robota - meaning forced labour. It was coined by Czech writer Karel Čapek whilst he was writing his novel Rossum's Universal Robots. Additionally, Čapek's robots can be seen as the first android, as they possessed synthetic organic matter. Over the course of the story, the robots go from being willing to serve humans to starting a rebellion - in turn causing the extinction of the human race. In 1938, the BBC created the first science fiction television program based on  Čapek's novel. The robots in this adaptation have a futuristic yet somewhat medieval appearance. I should definitely design a character that turns evil over time during a course of a fight, unleashing more damaging abilities the longer a match lasts for.
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