November Competition Open NOW!
 

Welcome to November´s Competition Thread!

As I was watching today Episode II (for the 30th time already), and seeing how there´s a widespread fever around the Forum for Star Wars related WIP, I decided this month´s competition might be centered around it.
However, you won´t be modelling any starship at all. Yeap that´s right, no X wings, no Falcons, but instead try to envision the Clone Wars Attack Vehicles, remember the AT-TE Walker? (if you don´t, don´t worry, I´ve got the image below).

The AT-TE is a walking marvel, envisioned by Concept Design Supervisor Ryan Church, featured at the Geonosian battlefields at the start of the Clone Wars. I for one, was stunned at such a design, and the way they would walk towards their targets.
This vehicle was based on a organic life-form, and they way it was translated to mechanical designs seems to be a great concept for this month´s Competition.

November´s Competition Theme will be "Envision an Insect Mecha".

You are to completely envision an Insect-like Vehicle (Can be a transport, attack, etc), basing yourself on an existing insect of your choice, creating a concept drawing, modelling the vehicle, and trying to work towards a final render (or perhaps an animation, if you want to go that far).

Recommended workflow for the competition is:

• Insect Choice
• Concept Art Imaging
• Modelling
• Texturing
• Render (lighting-backgrounds and such)

Some pointers:

• Try to pick an insect you feel confortable with, for example a beetle might be easier to translate to mecha, than a praying mantis.
• Insects can be mixed as long as they keep the insect-look we´re striving for.
• Flying insects? Why not?, just remember though, it´s not a spaceship, so try to have that could-fall-at-any-time-kinda-thinking going on.
• Pick a modelling technique you feel particularly confortable with, I for instance like NURBS a lot, but for this challenge I might pick Poly´s since they are easier to work with.
• Think in terms of mechanics, "How could this leg move?, Where should the gravity center be located?, Is it heavy? Is it light?, etc"
• For the people who like the challenge out there, you could even try rigging it, and perhaps even animating it. (For a tremendous rigging tutorial refer yourself to the VIP section)
• For the sake of clarity, try to post 600 pixels width images. The look better on the forum, they don´t disrupt normal viewing, and they´re easier on the 800x600 screen users.
• Another thing about posting, try to post in steps, where you can actually see how much the design is progressing, if you have doubts or anything, remember there´s other Forums as well, so if you have a doubt about modelling, take it to the modelling forum and such. (you get the idea, let´s keep it clean people)

Here are some resources I collected through the web that might help you on your search for the perfect-armored-destroyer-cockroach.

Insects.org
(Pick your insect here, but don´t go around posting images from this site, since they seem to be quite picky about it)
Prometheus Spawning Grounds
A great japanese Mecha drawing site, might get some pointers here.
Feng Zhu
Pointers on Concept Drawing and Planning
Concept Drawing Tutorial
More pointers on Concept Drawing
StarWars.com
Needs introduction? Didn´t think so.

Hope this is clear, If there´s any doubt at all, PM me and I´ll be happy to help you. Remember to state if it´s a newbie or a normal entry.
According to this announcement, if you´re a subscriber you might actually be eligible for more VIP points so be sure to give it a try.

Competition should finish at the end of the month, but if things seem to go nice, and there´s some pretty good entries we might as well postpone it to give it a chance of more development.
(as long as the boss agrees to, though) ;)

wow!!! what a very well laid out competition.. well done adl!!

very very nice, great explanations, links and a great looking competition!!

Sweet topic BUD, just hope i have time to enter this one =)

Kurt

Don´t worry bud! Just go with the flow, a little bit here, a little bit there, and suddenly voilá, you´re done. :)

I would like to see a lot of people competing on this one, so be sure to enter!

LOL that sure sounds simple mate.... but good advice

i m a newbie (very bad:mad: ) but I will take part to this mini competitions. :p

Yeah! Glad to hear that! :D I´m sure you´ll make a great entry ...

Topic
 

Sounds great....looking forward to the entries....will give it a try for shure if i find the time...otherwise i'll take the time ;O))

MAY THE BEST ONE WIN.....

:beer:

b u l l e t

Re: Topic
 

This is one entry I´m looking forward to seeing ... May the best one win!

Undseth - One man mech (Normal Category)
 

I'm going for a sort of agile mech, not so much for speed but for movement in horisontal and vertical direction.

It's a one man mech; buildt mostly of organic-/fiber- material, for strengthening other stealth capabilities as low noise and radiation emission.

Weapon system which isn't shown in the sketch is a long-range, high-accuracy targeting system, also making this a formidable defence system in addition to its primary role as offensive hardware.

It was hard for me to decide on a perticular insect, but I settled for a grasshopper, and I'll probably make some artistical choices as the project moves to further stages of design. It looks a little too much like an insect right now, but that will change.

I though about rocket burst flying capability, but settled for walking, jumping, and climbing; suitable for stealth operations.

Whoa, That´s the idea people! First one I see and it´s looking astounding already, gonna need some polishing on those ideas of yours if you want to win this one! ;)

Excellent one undseth, Keep on it!

To everyone else, still open, so give it a try! :D

adl, can you combine insects, or it has to be just one?

Why not? That would be a great idea, as long is it does have an insect feeling to it. However do remember though that it should be really thought of, adding more legs for example might mean it does need more energy storage, or perhaps it won´t have that much stamina, perhaps it´s a quite heavy piece of equipment, perhaps it isn´t.

Really there´s no problem with insect mixing as long as it does have the insect look.

Ok folks, I will try to participate to this competition because it’s a real challenge!
I don’t know for now with what kind of insect I will start, but soon the idea will come. (I hope :) )
Ahaaa… in the mean time that I start to wrote this reply one of the idea that strikes me was: how about a dragonfly or harvest bug or lice???
The dragonfly is a complicated insect with multiply choices to move (on ground and in the air) and the other two are disgusting creatures (exactly what we need for an invasion…)
For now they are just thoughts! But you’ll never know… :)

Thanks for competing Newty! I´m sure yours will be a great entry!
If you feel comfortable with a dragonfly, by all means then do it!