Hi Forum.

Long update (though not as long as the last one) with a couple of messages to some of our esteemed members (and my mentors)...

Dave rave, I am going to PM you with the physical .Ma file this evening. I forgot to bring it on my flash drive to have a look at, but I've posted the two ref views form the original decade old design directly below to have a go at dissecting. Thanks man. I really, you know, appreciate it. Especially since I did my first two days of UV unwrapping tuts over the weekend and now realize even more how important clean low polys are.

ROBOT UPDATE...

So here's what's going in in the images below and in the next post. Over the last week, 10 hours a night, I've gotten allot more comfortable and confident in shaping my geometries, and less afraid to push those boundaries. Maya is becoming more of a tool to me now than a task. So the Robot project, while a very real early learning assignment for me, is starting to give way to a bit more of a fluid take on things. I'm starting to be able to really emulate a more stylized (while still subtle in these baby steps) approach.

First 4 images_

Robot's color scheme is all worked out in Mia X. All base geometries and volumes/ratios/widths/balance set. Base Backpack geometry is present.

Robot is ready here for final modeling of all geometries, adding of all final detail and surface features and first round of texture experimentation.

Next set of images-

I spent two days learning about shaders and UV unfolding. The unfolding is still not quite there in my head yet in terms of confidence. It's very tricky and I may ask for assist on one key aspect because it seems I am not doing it entirely correctly, but the result is almost exactly what I wanted regardless of that fact. I'll explain another time. Needless to say, I'll spend a bit more time studying that procedure before I actually go in and texture him in final.

However, the shader I am quite proud of. It took me a dozen times until I figured out how to balance all the settings to have full control, and then I took to it (the concept/process)very well.

I was able to create my first "from scratch" shader/ shader-tree; photo-realistic antiqued/polished brass. I did it completely on my own. No tutorials. Hoorah!

This was just a test run to see how it would turn out as I wanted to start thinking of Robot's character history traveling the universe with Glemdark-7 as his unwitting servant and second in command of the intergalactic Space Hopper, and how much and what kind of wear he might have from their misadventures.

Robot is a little fond of himself, so while there will be wear and tear, he will go to great lengths to maintain a "polished" appearance. So I didn't go for the total beaten down metal look.

Anyway, here are the results of the shader for his brass shoulders and trim.Ornate, antiqued and polished. I included the base texture uv I started with in photoshop throught he progression.

Finally then, in the last few images, now that the geomoetries are set in their relative volumes and such, I'm going in to make him work. He has click-ball femur attachment joints in his underpants' wells, and I'm starting the modeling of a functioning (still cartoony) shoulder rig. Otherwise, he just won't animate the way I want him too, and it would look "cheated" with just the ball stuck in the socket-band, considering how much work is now going into this process.

I'm going through a couple of robotic engineering tuts to figure out how it's going to work, while still, as always, adhering as close as I can to the original simple cartoon shoulder ball concept.

Oh, final note, I finally, ten years later, got around to designing the insignia for "Nefarious Space Command", to which both Glemdark and Robot are affiliated (or rather, were, affiliated anyway, up until Glemdark accidentally destroyed his entire galaxy and every living thing within 5 galactic parsecs, before then commandeering the planet's only remaining ship and it's hapless Robot, escaping to the milky way through an unintended hyper hump and crashing in the Arizona dessert).

It's sitting on his breast plate.

Thanks for looking everyone. Your comments and critiques are always invaluable.

TC.

IMAGES TO FOLLOW