Moving to the lower body of the Robo Samurai design...


 Having finished a design for the full head I decided to bypass the arms for time being as I've been really looking forward to working on the lower half of the Robo Samurai body which I'm going to use sports motorbikes as inspiration and reference material. I collected the images below as a starting point...


I really like the dynamic, sharp and angular design of these bikes and want to incorporate that into my character design, I'm particularly drawn to the lime green motorbike in the top-right corner above and the red one in the top-left. I want to include head lights in the design as I think this could make for an interesting illustration as well as combat tool as far as warfare is concerned. The one thing that isn't present in these bikes is a more heavy duty, off-road bike tyre which I'd like to use as the Robo Samurai in my mind would be charging through rugged terrain as well as city streets. I also want to use the tail and back end in my design. I made a start with the two sketches below...

Above I have used a pointed mud guard in both designs as well as traditional Samurai armour at either side of the wheel, with blades attached in keeping with the design elements of the helmet and shoulder pads. I'm not sure at this moment in time exactly how the torso is going to connect with the upper body but I'm happy in particular with the design on the right. Seeing as it's at a 3-quarter view I thought I'd try adding the 3-quarter view of the upper body and head designed prior to this, to get an idea of how it's looking as a whole so far...

At first glance this isn't working for many reasons, the posture is to upright, the shape of the upper body doesn't work with the lower half, the angle of the upper body is slightly different to that of the lower half and the head looks uncomfortably awkward. Not at all what I was trying to design. It's proving to be a good lesson in the dangers of working on different parts of the body separately. I have a lot of re-jigging to do, I think I'll start with the head. I don't feel the rain guard on the helmet fits with the rest of the design so I'd like to do some more development before considering the rest of the body.

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