Design for Mechas/Robots

I'm pretty much drawing my inspiration for the mechas/robots in my animatic from two sources. Transformers: The Movie and animes like Evangelion/Full Metal Panic/Gundam etc.
I would design my own... but to be honest, I'm not really good at drawing/designing machiney things.

So why from animes? The "robots" we all see from animes are called Mechas. They're similar to Robots but the design is usually more complex and less blocky. They are machines with a cockpit for a pilot to control it and have legs rather than the usual wheels like Wall-E. Click here, here, here for Mecha references.

Why Transformers: The Movie? Basically because they're different to Mechas but not too much. I'm drawing inspiration from two sides of the world, America and Japan. So if I use both as a reference, I'm not exposed to a large difference. Also, I watched Transformers: The Movie when I was younger and loved it (1986 movie). Although I'm not a huge fan of the T.V. series or the 2007 CGI movie, I still want to use the 1986 movie as my main source of inspiration for my mini mecha/robots.


I know I'm really no good at this... but here's a few sketches from Transformers: The Movie. I will do more later since I'm not too fond of any of these.



This one I drew in uni, without looking at any reference. They're just rough items in my head.




My first attempt at Mecha... This is why I decided to make my mecha/robots mini ones...
Too much work involved in this =( and I couldn't even finish it because I never liked how the head turned out.



[Edited 09/03/2008] So... I think I will keep/post all the mecha/robot stuff together - so it's easier to organise.



I just drew whatever came to my head at that point. But after I finished, The top part of this design (was suppose to be a head) looks like a sakkat!! And it reminded me of a picture I saw of a Japanese Samurai wearing a sakkat.... Soooooo... It got me thinking... why not base my 3 mini mecha/robots on certain warriors/fights instead of just designing them randomly?! This way they will each have their own distinctive characteristics! Looks, clothes, weapons, personailty etc. They will keep their own traditional clothes/armour and weapon type e.g. sword for the samurai, gun for the musketeer etc. But I will be upgrading them to something more...... powerful ^^

Warriors/Fighters (Ideas):-
Japanese Samurai
Shaolin Monk
Ninja
Assassin
Musketeer [Edited 10/03/2008] Yea.. so there's a slight problem with a Musketeer. I totally forgot Victoria was gonna use a Musketeer for her part of the animatic. So I've decided to change it into a Cowboy instead ^^ And I've also added in new images of what they would probably look like. They're only sketches... If I can I will do proper ones I will upload them instead. If not, then they will go in the group blog later.


Weapons:-
Japanese Samurai:-
- Keep it's old traditional sword
- Upgrade the sword to huge butchers knife
- Upgrade the sword to a Lightsaber




Shaolin Monk:-
- Upgrade the spade to an actual gardening spade
- Upgrade the training pole to a toothpick ?
- Upgrade the staff to ______?
- Upgrade the gloves to knuckle dusters?




Ninja:-
- Upgrade their small knife (or kunai etc) to a swiss army knife
- Upgrade the throwing stars to a starfish - stick to their face to block opponents vision




Cowboy:-
- Upgrade its gun to a rocket launcher






~ Message from the little elf ~