Turtech

3/4 View
Closeup
3/4 Rear view

Inspiration

I've got a real soft spot for cool robots. I grew up with The Iron Giant and Castle in the Sky, then it was Transformers, Pacific Rim, Titanfall, the list goes on. If it's a robot, droid, mech, etc, most likely I love it. (bonus points if it's big and a little clunky). Most of my concept sketches end up being robot-related, and Turtech was the first big project to bring one of those concepts to a full 3D model. As for a little background, Turtechs (TR-TK High Power Mech Unit Model 5s) stand 30 feet tall and are the heavy lifters of the PONOS company, the largest construction and military contractor company of Earth's distant future. Turtech is currently but a concept with a small bit of lore attached, not currently part of any larger project.

Modeling Process

This was a very different process than I've attempted before. I modeled the entire character in Zbrush, in a process of sculpting, separating, and refining. This took a little while as I was still figuring things out as I went, but I'm very happy with the result! After that was finished I spent an annoying amount of time sorting through UVs, (leaving half of them messy), and finally, I popped it into substance and roughed up his textures.

Challenges/Learning Experiences

Subtools! Subtools! So many subtools! I seriously neglected the complexity of this model when I began working on him in my few free hours. Between every individual armor plate, vent, pipe and joint, this project felt neverending at multiple points of the process. Along with this, since I didn't start with much of an end goal for him, he's a bit denser and less efficient than I want. Now that I've worked through this in a rather all over the place workflow, I think I'll be better equipped to create my next idea.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

I'm pretty happy with how I was able to bring my idea from concept sketch to model! This is one of my first big projects that I was able to finish all in my free time. I wasn't sure how well I could pull off all of the intricate pieces and rounded armor plates, but I was super happy how they turned out, especially after the texturing process.