This is the nearly finalized design for my asteroid miner's powered armor. Need the big leg on the same side as the big arm, and I'm gonna move the backpod to other side for balance...but it's pretty much there.
So when you're doing work like this, are you thinking, 'well one arm should be bigger because it looks cooler' or more like 'he only needs one digging tool and it makes more sense if it was part of the suit so it would make one arm look bigger'?
So I got this Doug Chiang book and he has a quick test to see how successful something is from a design standpoint.
1. Strong silhouette: Yeah, with the head shape and the big arm it works pretty good.
2, Three second rule: Can you understand what it is in three seconds. Yeah, armor of some kind. Probably space armor.
3.Personality: It could easily be a bad guy, but space armor is supposed to threatening. It looks pretty tough, but the parts that arent armored make it seem a little delicate too. Full points because its an interesting shape.
4.Functionality: Well, its supposed to protect the wearer, but its not super clear what from. It's not armored all over, and it doesnt really say miner anywhere.
5. Believabilty: The left arm and shoulder assembly seem really bulky and uncomfortable. Even in zero it looks really mass-y and its hard for me to read where his shoulder and arm are under neath it all. He must have a really limited field of view peering through that tiny port hole and he cant move his head so if he wants to look around he would have to move his whole body. Why is his helmet so big and heavy, but his right arm is almost completely uncovered? Why is one leg bigger than the other? It would make walking pretty awkward. In fact it kind of looks like it was made out of two different suites.
6. Cool factor: Yeah, I like how ugly it is. Especially the helmet.
So yeah, its pretty cool. As far as I understand the story its more important that it looks right than actually being functional or anything.
This is the nearly finalized design for my asteroid miner's powered armor. Need the big leg on the same side as the big arm, and I'm gonna move the backpod to other side for balance...but it's pretty much there.
So when you're doing work like this, are you thinking, 'well one arm should be bigger because it looks cooler' or more like 'he only needs one digging tool and it makes more sense if it was part of the suit so it would make one arm look bigger'?
ReplyDeleteSo I got this Doug Chiang book and he has a quick test to see how successful something is from a design standpoint.
ReplyDelete1. Strong silhouette: Yeah, with the head shape and the big arm it works pretty good.
2, Three second rule: Can you understand what it is in three seconds. Yeah, armor of some kind. Probably space armor.
3.Personality: It could easily be a bad guy, but space armor is supposed to threatening. It looks pretty tough, but the parts that arent armored make it seem a little delicate too.
Full points because its an interesting shape.
4.Functionality: Well, its supposed to protect the wearer, but its not super clear what from. It's not armored all over, and it doesnt really say miner anywhere.
5. Believabilty: The left arm and shoulder assembly seem really bulky and uncomfortable. Even in zero it looks really mass-y and its hard for me to read where his shoulder and arm are under neath it all. He must have a really limited field of view peering through that tiny port hole and he cant move his head so if he wants to look around he would have to move his whole body. Why is his helmet so big and heavy, but his right arm is almost completely uncovered? Why is one leg bigger than the other? It would make walking pretty awkward. In fact it kind of looks like it was made out of two different suites.
6. Cool factor: Yeah, I like how ugly it is. Especially the helmet.
So yeah, its pretty cool. As far as I understand the story its more important that it looks right than actually being functional or anything.