Concept

Growing up, I really enjoyed enjoyed movies like Robocop and Spawn. Naturally, in my concept work, I always gravitated towards sci-fi and horror genres. I was interested in the idea of having a cyborg army - ruled by a world government to conquer foreign planets. These cyborgs were once humans whose bodies were forced-fused to machinery and weapons. While attending The Art Institute of Dallas, I successfully created this character (Xborg), taking it from concept drawing to final model. All concept sketches/paintings were done in Photoshop and rendering in 3D Studio Max and Mental Ray. 

Original concept drawing

Original concept drawing

Final 3-D model

Final 3-D model

Process

All projects should start with solid groundwork. For me, the initial process required some time on the sketch pad in order to get an idea of what I was going for. It was really important for me to achieve a believable look to this character. The mechanics needed to look like they work. I gathered a majority of my reference from airplane landing gear and large diesel engines. 

Sketches - Design exploration

Sketches - Design exploration

Mech Hull - final design

Mech Hull - detail

After creating a base model for the bust, I was able to take the asset into Zbrush in order to sculpt the organic details to the face. This is where the character really came to life. These high-frequency details were later baked on to a UV Map using a low-poly version of the same bust. Once the UV Map was prepped, more texture was added along with color in Substance Painter. All of the hard-surface pieces were modeled and textured in 3Ds Max. 

Attention to details such as the mechanics of the hull engine and robotic hand help drive the complexity of the character. In most cases, one would choose to allocate their time to the areas that will be the focus of the rendered images. Here, I chose to complete the model to the best of my ability.