Minimate Labs: Android Flyby

Cyclops Wallpapers and Animation

October 12, 2010

- Project Date:October 12, 2010

Something told me it was time to get back into Minimate rendering, and I'm glad I did. I love working with Blender. Before starting Cyclops here, I had only modeled the basic Minimate. It was time to add a few accoutrements. Thankfully the 'mechanical' shapes were fairly easy to make.

It was the organics that were hard.

If I need to model something that has a geometric shape, or is based on a geometric shape, I can usually figure it out. Unfortunately with Cyclops, I learned about the other side of modeling... organics. These are the natural looking, curved objects that can't be simply reduced to a bunch of simple shapes.

(1920x1200)

I fought with Cyclops' hair for several hours before declaring it "close enough." I'm still not satisfied with it, but I figure that I need a wider base of experience before I can get it to look right. In other words, practice!

(1920x1200)

Okay, enough complaining. Focus on the good parts. I love how Cyclops turned out. (Apart from the hair.) It's not an exact replica of the Minimate, but I don't care. The way the light reflects off the plastic, the texture maps, the gold visor, even the little X logos make me smile.

(1920x1200)

Heh, I think we might see a few expansions of that image coming in the future. :)

(1920x1200)

You can see the detail best in that render. It really pops.

I find my mind starts to wander when I work on these. I'm focused on the task at hand, but all these other ideas keep coming to me. I had originally just planed on making the still images you see above. As I progressed, the optic blast was just begging to be animated. Who am I to resist?