[Mechano]

Here are some early sketches of my Mass Effect Character. Basically he/she/it is an amphibic mercenary/assassin. I try to figure out different scenarios where this character will look unique. What advantages would this character have with all these tentacles?
Perhaps he can place himself in very odd strategic locations. E.g. the side of a tall chimney/tower or in the roof corners, or why not lay in wait below the water surface?
Other moments that might look interesting is when he uses two tentacles to wield two one hand/tentacle guns, while he reloads them with two other tentacles. Without straying from target. The last four tentacles would be used for propulsion.
He would also be able to camouflage himself by using both his natural ability to change pigment, but also wearing a cloak with active camouflage. Last but not least: What is a squid without it's ink cloud? In this case our protagonist use smoke bombs/grenades to quickly make a retreat.

Surely more ideas will pop up while I start building this char, but this is what I got for now.

-m-

[Alexspeed]

I really like the idea, its different. I think you should run with the octopus body type idea but make it look a bit more alien? Another thought, have you seen what squids and octopus look like out of water? there unable to even move. Its there weightless environment in water that aloud them to evolve, maybe a very low gravity planet would be subtle for the characters back story. Just food for thought, keep going with it

[Mechano]

Thanks Alex. I have been struggling with changing the form but still keep the clever design by nature. It would be a pity to take away too much of the coolness in an octopus, but I will probably play around with skin features. Add horns, scales or claws etc.

When it comes to propulsion and movement I remembered that I've seen land crawling squids before. It looks very cool and perhaps his armour plates will have built in anti-gravity tech that let's him move quicker on land.

Here's a short clip I found on Youtube of a squid on land. It's still pretty fast and with some Mass Effect technology it would probably be much faster.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lom5kM4ytaI

Notice that it seems to be comfortable with moving with it's mantle both at the front and back. This makes me think how the character could strafe a target while it moves up and down walls and other obstacles, without losing focus on the target.

I like the start of Your character too. It's so cool to see the diversity in designs and ideas here! Especially if you're a scifi geek like me.

[Mechano]

I got a few days off before work starts so I'll try to get past the initial startup. Here are my first screens of the base in Zbrush.

[Mechano]

I have to go on a short trip for a couple of days but managed to squeeze in some armour doodles before I had to go and pack my bags
I'm just playing with the layout of the armour pieces but I'm not happy with it at all. When I come back I'll go for a more smoother and unified armour like Ashelys or Mirandas.

[Mechano]

Started on some hard surface parts. Probably going back to the fleshy parts tomorrow : )

[thestrom]

Last update looks better. Great idea.

[Mechano]

Thank You.

Very tired after work today but I forced myself to get the skin details in place. Even started a bit on the scales. It's supposed to be science-fiction not just fiction, right? : )

[Mechano]

Starting to mess with the hard surfaces. Disabled all colour information since it was distracting. Currently trying to figure out what details to solve in sculpt and what to add in mapping...

[Mechano]

Started poly painting the fleshy parts, but I'm doing the hard surface textures the "old way" in Photoshop. Since there are a lot of sharp detailing to be done, on both the normal and colour map.

I did however stumble upon a potential problem: The current anatomy of the character makes it almost impossible for him to use a sniper rifle (see concept sketch). So I have decided to attach a mechanical "sniper arm" to his armour. That folds out when needed.
If I have the time I would like to give him a couple of "gun bracelets" on the two front arms. We'll see...

[Mechano]

I spent the entire Tuesday beating my head against my desk, trying to make a gun bracelet for my char (yes, I scrapped the unfolding-sniper-rifle-of-tele-death). My concepts looked good on paper but when I translated it to 3D shapes it looked awful. Some days it's just not there.

But today it all came out almost by itself If I remember I will post a picture of my paper sketches to remind others (and myself) that there is always light in the end of the creative block tunnel.

[thestrom]

I hope that goes on at least a few tentacles. Might be visually boring if its on all though. But the different weapons could be stored on different tentacles since he does't have much of a back.

[Mechano]

Hehe, yeah. I was thinking that the two furthermost tentacles will carry guns and the remaining four are for holding on, movement etc. Plus once the bracelets are done it will be easy to exchange the gun part for missiles, katanas and so forth.
No update today since I have to go out with clients tonight. Free food FTW!

[Mechano]

Finally back. Work during day, study french during night *sigh* Well gamerezed the T-gun and made some maps for it. Now I'm going back to the main body and armor. See you in a couple of days!

[Mechano]

All geometry is now downscaled to game engine size. Without the tentacle gun this little fellow is weighing in at 6386 polys.

Things left on my todo list:

* Maps for the armour.
* Fit the guns.
* Optimize the maps for game engines.
* Rigging (If there's time left).

Thursday seems awfully close...