sketch dump

[Inkthinker]

warm-ups for the day, plus a little something from that ongoing fantasy project I'm hobbying about with. I'll post some details on the Machina Artifex Knights later on... no time right now, still working.

http://www.geocities.com/inkthinker/Images/new_stuff/dump2.txt

http://www.geocities.com/benmcsweeney/Savant/Machina_Knight.txt

[Carter]

I love me some giant robots.

--Carter--

[Finnegan]

yeah totally digging that robot man!

awesome stuff as usual ink!


=BoB=

[psico]

Cool, future fantasy stuff.. gotta love that..
but the robt dude.. I think he kinda looks a lot like Calibretto (Battle Chaser)... but well.. I dunno.. I still like it anyway.

[Inkthinker]

Machina Knights are suits of armor, not robots.

I think the design is reminiscent of Calibretto, in retrospect, but I think if you put the two designs side by side you could see they're really not similar at all.

Calibretto's design is actually very reminiscent of another robot design from Japanese anime... can't remember who exactly, though...

[psico]

yeah.. theres a grand possibility im talking crazy.. :D
anyway thats great... specially knowing it armors stuff (I always like armors concepts in comics)..

[Ragelion]

SWEET sketches...I am REALLY diggin the Samurai Bot...but I am a sucker for bots though :)

[Inkthinker]

NOT ROBOT. ARMOR.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to design a feasible suit of powered armor that can hold a human being, is less than 15 feet tall, and incorporates a design that hasn't been done by Masamune Shirow? That man took all the good ideas... :mad:

Anyhow, alternate head for the Machina Knight ARMOR... :D

http://www.geocities.com/benmcsweeney/Savant/Machina_alt.txt

As you can see, the head of the armor does not rotate, but is fixed in place. The person wearing the armor sees through the slits, but his peripheral vision is. by necessity, limited as hell.

This is primitive fantasy powered armor, so I don't get to use video screens or VR goggles or anything like that... I could put those things in and just say "it's magic!" but I feel like that's a cheap way to do it. Magic in the world I'm playing with is limited and specialized... it's more of a natural, mysterious energy source than a mystic power.

[Carter]

Maybe it could have a big glass dome on top like the Pope's car?

--Carter--

[Inkthinker]

Originally posted by psico
yeah.. theres a grand possibility im talking crazy.. :D
anyway thats great... specially knowing it armors stuff (I always like armors concepts in comics)..

nahhh... if I ever take this all the way to publishing a comic, I'm going to take some flak for Battle Chasers. In fact, for a few years I gave up this story all together, becasue of BC. I came up with mine in '94, but that matters little (its not like I had a registered copyright or anything to prove it... just a bunch of old artwork). But they have a couple of similarities... unfortunately, while I've changed them a lot, they're still the main points of the story and I can only change so much.

[Inkthinker]

http://www.geocities.com/benmcsweeney/Savant/Machina_Knight.txt


Okay, so now I'm home and can take a moment to write some notes (for anyone who cares :rolleyes: )

Machina Knights

Machina Knights are actually a variant of Machina Artifex... these are suits of armor designed to increase a human's strength and protect them from injury. Machina Artifex literally means Builder Machine, and the original suits were simply for aiding humans in reclaiming and reconstructing Ruins. They were adapted into war machines in order to aid in defending the Homelands from outside attacks. The suit runs on water, and releases only steam as an exhaust byproduct (the back of the suit shown here is a combination of the fuel tank and a storage vessel.

These machines are essentially all built around the same basic frame. The person wearing the armor controls the movement of the feet and hands, but there is little more than the basics as far as anything else... weapons are basically oversized variants on normal hand-to-hand weapons.

The sword being held here is actually for anti-personnel purposes... a single Machina Knight is nearly invulnerable to attack by conventional weapons, the only real vulnerabilty being the slits through which the pilot views the outside world. The only other threat to a Machina knight is another Machina, or a large humanoid (ogres, giants, etc.) opponent. For fighting such foes, the Knight would use a much heavier sword, or perhaps even an axe or polearm. The sword bound to the chest is in fact for the person inside the armor, for use in case he/she is forced to leave the suit behind.

This is lo-tech powered armor. The pilot can monitor various guages for pressure, fuel, or temperature, but there are no hi-tech gadgets like cameras, radar, or projectile weapons (maybe really big crossbows, or a black powder cannon). The wearer views the world through the open slits around the "head", which does not move.

There are about 1000 Machina Artifex Knights, making up about 25% of the total armed forces of the Homelands. They are not supposed to be available for provate purchase, but the very wealthy may possess a few older models, and of course suits may fall into the hands of renegades, bandits or other criminals... Renegade Machina Knights are also not unheard of.

[Saturn Lad]

Could you do a cutaway, showing how the character fits inside? I'm having some trouble visualizing it. Otherwise, I like the steampunk feel of it. Oh, and I actually kind of prefer the alternate head plate.

[Inkthinker]

At some point I will... this is really my private hobby project, so I work on it in short bursts... the last burst was this character (http://www.geocities.com/benmcsweeney/Savant/Librarian_net.txt) and a buttload of writing... I plotted out the first three "episodes" very loosely, and wrote up a lot of notes on the world in general.

I think I may have extended the waist a bit much here... not sure. The person inside sits so that their head is just a bit higher than the shoulders, allowing them to see out through the slits in the armor. Their arms are extended out into the shoulders of the armor, and their legs are extending down into the armor's thighs. They control the armor by applying pressure to plates that in turn move the arms and legs, and the hands by manipulating finger controls.

I can't say too much about the operation of the machine without giving up a bunch of plot elements... needless to say, it's the most advanced piece of technology in the world, and even the people who use it don't fully understand it's guts.

[InkDrop]

Great stuff as usual Ink. I can't wait to see more of this idea of yours. I dig the second faceplate as well. Keep'em coming.

PEACE,
Drop

[blaquejag]

that some very tight work you got there, lovet he who concept as well as the art work.