Robot Sketches
I started by making quick silhouettes sketches using Photoshop. I kept the drawings rough at this stage. I had developed other parts of the world-building of the game, therefore I had an idea of what the Robots needed to look like. 

Story
The Robots assembled themselves by scavenging resources, making themselves larger and larger. These robots showcase in the game their evolution. As you encounter them, some can be hostile, scary or friendly. 

Environment Render
Then, picking a few silhouettes I liked, I chose a few to create a full environment render. I this stage, I liked how they still have this abstracted looking aesthetics to them.

3D Model
I started the 3D Model straight out of the silloutte, which was not ideal. I felt at this point, I was not completely sure about the details of the Robot and wanted to experiment with the look a bit. I think, keeping that sketchy abstracted look was the hardest to achieve. At this point I kept refering to the model as a Robot and not a Mech. The idea of turning the Large Robot into a mech had not cross my mind until near the end of the entire modeling of this asset. 

What prompted the idea of the robot becoming a Mech was simply feedback from potential players of the game. It was this wish that most of everyone had that the player (the human main character) would be able to go inside the robot and walk around the world with it. The large boxy design look in the middle seems to have added to people to think that you could be in there. The boxy design is inspired on the technology from the 1940s-50s as other assets from the game are. It was not always boxy though, for some reason, I made the middle area very cockpit looking. I took that out since I needed to keep the world building to be inspired from the same era and more importantly it did not match my original concept that people liked.

The popular comment from people was, "How do I enter the Mech?"

And still inpired from the 1950s, from the Mercedes Benz 300Sl, I decided Gullwing Doors would be perfect. 

3D Rigging
I decided to use a skeleton system in Maya but keeping the skin out of being Bind at least, for now, using constraints is working great.

I think the main idea to take from all of this was to get feedback from different people to see what works. I was trying to make the robot look 'cool' and 'modern' at one point, but everyone was like, we like this abstracted looking boxy robot.

I am continuing the development of the Mech and other characters. Feel free to check out the the rest of the development of my indie game, The Mills at: