Drew some Gundam from model printouts

Robots

I haven’t watched Gundam, but know there’s quite a following.

A friend figured drawing the style could be helpful, so I printed out photos of models and traced 'em as a test of getting detail.

Imgur

Imgur

Imgur

Now I’m trying to make my own designs & poses for a possible project. Tough work!

Industrial design classes would’ve been a plus at ol’ SFSU-
It’s cool to explore new artistic territory, though.

i dunno bro…i mean naturally they look good, but it’s a tracing. what might help you is to learn the basics…i know it sounds silly, but break down geometric shapes. learn what it means to see “through” an object.
draw a tennis ball, till you totally understand shading…how it exists in space…then draw a tube, like a paper towel tube or something. get the perspective thing down. then glue a papertowel tube to a tennis ball, then draw it from all angles.
then draw a kleenex box…then stick the tennis bal (still glued to the tube)l 3/4 into the kleenex box…draw the hell out of it…understand it…then realize something like that makes a GREAT robot shoulder/hip joint…once you can draw that…dress it up. draws wires, armor…etc.

the guy that did some design work for ratchet and clank grew up near me. his mom comes into my video game store. apparently their family owns a hardware store, and he used to draw all the screws, bolts, pipes… now look at the cool ass weapon designs in that game…you can see his direct influence.

basically, don’t be afraid to get messy. don’t be afraid to draw something that doesn’t look awesome. but you will learn more drawing and understanding the “lesson” i just gave then you EVER will tracing.

jusy my 2 cents.

Wombat,

Thanks- But I don’t see how tracing is a problem for me on these.

I’ve done thousands of drawings (a ream of 500 sheets of animation paper goes quick) since starting as a professional animator almost a decade ago. Most were not tracings of photos.

I learned a lot when I worked here: http://www.wildbrain.com/

Robot I designed:

From a Voltron Sprite ad- inbetweener animation test done during some downtime at Wild Brain (About ten drawings- the toughest test in-house):

Also did some of the Battle Droids for Jar Jar’s Journey (Lucas Arts CDROM) Rough drawing-

But thanks. I have no need of Gundam reference currently.

I need to animate a Flash video game & four more short films.