Robot Cutaway Diagram | Pixel Art Timelapse

[Music] hello there my name is brandon and i make pictures out of tiny squares and in this time lapse i'm going to put together a little cross-section graphic of a robot design like where the exterior is on one half and then the interior is on the other where you can kind of see all the internal mechanics and things like that the mech design that i'm making comes from a previous video it's this sort of frog mech suit type of thing that was from the top down workshop video that i did and in that one the original sprite is only about 20 pixels taller so but i like the design ideas there and so it'll be nice to kind of see this larger version kind of have more detail to it i'm getting started here by connecting simple shapes together to build up the form and kind of playing with the overall balance of the silhouette the canvas size i'm using is 128 by 128 pixels and by the end of this i do bump that out a bit to something like 135 or so and that's just to give a bit more breathing room around the design but at the very least that kind of gives you the idea of the scale that i'm working in here after getting this sort of initial framework into place i'm going through and doing some refinement on the angles i'm just trying to balance out the individual segments so that they're equal repeated units to minimize the jagginess the other thing i'm looking for is to add a bit more detail into the linework just like a few panel lines or seams to separate out these different pieces of the suit but i'm keeping it fairly minimal because i want this exterior design to be really simple and plain so that it'll contrast with the more detailed interior mechanics on the other side of the cross section one of the parts that was kind of glossed over on the original sprite was the leg section and mostly that's due to the small size and the angle of view from that artwork so for this version it was nice to be able to give more definition to that part of the design i've gone with a sort of rounded boot that has like a slight ankle to it and then there's a simple knee pad along the leg too at the waist there's this kind of gundam inspired paneled skirting going along that i think not only looks cool but also kind of simplifies or i guess just entirely hides you know that point of connection between the leg and the body so it just helps keep the design pretty clean here too to get started with the mechanical half of the cross section i've mirrored all the line work to give the equivalent silhouette to work from but then i'm filling in this half with a gray tone just because it kind of helped me to picture it being an empty vessel that i could fill with the interior design by having a casting gray first the first piece i'm adding here is the pilot seat uh since that's going to become kind of the point of reference for the rest of the cockpit area i thought it was kind of funny that the lower frame of the chair could actually line up with the smile on the face of the exterior design but then rather than lining up something where i would sit i actually created a rail system mounted over the chair that i imagine to hold like various monitors and readouts to accommodate the visuals for the pilot the rest of the design is built out from this idea where i've added a framework which becomes kind of an anchor point for a lot of the wires and the mechanics here and i'm trying to think about the function and articulation while placing a lot of these main elements but i'm also pretty easy sell on a lot of these details like at a certain point if it looks cool and it works for the tidiness of the pixel art those are kind of really the more important factors for my design decisions a lot of times i'll just throw together different combos of line work and feature shapes and then having those in place that might spark its own idea of how the linework should look just to maintain a clear read on the pixel art for instance it's also good to work in some variety just in terms of how busy the details are like a lot of these intricate details are fun to have but having a few areas of visual rest kind of helps you appreciate those busy parts even more rather than running the risk of it just becoming too many tiny monotonous details everywhere of course it's going to be possible to bring even more clarity to this through the use of different colors and shading but it's a common part of my workflow that i'll try to maximize the clarity through the linework first just because then i'm setting myself up for an even more effective result once i'm able to actually enhance that foundation through shading all right so here's a look at the completed line work for both sides and the next thing i'm going to do is color the exterior side since that's going to be kind of a straightforward translation from the existing sprite colors and then i'll be able to assess what kind of colors should go into the mechanical side once we see how that first side looks i've started this by blocking in all the line work first with solid color and then from there i take some of the secondary or shade colors to go through and explore some shading to each piece the charm with these colors in the original illustration was kind of the pairing of these strongly hue shifted tones together so i'm obviously carrying that idea over just by using this palette but i wasn't really sure how would scale up to a design that was like this size with this kind of surface area so i tried to restrict most of the line work sections to only two colors uh sometimes three if there's like a bright white highlight in there and i feel you know that kind of maintains that same logic or intent of the original palette into this larger version without having to introduce new colors on top of that as a final pass i'm taking the darker purpley blue tone and using it to create sections of colored outline on the brighter areas of the linework this will help provide more depth in the linework itself and it'll also increase the vibrancy of the side overall which is really appropriate since this side is kind of like the bright and cheery half of the design on the other side i'm going to go with something closer to a monotone steel palette to begin with and the first step there is to introduce a few different levels of brightness to pop out certain pieces from one another so to achieve this look i'm just doing a quick pass first using one gray tone that's brighter than the base tone and one that's darker to actually turn these grays into a colder steel color i've placed a gradient map over that portion of the artwork and it's starting as a gradient from the purple to cyan colors of the original palette but then i've backed off the saturation quite a bit as well as playing with the hues of the individual tones themselves to try to introduce a bit more color separation so in the end the background of the interior is this sort of moderate saturation purple which then works into these gray blues for the steely colors from here i drop in a few accent colors using the original palette to kind of pop a few of the wires and other features for some visual interest and the other thing i'm doing is mixing and matching using the steel palette to apply highlight and shade edges along most of these components i went heavier with the application on these sort of finishes on this half and again that's to provide further contrast between that sort of smooth colorful exterior and then these heavily textured internal components and that's about the last round of work on the cross section here so let's go ahead and take a look at the final piece here we go [Music] out all right so overall i'm really happy with the outcome here um you know i don't think i could explain the function of every single little detail piece here but as a whole i think there's a great contrast between the two halves for the finishing touches i've added this sort of blueprint style presentation obviously with a few callout icons to fill out that space i also started to really enjoy the balance of throwing in those accent colors of the original palette so in the cockpit here i've dotted in some of those vibrant blues to give the impression of it being like a monitor glow in that area and let's close out here with some crt time so thank you for watching and take care and keep it square [Music] you

Channel: Brandon James Greer

Views: 35,407

Keywords: pixel art, mecha, speedpaint, gundam, design

Id: IxIkR6A0amk

Length: 8min 42sec (522 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 08 2021