Thesis Preview - Siren

Siren is the fourth character in "Human Show". She is a domineering and deceitful repurposed companionship bot. I'll save the backstory for another time.

I've had a lot of trouble coming up with designs for Siren. She used to be a boxy little robot with treads for transportation and arms that dispensed human-grooming items as well as weapons. She had a friendly demeanor that hid a controlling and maniacal personality. She was a repurposed war machine (which I still think is a pretty funny idea).

However, when I went back to the drawing board regarding character relations and backstories, I decided to switch things up a bit and change her history. When she changed to a repurposed companionship bot, I decided she needed to be more human in shape. She also needed to project her menace in the design of her body and posture.

What a challenge! On one hand she had to be alluring, and on the other she needed to fit the style of my other characters. She needed to have feminine characteristics, but a commanding presence. In many ways she has to be more human than my human characters! I'm still in the process of pushing her design, but I'm at a much better spot than I was.

Here's a little look into where this character is and where she has come from.

This is where I'm at currently. I have a basic framework of choices that I'm pushing in different directions. 

This is a color key for a design that I was happy to have come up with recently (you can see it in the first image, on the left, although without any hair). The red dot indicates which color scheme I prefer.

These are some thumbnail silhouettes I did to experiment with different choices. You can see how different ideas began to combine to create the design I have now.

Some early struggles with combining the style of my project with a much more human silhouette. Also, with trying to reconcile robotic mechanisms in a simple way.

One of my first tries at the new direction I was taking. This was essentially an attempt to understand the female anatomy I was shooting for in a mechanized way.

 This was the design for Siren I had about 6 months ago. I was happy with it at the time and it served the purpose I was gunning for at the time, but I'm glad I switched directions.

Another look at old Siren, with weapons deployed.