@Phil - Requesting Opinion

I'm attempting to expand the space of the bunker to show that it is, in fact, a military intsallation like you suggested. I'm tied between #7 and #8 - #7 clearly shows the bunker-type environment but I'm still unhappy with the idea of the space having windows. #8 immediately shifts the location from somewhere quiet and peaceful to something a bit darker, but I worry that it's a cop-out. Opinions?

Figuring It Out

Two more concept painting sketches. These two were disproportionately difficult and time-consuming (you can see where I got bored and frustrated), and after I gave up on them I worked out why. Neither of the two paintings looked like the space I wanted them to be, because I already had figured out and put down that space; I just didn't realise it.

Obviously it will take some tweaking and refinement, but at the very least I now know what I'm doing.

Initial Colour Thoughts

Starting to think about colour. None of these feel particularly 'right' to me; perhaps it's just the low level of finish, but I have no doubt it's also my innate struggle with surface colour and making them work together in realistic lighting.

Clockwork Soldier Thumbnails, Part the Third

Even more thumbs. I'm leaning towards an old, venerable atlas for the soldier's hero prop - it's big and I can make it distinctive against all the 'filler' books, and encapsulates how he misses the outside world. Beyond that just some more fiddling with cell shapes, general clutter and shot angles. Practically speaking I prefer the angle in #28 - it shows everything off nicely and gives a good sense of the size of the space. Purely as an artist I like the angle in #30, as it really emphasises the soldier's clockwork nature and puts the focus onto the workbench. Unfortunately, such a low angle means you can barely see anything else.

The Clockwork Soldier - Character Discussion

The Clockwork Soldier is a clockwork-powered automaton built for war and ‘piloted’ by a transplanted human brain formerly belonging to a prisoner of war. Prior to being implanted into the machine his mind was brutally and systematically broken to make him co-operative and destroy his will to rebel against his captors, but slowly, over the century or so he was in active service, his mind began to heal. He has no recollection of his life before becoming the soldier, but he has made a new life regardless. He fell back in love with the world, and acquired a great number of mementos and treasures from the places war took him.

Eventually newer, more advanced forms of the machine-soldier were brought into production, and the Clockwork Soldier was outmoded. With such an impressive armoury built into him, and being a military and industrial secret, he could not be released into the civilian population, but due to being built to be completely tamper-proof he could not be safely dismantled. Thus, his ‘commanders’ had no other option but to lock him away and wait until he wound down by himself.

It has been a very long time since the Soldier was locked away. The commanders who imprisoned him are long dead, as is anyone who remembers the reason the bomb-proof underground bunker is so heavily guarded. It doesn’t need to be; the Soldier never wanted war, and has resigned himself to living away his days alone with his books and his treasures.

He is not unhappy, at least most of the time. He knows most of his books by heart but still reads them out of affection, and carefully maintains his clockwork shell out of a stubborn refusal to die when he’s supposed to. He has made his prison into a home, with all sorts of improvised furniture and storage space to reflect the world he loved and lost. He surrounds himself with his keepsakes and memories of the outside, having long since come to terms with the fact that he will never see sunlight again.

His brain, like any brain, requires sleep and food to survive. Though he cannot feel the comfort of a bed he has one anyway, and, once a week, a tiny hatch is opened to provide him with just enough food and water to live on, and a little oil to keep him going. Nobody on the other side knows why, but they follow orders, and so the Clockwork Soldier persists.

‘Live well. It is the best revenge.’ – The Talmud

Environment Thumbnails pt 2

Starting to think about hero props and furnishings. I'm trying to think about the things the soldier would have access to, and how to make the environment visibly 'clockwork'. I keep thinking he's a bit of a hoarder, trying to hang on to all the pieces of the outside world he no longer has access to, improvising shelves and the like to keep all his stuff, not to mention the boxes that seem to be ubiquitous in my sketches. Also ubiquitous are the books; mostly travel books I imagine, because I know if I was locked away never to see daylight again I'd bring a whole library's worth of books to keep me from going insane.

Clockwork Soldier Initial Thoughts and Thumbnails

Upon talking to Phil, I've reached the conclusion that this clockwork soldier is a weapon of war, a 'person of mass destruction'. I'm alternating between it being purely a clockwork automaton that has somehow developed sentience and a human brain (or part of one) piloting a clockwork body. Either way, the clockwork soldier has become outmoded and is no longer an effective weapon, so his creators want rid of him. Unfortunately, he is very well-made; so well-made, in fact, as to be completely tamper-proof, so deconstructing him is out of the question, and simply setting him free is too risky given his weaponised nature. As a result, he has been locked away and forgotten in some vault or bunker somewhere, to wait for the day he finally stops.

Phil and I discussed the possibility of the soldier being a reluctant warrior, not wanting to harm anyone but, being what he is, having no other choice. I imagine him as quite a gentle soul, not naturally aggressive but with a truly impressive in-built arsenal that makes him a danger to be near. Locked away in his vault he tries to hang on to the human soul he either has or developed, surrounding himself with personal treasures and trying to make the dead, empty vault into a home. Despite being completely alone and isolated he still tries to live as well as he can.

A not-so-quick concept painting where I just noodled with  design and tried to force myself to design in perspective and on the fly, something I really struggle with (check out all the isometric drawings in the thumbnails for proof of this). Not fond of the actual rendering, but design and perspective-wise I'm not unhappy at all.

And, just to finish, a super-quick study of Al Capone's prison cell, to get a feel for a 'home-y' prison.