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Librarian-bot — I Need Your Help...
Published: 2010-06-26 21:25:41 +0000 UTC; Views: 1465; Favourites: 15; Downloads: 56
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Well, sort of. More...critque, I guess. Basically, what more does this design need? I've sketched out the basics I want but where should I go with the fine detail? Any suggestions welcome!And bonus points to anyone who knows why I 'posed' him like that....
The Cybermen belong to the BBC (even if they can't write them properly for toffee....rassenfassenAdventureGame....)
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Comments: 20
I think what would really make brilliant Cybermen is the human aspect being re-emphasised. What makes the Cybermen scary is the fact that they're an exaggerated version of ourselves further down the line of technological advancements. Imagine if the Cyber-heads could open, revealing the face of a previous character?! That would be terrifying!
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Hi - I really like your Cyber-redesigns, great stuff.
As to what it needs... It really depends on whether you are going for a close-to-classic Cyberman or something more unique. I'd suggest 2 things (and they are contradictory so huge kudos if you could pull of both at once).
1) Make it look more human
2) Make it look less human
I'll try and explain what I mean...
On the one hand, the thing that separates Cybermen from robots is that somewhere under the armour there's at least a bit of human left inside. If you could play on that it some way it would make the design a bit more chilling on the "YOU will be like us..." motif. There's all sort of ways you could go with something like this - some organic components, visible organs, shrivelled face behind the mask, metal ribcage - etc.
On the other hand Cybermen, like all the old Dr Who monsters, sometimes suffer from the "It's a bloke in a suit" problem. So anything that makes it appear that it can't just have a person inside would be great e.g. break up the human form just a little in some way. Again, there's all sort of ways you could go - elongated limbs, a "hole" through the torso, an extra set of joints joint - and so on. Basically anything that would be impossible for an actual human.
All this said, I'm not criticising - it's a really great design. I'll have a look at your other work - keep it up!
All the best
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Thanks for your comments. You've hit a couple of nails on the head.
The 'human remains' idea is tempting but I never particularly liked how that tends to end up looking...I think I should qualify that, because there are a lot of good designs that take it and run with it. Basically, it boils down to me not thinking it's very logical. The 'cybersuit' is essentially a survival suit, designed to preserve whatever is merged with it. Having that exposed to the elements, even indirectly, seems...detrimental to that aim. Metal ribcages too seem...unnecessary. That said, since I do kind of like the line of thought that underlies those kinds of features, I may see what I can do.
As for breaking up 'bloke in a suit' problems - the Cybermen are unique in being exempt from it! They are 'blokes in suits'! But seriously, you're right again. And I've already tried, with the joints, which are meant to be servo motors completely replacing the organic ones. Not sure if that came out so well...might adjust them to try and play that up. The idea was rather to have them like amputees, with the bits of the limbs sealed up and disconnected from one another.
Cheers for the advice and I shall keep tweaking the design.
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Hi again,
you wrote (snipped) -
"The 'human remains' idea...me not thinking it's very logical. The 'cybersuit' is essentially a survival suit...Having that exposed to the elements, even indirectly, seems...detrimental to that aim. "
Sadly I do agree. The actual aesthetic effect (if one can call something horrible by that term) can be excellent, but the logic is lacking (ditto really such things as wires and pipes hanging around the body where they can easily snag or be snipped etc. And I won't even get started on other species like the Movellans carrying their programming pinned to their costumes etc..). I think perhaps the best use of the human body being visible (other than with damaged/destroyed Cybermen) is the partial-conversion types e.g. the Cyberdrones in the "Battles in Time" comic-strips etc; the logic here being that humans have had minimal conversion to produce quick cyber-controlled troops for immediate deployment where full conversion would take too long. Perhaps something to tinker with?
By the way, I do a blog on Cybermen here : [link] and one of the on-going things I'm doing is a round up of alternative Cyber-designs. Do you mind if I include yours (with link to your deviant page etc)?
All the best
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It think you're right - if you want to show the 'horror' aspects, partially-converted humans are the way to go. It's not something I can create myself - can't do organic materials very well in the program I use - but I think a decent partially-coverted human remains to be realised. The 'Cyberwoman' was obviously ludicrous (the eyes would be the first thing to go...) and the Cybertroopers in 'Real Time' struck me as very hit and miss - and it really made no sense for the woman of the group to have a Cybersuit the fit around her form...
And please, feel free to add my design. Although, if you can hold off for a while, I'm going to put up the latest WIP shot later today. In the mean time, this may interest you. It's a random rant I put up on my journal about Cyber-psychology and I would be interested in the opinion of another cyber-fan: [link]
Cheers for your comments!
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On the partially Cyber-converted front, I've been doodling - here's 2 of my Cyber-deviations :
[link]
[link]
They were a bit thrown together but I'd be interested to know what you think
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He is posed this way because this is a referance sheet or character sheet. I would suggest to may be make them thicker, right now they look like the walking dead in metal form. If not thicker maybe more tubes everywhere to give the illusion of thickness. I love the head it is very cool.
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You're halfway there, but there's a slightly more specific reason than that.
The walking dead in metal form is actually rather what I was going for...the Cybermen may be all about survival but in the process, they have reduced themselves to little more than animated corpses. You're right about the tubes too. Already 're-plumbed' the design - I'm trying to replicate the spine-tube's look on the arms and legs.
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Wow great design, but yeah i'll throw in some ideas that might help. Okay first off you should give them the same base physique as you did with your older cybermen while still keeping with the more streamlined look this one has. Take out the back tube to the head lamp and make it look more molded into the head. Add the upper arm and thigh tubing to the lower legs and forearms. Add boot-like treads to the feet so they look more all-terrain. And finally add a more grill-like feature to the front chest piece.
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The physique does seem to be the main change people are suggesting, doesn't it? The difficulty is trying to make all those torso sections move around each other enough to make him decently flexible...
Any particular reason to change the head lamp/tube? I should explain that I set it up like that because that's how the very first Cybermen were designed, with three tubes rather than two.
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wow that I never new, all the pics i've seen of the cybermen from tenth planet and above has only shown the side tubes. Also reason to change the headlamp is I think it looks alittle to big. To be honest it kinda makes it look like a big target on his head so I dunno just seems that somebody could bonk him on the head with a bat and disable whatever function that headlamp serves. If anything it just really needs to be shrunk down a tiny bit like the "tomb of" or "revenge of" cybermen. Anyways two things that I really dig on your cybermen design is the back spinal column and the cybergun. Maybe you should think about making a larger mobile artillary version like the x-ray laser they had in "the moonbase"
.
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Here's a shot from google that gives an idea of how it was set up: [link] The idea, originally, was that the head-dish was a power-receptor: the cybermen were all powered by energy beamed directly from Mondas. About as daft an idea as the Daleks being limited to metal floors but one that kind of makes sense if you think about the run-down state of Mondas by that point: their technology may have broken down to the point where their batteries wouldn't charge. Anyway, that idea was out pretty much from their second appearance, and by the Tomb of the Cybermen, it's shown that they recharge in big, coffin-like devices. The 'dish' remains as a 'headlamp' in the post-Moonbase design but it only gains another function in The Wheel In Space (though Tomb hints at this) where it emits a hypnotic ray to bring humans under Cyber-control.
Which is a long way of saying that, on my design, it's effectively a transceiver, receiving and directing communications and control signals. It's not vital to their function and it's not really a combat weapon, though I imagine the hypnotic ray could come in handy in the midst of a battle. If you bonked it, it wouldn't do much harm - in fact, given that Cybermen are effectively bullet proof, it's unlikly it'd do any harm at all!
As for its size, I've already shrunk it from my original design and I'm rather pleased with the current shape. I may fiddle with it some more, but I rather like it as it is.
I like ths spinal column too! I seem to have put it on every cyber-design I've come up with. Don't know why...and yeah, an X-Ray laser could well be in the offing! (Wow, long post this, eh?)
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Again another bit of cybermen info I never knew! Well the way you describe the headlamps intended functions really intrigues me. I have an idea about the headlamps hypnotic ray effect, that its used mainly as a secondary system for the headlamp and its unique electro-energy projection system is designed to stimulate the neural electrical impulses of humanoids to bring them under cyber-control. Also since the headlamps were once seen as weapons in "revenge of the cybermen" it might have a kill function too that overloads a humans nervous system, but I figure this is used rarely since it would drain the cybermans internal power supply.
Another thing i've noticed in researching past cybermen weaponry is most of it seems electric and x-ray laser based. So how I figure it cybermen use electric based attacks built into there bodies for communication, hypnosis, stunning, and taking over electrical machinery. X-ray lasers seemes to be mainly used in there cyberguns but its also quite likely its also part of there auxillary weapons systems in there chest pieces too.
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Oooh....I think you're onto something there...yes, I can very much see all those effects as coming from a single neuro-electrical device. And I like the idea that they can kill with it as an emergency procedure.
You're quite right about the distinction in their weaponry too. It's pretty clear that their original weapons, the great Mondasian disc weapons, were your traditional War of the Worlds heat ray, and it's fairly common for cyber-guns of the early years to leave bodies smoking - but all that is entirely consistent with focused radiation emitions. In fact, I think the standard descroption is of them emitting 'deadly rays'...
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hmm... well... for starters I'd probably suggest tweaking the proportions to look more realistic, maybe widen and build out the torso slightly.
As far as detailing goes, there's nothing some texturing can't fix. Maybe throw in some intricate angled lines throughout it, maybe some Mondasian writing somewhere on it? I could take this and do a little photomanipulation if you wish.
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Yeah, a photo-manip would be handy to see how far you'd go with it.
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It's good, but this Cyberman looks more like Robot. Maybe add something Organic?
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I wish I could, but it's hard to make things look organic in the program I use.
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Still, what did you have in mind? I might be able to improvise something...
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