DSG 1211: Sci-Fi: COMPLEX, CREEPY-LOOKING NANOBOT AS SEEN W/ AN ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

[William b. Hand]

[ A "nanobot" is a microscopically sized machine. ]

[ Scanning Electron Microscopy shows images in B&W and has a notably peculiar look to it. ]

[ I highly suggest that you search yourself up some reference photos of insects and nascent nanomachinery as seen under an SEM, so you can get the feel of this novel imagery. ]

[ Hint: You might wanna start off with a very dark background, and then draw the form out of that darkness using light (remember, this will be monochromatic). ]

Sci-Fi: COMPLEX, CREEPY-LOOKING NANOBOT AS SEEN W/ AN ELECTRON MICROSCOPE
.
.
.

[Mydrim]

I have to search a reference? Bleh, that's stupid..:)

[ ADMIN NOTE: Mydrim, quit all yer fussin, and get yerself ta the scrawlin! ]

[Sunny]

man i need to draw more. i suck lately hahaha. not diggin this so far

http://www.bestofthebeast.com/sketches/nanobot.jpg

[goran]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v17/smogyboy/CA%20sketchbook/nanobots.jpg
nice one Sunny

[FabioX]

Tough one. My shot.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/184/415789274_a41e19f56f.jpg

[eblu]

http://homepage.mac.com/eblu/con/micro.jpg

[Mitze]

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f162/mekese2000/insect1.jpg

[electric goat]

http://i150.photobucket.com/albums/s107/electricgoat_bucket/nano.jpg here ya go. i is a first time poster, and it didn't even hurt!

[Vitreous]

here's my nasty little nanoworm.
likes-blood, a host, other nanoworms.
Dislikes-anti-nanoworms.
Completed in painter and polished off in photoshop.
http://www.jonnyridley.co.uk/images/dailysketch/nanoworm.jpg
whops, just realised it was supposed to be monochromatic-i blame seeing colourised pictures of parasties for my reference...oh well. great work everyone so far.

[Sunny]

Thanx goran, urs is much more realistic and kewl!

[silentbrain]

Nice variety in here so far, really digging all the different strategies at tackling this topic. It's definitely been tough, at least for me! (and I spent way too long on it...hope I learned something.)

Actually this is more like a sodaplay (http://www.sodaplay.com/zoo/index.htm) fanart...

http://venimarolka.com/dump/030907-sodaplayfanart.jpg

And now for a complete tangent:
a real fly with microscopic glasses (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/03/0328_060328_fly_glasses.html).

[Straniero]

The first pics I looked at to get an idea of what electron microscope photos were supposed to look like were unfortunately all an odd blue and not black and white. I'll blame that for the ensuing madness!

Here is the quick redo in black and white to satisfy the look of the electron microscope pics - I missed the "complex part" and just touched on the creepy (but he's complex on the inside and if he hears he's creepy he'll be hurt):

http://www.freewebs.com/mezzanote/sketch/DSG1211_NanobotSmall.JPG

If he looks familiar, it was because the color reference pics headed me in this direction from the start:

http://www.freewebs.com/mezzanote/sketch/DSG1211_Nanobot.JPG

I'm a first time poster as well. You DSG'ers are fantastic, keep up the great work -- hopefully this provided a bit of comic relief. ;)

[Rogzilla]

I like this one. ^_^ It is neat!

http://ic3.deviantart.com/fs15/f/2007/069/0/4/Nanobot_by_rogue_rogzilla.jpg

[Camara]

A small one over a piece of cotton

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/3561/nanomf0.jpg

[SOUTHERN]

Had to have a go. About an hour I think. I wanted to do a sort of Nano-Flea fixing torn skin.

http://www.southerngfx.co.uk/galleries/speed_painting/images/img024.jpg

[Vitreous]

silentbrain-really interesting looking piece, i love what you've done with the blurring/ depth perception, its a simple and very well exectued/realistic looking machine/germoid

[Eetwartti]

Interesting subject! And here's my try:

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/5563/birdbotui7.jpg

[rubicante]

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y23/meticulous_spline/DSG/DSG1211v2.jpg

EDIT: I wasn't quite done yet. :P You'd be more than welcome to copy it, dan. It would have been interesting to see what you'd have done with it. Besides, I've never had anybody steal my work before, I'm sure it'd be quite a rush. :D

Oh, and thanks. :P

Silentbrain, yours is probably the only one that looks the least bit realistic.

[dan liimatta]

really good rubricante - solid design, and render to boot - inspiring :)

I think I'll just copy it ~ sorry! :bow:

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1563/dsg1211vz6.jpg
unclean (http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/1563/dsg1211vz6.jpg)
20 minutes of doodliness [EDIT] plus some bloody 10 minutes of clean-up.
oh and the Accented Edges filter is pretty hot for this DSG ;)

2nd [EDIT]
Besides already mentioned Rubricante, the following struck a chord of interest Mitze & of course, last but not least (the opposite in fact) goran :heart:

Cámara welcome back!

[Tommoy]

I like the one's Goran, Rubicante and Dan made most. Rogzilla, put some gray in it to give it depth, could be a very nice one to.
For myself, i can't seem to get it creepy looking.

http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t19/Tommoy/DSG11k.jpg

[Mydrim]

Here goes the Mydrim awards...

1.silentbrain
2.rubicante
3.Straniero

[Sunny]

My awards.

1. Rubricante
2. Goran
3. Dan Liimatta

[Mydrim]

Sunny> Hmm.. My awards are much more better.. Anyway, where's that damned William with new topic? Ok, although I had time, i haven't participate today... But I am going to take this new theme, anything it will be.. Except for it will be totally stupid:)

[silentbrain]

Actually I'd really like to see William B Hand take a crack at this one
if memory serves me correctly, it'd be right up his alley

PS- You all are really rocking this topic!

[Hamsta]

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4701/1211nanobotnc5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Estrata]

http://www.laura-anderton.com/files/nano.jpg

He's got a 'fro

[teknoanimal]

http://rgingras.net/linked/micro.jpg

[digital_embryo]

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/2613/xraymedmo1.jpg

Layed out in Max and sketched over and filtered in ps - 2hrs

[William b. Hand]

Well, it's late now, and I'm sick, so I can't comment tonight, but I will tomorrow. So, silentbrain, I wasn't doing anything with my evening and you're right that this's right up my alley, and so I went ahead and did this. Thanks for goading me into it. Research time: about 20m. PS time: about 2 hr.

[ UPDATED IMAGE ]

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w188/wbhandny/nastynanobotiii.jpg

... huh. Photobucket fudged some of the contrast and subtleties of the original... Not quite as nice. :(

ORIGINAL IMAGE (http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w188/wbhandny/nastynanobot.jpg)

[Mydrim]

William> I must say it's really creepy-looking and love the head design, like it's containing like 4 little heads that are taking the food into the main mouth, that's good. But I'd like to see a design at the worm body too.

[William b. Hand]

Sunny - Sorry to hear you're feeling in a slump (i can relate). I like that you really pushed for the SEM look by illuminating from the sides. He kinda looks like a cross between a mite and an orc. :teeth:

goran - Very cool design. Background has an SEM look, but not the bot... you kinda went with a more traditional lighting approach on that, I think. I love the solidity and mechanics of the legs and pincers/face.

Mitze - Pretty good lighting approach to this... it quickly registers as electron micrography, I think. I like the neck area's thing-within-a-thing construction.

electric goat - Welcome! I love the graphic look of this... A Charles Burnsesque quality that's well done and still communicates the SEM effect. I wish you'd included it's environment, but I didn't get around to that myself. I hope we see more from you here.

Vitreous - Hmm... Nice creepy worm. Very Matrixy. I'm sorry to see you so entirely ditched the SEM approach, though... Even in the false-colour SEM images, there's a very distinct look to the lighting and the colouring.

silentbrain - Gorgeous! I would love a little tut on how you did this one. The aesthic approach to the microdesign is superb. Very creepy, indeed. Well done. (Thanks for the 'get well' PM!)

Rogzilla - Cool one! I love the legs and expressive owl-like face. Good job on including the surface, too. What you have here is just line-work, though... This would be far more believable if you carefully went in with some soft, fading highlights to describe the form. Nice feeling of animation... it really looks like it's in the midst of crawling along.

Camara - I like the legs on this, and feel it might've been a pleasing design. Face is a little cutesy and the perspective's off, but it's all in such an early phase of realization... I wish you'd spent more time on it and fleshed out some detail.

SOUTHERN - Very nice! The form gets a little confusing in the front... there are many shapes that suggest planes, but aren't illuminated as such. Very cool design, nonetheless. Nice job.

Eetwartti - A very fanciful design!

rubicante - Beauty! Lovely work. Real nice description of form on the head and pincers. Those antennae-hands are inspired. The background, to the left, bothers me a bit... it doesn't look like it's being illuminated, it looks like it's self-illuminating. Oh, well. Great image!

dan liimatta - Cool design. I especially love the honeycombed front.

Tommoy - I think the non-creepiness of your bot may partly be due to the uniformly delicate quality of all the moving parts? I'm not sure. The lighting isn't consistent with SEM pics, in which the description of form seems to hinge on a kind of bilateral illumination and a complete absence of specular (glinty) highlights.

Mydrim - Glad you like. As to the body... Well, I ran out of time. Maybe I'll finish it later. As to your inquiry about a new topic... The superfluous whining wouldn't be as irritating if you actually took advantage of the topic that's there. That one pic you put up the other day is great. Do another one! Realize that (my tardiness aside) it is actually you that are dragging your feet. It's bad form to complain of hunger when there is a sandwich already set before you. ;)

Alright... Good job, guys. I'll be getting a new topic posted within the hour.

[rubicante]

william, thanks for the crit. I wanted to go for a wet highlight look for the background but used the wrong brush and couldn't really be bothered to fix it (or to find reference for that). Since I needed a source of light anyway I just went with the glowing tissue. Suppose it could be a new kind of cancer. :teeth:

[dan liimatta]

thanks William, & the hexa brush is a beauty ;)

As for Nano-Machines, given your organic look, and mine robotic - how much play room do one have?

Personally I found mine to look to big, and, and non nano, since self replication is one of the key elements to the nano world, perhaps wrongly so, but I haven't read science, only cheap sci-fi. & in my mind nano-bots would probably end up as a mix between rubicante's and your creation ~ but bah, I've already explained that I haven't researched it at all, and is only grasping in thin air - still it's been fun to see where people place the look of a potential aggressive nano-bot, from your organic/demonic mixture, to the more robotic.

& I like your creation ~ and does photobucket change the image? :S

[William b. Hand]

dan - I reckon there's an awful lot of room for interpretation in the look of such devices, because they will perform an endless variety of tasks, and will go through endless changes in level of technological advancement. So, while some will appear as weird little mechanisms, others will appear to be quite organic. Also, the further we learn about creating such devices, the further the line will be blurred between the living and the non-living, and ultimately to the point that no distinction will be possible between them. As far as self-replication goes, that is not at all a prerequisite for nano-technology. Just as one makes enough automobiles to satisfy demand, so too will one be able to create the desired quantity of tiny vehicles.

As for the image quality question... yeah, the effect on this image is quite negatively affected by Photobucket. Oh, well. You get the idea. As I look at my pic w/ fresh eyes today, I realize there're a number of problems with it. That's okay, though... I want to do more of these SEM-type pics, and this exercise was a fun reminder of that.

[cw]

bit of a late one for me but i fancied this topic. i dont think i nailed the electron microthingy style, but its tricky...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v90/chrissdawaller/dsg-1211-f.jpg

[Rogzilla]

William

Thanks for the comments. Yeah, most of my work focuses on line, the contours. I actually did get some gray scale Copic Sketch markers that I am experimenting with (made an OK Harry Potter (http://fc01.deviantart.com/fs13/i/2007/070/d/4/Harry_Potter_Design_2007_by_rogue_rogzilla.jpg) drawing, might try regular Copics). I hope to find that right balance of line work and value. I personally avoid color...it can be VERY dangerous so I only use it when it has a purpose. OK, enough ramblings!

[Mitze]

Thanks William b. Hand for taking the time out to comment on the pics and a sweet organic looking pic from you aswell.

Nice pic Apocalypse_Rex got a food metal feel to it.

Good turn out for this one which was one of the more difficult ones well for me anyway.

[silentbrain]

William- Wow, thanks! But I think, if this pic works, it must be because of the short range of focus. (the tilt shift effect thing (http://www.flickr.com/photos/overoften/410978362/in/pool-tilt-shift-fakes/) is exciting in how it makes even big things look small!)
Otherwise...well...the design is very very sodaplay (http://www.sodaplay.com/zoo/index.htm) so I cannot take credit for that...

[Calined]

really inspiring! =D

rubicante: i really like the perspective and how "3d" it looks
also great concept, creepy and detailed^^

silentbrain: cool new idea and concept and great work on the blur =)

thats just my 2 cent^^

[William b. Hand]

Apocalypse_Rex - That surface texture is especially effective! I think you managed to convey the SEM thing rather well, actually.

Well, I worked into mine a bit further yesterday. Still not done, but I thought I'd update before this thread got stale. ;)

[electric goat]

thanks william, had less than an hour to work with but you're right about the bkg, ill include that next time. ill try to submit stuff when i can. beautiful work by the way, hopefully we'll see more of your stuff here. -stay classy