Turning an Animal Into a Realistic War Machine with a Retro-Style

Introduction

My name is Marco Antonio Lombardi, and I'm a Concept Artist. I've always loved playing video games and watching movies, to the point where I eventually wanted to create some of that cool stuff myself. Being able to have fun with art since I was a kid, while still having the support of my family, led me to discover my passion for 3D art in my adult life, a medium where I can express my ideas exactly the way I imagine them.

Learning 3D requires quite some time and persistence, but fortunately, many great artists are sharing free tutorials on YouTube, for example, which helped me understand the technical side of hard-surface modeling tools and made the whole process much more accessible.

Mech Chick

The idea started with a simple concept: picking an animal and twisting it. In this case, it was a little chick turned into a giant, intimidating war machine. In order to achieve that, I gathered both positive and negative references to establish the visual language of this mech, opting for a retro-style technology.

Honestly, any style would have been interesting to explore, but I wanted to challenge myself by working with something less futuristic than what I usually create for my portfolio.

Designing the Style

Besides the style challenge, I also wanted to see how quickly I could design directly in 3D. To do that, I loosely sculpted the model and iterated through several variations until I found a design that felt right. For the exposed mechanisms, I used some of my personal kitbash pieces to save some time and adjusted them to better match the retro style I was aiming for.

Since this 3D model was created purely for concept art purposes, I wasn't concerned about achieving a clean, low-poly topology. So for the UV stage, I used the auto-unwrapping tool from RizomUV, which was more than enough to prepare the model for the texturing phase.

Texturing

My standard procedure for texturing is to make every material layer interesting, even if some details will barely be visible in the final result. I used Substance 3D Painter to add subtle variations in Color and Roughness, making the surfaces feel richer and more believable.

Throughout the process, I kept in mind the story I wanted to tell with this robot: it's definitely not factory new, so it needed to look dirty and damaged enough to sell the idea of an intimidating war machine.

Presentation

I personally enjoy presenting my models in a studio-like setup, with simple backgrounds and strategic lighting. Each shot has its own light setup, always with the same goal: highlighting the form and contours of the model, always keeping in mind that too much lighting can flatten good shapes, while too few can undersell all the work that went into the design. For post-production, I mainly adjusted contrast and brightness while being careful not to change the mood I wanted to convey.

Conclusion

When designing an appealing concept, I think it's essential to start with a written brief that serves as a solid foundation, along with key references that help guide the storytelling and visual direction. This applies whether you're designing a character, object, vehicle, or weapon. With this project, the main challenge I set for myself was to work quickly without compromising the ideation process.

If there's one piece of advice I'd give, it's this: don't underestimate the early stages of production. They define the entire direction of the project. Thinking, writing, and gathering references are crucial steps for creating a strong concept design, because everything that follows in the creative process will ultimately reflect the foundation you establish at the start.

Marco Lombardi, Concept Artist

Interview conducted by Emma Collins