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I began to create this piece with the idea of grouping all the characters I designed together- I began by sketching a little ‘group photo’ in class. At home i continued to piece with the idea of creating angular silhouettes of my characters- this choice of style was based in the fact that I believe in a way having them be silhouettes robs them of their detail and in a way symbolises a lack of ‘identity’ with them as just shadows. 

As my idea developed I chose to add slight details to these silhouettes such as the glowing eyes- and the Aye-aye’s facial features. In a way this represents that the characters- while not their own individuals yet after going rogue- are gaining parts of their own identities and I decided that detail best allowed me to represent this- after all the initial lack of detail I had gone for was to represent the opposite. The additional colour I added- to me- represents the colourings of the character designs. With the Maned wolf being orange. 

Behind the robotic animals is a shadow of the design that I went for for the hacker. Throughout my project I was trying to design this Hacker’s appearance and what their role in the story played- And my struggle with that has been evident throughout my blog. However I feel as though in my ambition to create some phenomenal design, I forgot the main point of a hacker being anonymity and *not* wanting to stand out. Designs such as the Bull helmet would draw too much attention to the Hacker’s appearance. Where as the final design I chose to go with has an almost void-like shadow beneath their hooded coat. And are only represented by a glowing ‘power’ symbol which is LED within a motorcycle helmet- when the hood is removed. 

In this piece I represented the Hacker as a shadow being cast by the animals- to represent that the hacker is a part of them, but only a shadow- as the robots can exist without the Hacker if they so chose to. Now that they’re rogue. But their roots will always be with the Hacker. 

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Maned wolf, sketch to final design.

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Concepts

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Detroit Become Human

At it’s core, the story of Detroit Become Human is about artificial intelligence- androids who are treated as servants- gaining sentience and breaking through the barriers in their coding that make them obedient. These androids are known as ‘deviants’ and are hunted down and destroyed as if they were disposable criminals. The game has you follow the story of three different androids as they survive in that world.

A woman named Kara who broke free of her coding in order to save the young girl she cared for from her abusive father- killing him in the process.

Marcus, an android accused of murdering his owner after his owner’s son lead him to heaving a heart attack. Marcus later becomes the face of the android rebellion.

And Connor, an android detective working for the police force with somewhat of a good cop bad cop routine with his partner.

Each android breaks free from their coding, from their job. But this never makes them evil, in fact these characters are easy to sympathise with and you cheer for them throughout the game- well, if you choose all the countless story altering options that keep them safe and good- that is. You *do* have free will in this game, to choose to be ‘evil’. Which I think is beautiful and symbolic in a game anout free will.

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Big Brother

The villain from George Orwell’s story ‘1984’ named ‘Big Brother’ is a tyranical all seeing government with surveilance everywhere. Controlling society and revoking the right to free speech- in this society ruled by Big Brother you can be persecuted for merely thinking poorly of the structure. These are called ‘thought crimes’ and Big Brother is a quick to jump to example of a totalitarian government within fiction- a prime example of what a nation should strive to avoid.

In the world that exists as the backstory to the characters I’m designing for this project, the government they are under is heavily militarised and overbearing, breeding a similar society to that in 1984. Which gives me inspiration for concepts of robotic animals- inspiring the concept of birds acting in place of surveilance cameras and robotic animals which would often coexist with humans in cities- instead being used to monitor humanity in a heavily invasive way.

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k9

The K-9 unit was comedically named as a pun of the word ‘Canine’- and was a previously recurring companion on the show Dr.Who. K-9 was known for his incredible database of knowledge and powerful laser hidden within his nose. The robotic Canine may not resemble the animal he is based on to the highest extent- especially with his angular body and lack of legs, however his face is very close in resemblance to the animal he was based on with little satellite dishes as ears (a concept I have explored in my robotic animal designs thus far and intend to take further inspiration from) and a snout.

K-9 does not seem appropriate for battle as an entity, however as an intellectual database with a self defence method of using his laser- K-9 serves valuable.

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‘Roboroach’

https://youtu.be/5Rp4V3Sj5jE

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/feb/17/race-to-create-insect-cyborgs

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Cyborg animals

Magnetic Mind control Mice 

By introducing a specific protein into the neurons of mice (located in the reward center of the brain) which when subjected to a magnetic field- trigger a nerve impulse in mice- Scientists were able to observe the behaviour of mice’s brains. They found that mice ended up spending more time in the magnetic field where they would experience induced reward related feelings.

Joyriding moths

In this study, moths were able to control small robotic cars via a reversed computer mouse track ball- when the moths sensed a female moth’s sex pheromones they were observed to walk towards it- triggering the little robotic cars they were upon, to track the moth’s desired path and transport it to the location it intended to go to. this opens an opportunity to use methods like this as a way to detect drugs without using highly trained dogs- due to chemical scents more easily detected by insects.

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Terminator

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Comic book cyborgs

1. Diehard

Diehard is a member of the ‘Youngblood team’, Handpicked by the government to defend the Whitehouse. Diehard was chosen by the government for a genetic experiment that gave him cyborg traits. He developed ‘energy manipulation’ as an ability which he focuses into powerful blasts. Diehard also has incredible speed and strength attributes due to these experiments.

His psyche is extremely damaged by being half human and half machine. However I’m sure this makes him all the more powerful and chaotic to battle against.

2.Robotman

Robotman, previously Cliff Steele- was caught up in a horrific race car accident which rendered him almost dead- A genius doctor named Dr. Niles Caulder managed to save Cliff’s life by transporting his brain into a robotic vessel which granted Cliff with superhuman abilities such as magnetic feet which allow him to scale buildings. As well as Coils in his hands which heat up and allow him to melt metal. Cliff’s brain is preserved with an oxygen tank that continues to provide it with the oxygen necessity for survival.

3.Deathlok

Deathlok, previously Luther Manning- was a military soldier who was reanimated by the best US military scientists upon his death, turning him into a cyborg super-soldier for the CIA. Through time there end up being quite a few ‘Deathloks’ with Luther Manning having multiple successors. This links to my concept of military based cyborgs and robots- Who are commanded to complete missions and seemingly only have vague resemblances of free will.

4.WE3

WE3 are the best examples to link to my project, they’re cyborg animals trained to complete secret op missions such as assassinations- and once they learned of the fact they would be decommissioned they escaped containment and the story proceeds to follow their attempts to survive, their struggle with innocence- and the debate over safety via causing harm- as they were trained to defend themselves with violence, innocent people get caught in the fray.

5.Cyborg

While cyborg has had multiple origin stories since his creation- one of the main stories involves his father having to rebuild his son and save him following a portal breach. Cyborg is ‘fixed’ using robotic expertise and alien technology owned by his father. leading him with superhuman abilities. As a walking computer now, Cyborg is filled with incredible knowledge and has had frequent upgrades throughout his existence as a character.

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The Bionic vet.

The Bionic vet also known as Noel Fitzpatrick, is a real life veterinarian who works in a complex field of saving animals with prosthetics and bionic enhancements similar to those some human’s may receive.

While his work isn’t anything like a superhero story and the animals don’t gain supernatural abilities from the surgeries- They do gain another chance at life.

An example of one of Noel Fitzpatrick’s incredible procedures is Oscar the cat- His hind paws were destroyed by a combine harvester- leaving him with a lessened quality of life with only his front paws. Noel Fitzpatrick attempts a world first surgery and manages to provide Oscar with two prosthetic hind feet, allowing him to walk once again. These hind feet allow Oscar to walk once again.

This is just one of many examples of Noel Fitzpatrick’s impressive surgeries to return the quality of life to his patients- he is a master in his field and while much of his work is all prototype procedures- his success rate and innovative concepts are usually incredible. This is a real life example of the advancements of prosthetics and bionic enhancements in animals- which my project follows in it’s own way.

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Weaponised animals

Unfortunately for rats history hasn’t been too kind to them, during the Second world war the concept of filling dead rat carcasses with explosives in hopes that the fuse would be lit when they were shovelled into the enemy fire to be disposed of- fortunately for the integrity of the rat’s corpse- this plan never came into fruition. However the concept was in it’s own way incredibly creative- rats weren’t uncommon in the trenches at all and such a sneaky bomb wouldn’t have been noticed- unfortunately plans do get uncovered. And while the plans didn’t go through the very concept amazes and perplexes me. 

This type of concept is something I can use in my project, while my current idea for a robotic rodent has the idea of espionage rather than explosion- I could and most likely will- apply a self destruct feature to the rodent bots for the idea of exploding upon capture. Perhaps this could be the designed way for the rodent’s to end their job- no plan to actually escape but instead uploading their findings to some sort of cloud software and then self destructing nearby an enemy.

This applies a prompt for the morals of destroying artificial intelligence, for those who believe that AI’s are important and close to sentience.

Most forms of weaponizing animals included bombs- an example being dogs with anti tank mines- and mules with bombs strapped to them.

Even pigeons were used to guide missiles- and in prehistoric times, beehives were used as projectile weapons with aggravated bees to attack the enemy.

Similar to the rat bomb idea, there was also the concept and practiced weapon of a bat-bomb. A Pennsylvanian dentist designed the idea of strapping IEDs to the bac of bats and releasing them around Japanese cities during WWII- in order to explode and do damage to civilians. The Mexican free-tailed bat was actually the species chosen.