My first concept art (for someone else)

[defanatic]

I'm developing a sort-of indie game, and here is the first piece of concept art I have produced for it, to be palmed off to a 3d artist.

http://comradeda.deviantart.com/art/Tur ... -145475058

The setting is a futuristic dystopian world, although not orwellian. The setting isn't entirely serious, but I do want a decent level of believability to it.

This tank is intended to be the slowest and most heavily armed/armoured tank in the game, produced by the most defencive faction.

I would like comments on its believability, and also what I can improve as a concept artist in general.

I have done a bit of 3d modelling, which is why I have the alternate views.

[Serafine666]

I'm developing a sort-of indie game, and here is the first piece of concept art I have produced for it, to be palmed off to a 3d artist.

http://comradeda.deviantart.com/art/Tur ... -145475058

The setting is a futuristic dystopian world, although not orwellian. The setting isn't entirely serious, but I do want a decent level of believability to it.

This tank is intended to be the slowest and most heavily armed/armoured tank in the game, produced by the most defencive faction.

I would like comments on its believability, and also what I can improve as a concept artist in general.

I have done a bit of 3d modelling, which is why I have the alternate views.

Believability is relatively high. The turret is a fairly standard shape in modern main battle tanks although the downward tilt from back to front is unusual. The tank has standard armored skirts, the body set back slightly from the tread wells, and a visible muzzle brake. Now, I'd say if it was meant as a heavily-armored defensive tank, it would make more sense for the turret to be more flush against the body to minimize exposure of the trunk of the turret. I'd also say that it would include as many angle as possible since angled armor maximizes its defensive value and creates a great chance of deflection. The tailpipes for the engine(s) being angled away from one another and in a v-shape (i.e. goes down and then flares upwards) would also add to its defensive appearance because it would stand a lesser chance of the pipes clogging or being used as an effective vulnerability. Ideally, the tank would not rise too far above the ground to maximize the effectiveness of its armor and to grant it an element of concealment while having the undercarriage come to a point in the middle so it would deflect the force of an explosion away from the center, diluting its impact. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Good design and good luck!

[Zor]

Its a pretty good tank and as Serafine said does look like it's in throwing distance of reality, hope you're career takes you places.

Zor

[RRoan]

Well, what's the art style for the game going to be like? That has a rather large effect on how exactly I would critique it.

[defanatic]

Fairly realistic for an RTS. It won't contain any real-world references, either.

Will be for Unreal Tournament 3 engine.

[RRoan]

Well, the first thing that stands out to me is how small the hull seems compared to the turret, which mostly seems to be from the way that you've got a slope going. That will eat up a ton of space. The other large thing that stands out is that you have the turret way to the back. There's nothing wrong with that, but the way you've drawn it the engine will also have to be in the back, which won't really work. On the majority of tanks the turret is in the middle with the engine behind it and the driver forward (like so), although there's a few (like the israeli Merkava) that have a front-mounted engine. Actually, a front-engined tank would probably be ideal for this sort of tank, since an incoming shell will have to go through the engine as well as the armor. You would have to seriously beef up the front end of it, though.

As far as the turret goes, it really reminds me of the merkava. There are advantages and disadvantages to highly sloped armor like that. Against most types of shells it will provide better protection, as Serafine noted. However, modern long-rod penetrators are designed so that sloped armor actually causes them to better dig into the armor. Basically, there's no "best" way to set up armor, so for an RTS heavy tank you will probably want to go with whatever looks big and mean and defendy.

There appears to be no way to elevate the gun. The way you've drawn it looks like it's coming straight out of the turret armor. But fear not! You don't actually have to draw the elevation mechanism since it's situated in a slot in the turret with a great big chunk of armor protecting it. This piece actually elevates along with the gun, since it is right at the base of the cannon. The M1 Abrams has [urlhttp://www.tankzone.co.uk/images/hobbye/M1A2/turret.jpg]a fairly small block of armor there[/url], whereas some tanks can have much larger and more impressive looking blocks of armor there.

A few other things that stood out to me:

• The exhaust on tanks doesn't actually look like that (I assume that's what the thing on the back is). They tend to look more like this. Much less obtrusive and much better protected.
• The way you've drawn the running gear there can't be any suspension. I don't really know if you care about that since it's not supposed to be nimble.
• There is no gunsight.

I hope all that helps. To be honest, you're already doing better than a lot of RTSs in terms of realistic looking tank designs.

[defanatic]

One of the reasons I had the turret so high was to maximise the tank's ability to defend from a dug in location (gun depression). I can't remember where I read that, so I may or may not be right. Probably less important in a modern war.

The exhausts were an an afterthough, will definitely switch over to the more conservative, realistic design.

Because of the futuristic setting, I'm envisioning much lower crew capacities, although this one is high at at a hypothetical 3 crew members. Some of the other designs are much smaller at singular crew members, for automated turret systems and the like (which have been relatively fun). However, the body could be beefed up a bit (seems like a fairly normal comment).

The merkava was one of my bases, but I also want the tank to look 'future-y'. I will probably add a bit more armour over the front of the turret that can be moved up and down appropriately. The gun-sight will probably be located under that in a relatively unobtrusive position (rather than at the end of the gun, as seems to be the case with most modern tanks).

Not too sure about suspension. It would be mostly about smaller wheels, right? More room to move. While it isn't something the player will see often, it should articulate the wheels on the higher detail (read: more zoomed in) models.

[Big Orange]

It reminds me of a Global Defence Initiative MBT from the Command & Conquer series.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

If I was asked to build it I'd be instantly picking up on RRoans points as well, how does the gun actually elevate, where is the suspension travel and why is the turret quite out of proportion. I think if you made the propotions more 'normal', you'd basically have a Merkava on your hands. The thing I think weakens the design the most is the slope at the front leading right under your high turret, which would make a great shot trap for anything coming from the front. If it's supposed to be fought from a dug-in position you'd still want it low to the ground so you're not digging massive pits all day, and it would still be very vulnerable to any plunging fire from howitzers.

[defanatic]

Somewhat appropriate, actually, since artillery is one of the main counters to the tank, although that's due to its long range and slow movement speed.

I've raised the front of the hull somewhat, so the turret 'trunk' isn't so exposed, and is bigger relative to the turret, and added a large block of armour to protect a hypothetical gun elevator. The wheels have been shrunk to make room for suspension, and the front one raised. Will upload later when I get access to a scanner.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

Sounds good, look forward to seeing it.

[RRoan]

One of the reasons I had the turret so high was to maximise the tank's ability to defend from a dug in location (gun depression). I can't remember where I read that, so I may or may not be right. Probably less important in a modern war.

Well, the whole point of fighting from a dug-in position is to minimize the profile. The swedish S-Tank was actually designed with that in mind, and it has an extremely low profile. It achieves that goal by not having a turret at all!

The gun-sight will probably be located under that in a relatively unobtrusive position (rather than at the end of the gun, as seems to be the case with most modern tanks).

Actually, the thing at the end of the gun is a housing for a mirror. They bounce a laser off of it to see exactly where the end of the barrel is, since it tends to move around a small amount. That sway is compensated for (I'm not sure how, TBH) to make the cannon more accurate. The gunsight itself is often housed in a box in the turret. The abrams has it off to the side (you can see the sight and its housing in this diagram), although some tanks like the british challenger 2 have it housed in a box sitting on the base of the cannon.

Not too sure about suspension. It would be mostly about smaller wheels, right? More room to move. While it isn't something the player will see often, it should articulate the wheels on the higher detail (read: more zoomed in) models.

Well, smaller wheels are pretty much necessary, but it's more about how they're set up. Here you can find a useful image of a model meant to show how a tank's running gear works. The wheel in the far back with the teeth is the drive sprocket, and it is the only one that is actually connected to the engine. The one closest to the front is the idler (it is fixed in one place like the sprocket), and it really doesn't do anything besides have the track roll over it. The ones on the bottom are the tank's road wheels, and each one has its own independent suspension mount that lets them move in any direction needed. They are placed significantly below the idler and sprocket to allow room for them to move up and down without damaging either. An actual tank would obviously have more road wheels than on that model.

I hope that helps, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing the next draft. I've actually had to look all this stuff up recently on my own, since I'm doing a very in-depth picture of an original tank.

[defanatic]

I've also made it a bit easier to read, as per comments on another board. Lineweights and stuff.
I put the camera underneath the barrel, although I'm not sure what is appropriate for that.

I'm also doing another design that's inspired by the T-95 tank (no idea what happened to that, but it seemed interesting), with a very minimalistic turret. The chassis is a more traditional design, with the turret towards the front and engine out back. However, it is lacking in a bunch of things, as it is intended to be very upgradeable over the course of a game.

Lastly, there is a 6x6 IFV with an automatic grenade launcher, dubbed the "Light Tank". I know that's wrong, but it serves getting information to the player fairly well. They know that between a Light Tank and Medium Tank, the MT will win in almost all the cases.

EDIT: Ok, uploaded and stuff. Here is the new HAT, with improved stuff! Tell me if that's what you guys had in mind.
http://comradeda.deviantart.com/art/Tur ... -146301637

And here is the 'Medium Tank', a fun little tank with an unmanned turret, and massive cost-cutting.
http://comradeda.deviantart.com/art/Rus ... -146301731

And here a few things I'm a lot less happy with, but are there anyway, because I need help.
The "Light Tank", badly named, mostly inspired by wheeled armoured fighting vehicles like the Stryker or Piranha.
http://comradeda.deviantart.com/art/Rus ... -146302468

Some civilian militia, for fun.
http://comradeda.deviantart.com/art/Civ ... -146302586

A civilian house, inspired from the various hypothetical future things. A cheap mass-produced house that can be transported and deployed, and is bigger than a mobile home.
http://comradeda.deviantart.com/art/Civ ... -146302840

And power armour. Don't worry, this is the only faction with power-armour, and it provides a decent amount of faction differentiation. I tried not to make it too wanky or space-mariney.
http://comradeda.deviantart.com/art/Tur ... -146302975

Anyway, say what you like, and better yet, what you don't.

[defanatic]

I'm not entirely sure what the policy on double-posting is, but this is a fairly blatant bump. I kind-of assumed that double-posting was bad, thus I edited my previous post to include the links I made. However, no one seems to have even looked at the thread since I did that.

So... Bump:
I would like people's opinions on my newer stuff.

[Kenny_10_Bellys]

No one noticed the edit, sorry.

Actually, most of that looks fine from a game design point of view. The main tank is better, if still with some odd proportions, but in the context of a 3/4 view RTS game it should look fine. The medium and light tanks look fine too, you've left loads of room on them for add-ons and upgrades as you have been instructed, and the chassis' look ok. A civilian is a civilian, in an RTS you'll struggle to make out much detail anyway, so not a lot needed there I'd imagine. With the deployable house, I can picture how you're expecting it to work in a rather C&C type of way in the game, with sections sliding out of each other. Again, that should be just fine. The only one that needs a bit or rethought is maybe the power armour. Unless the guys plan to have no feet and stand with their legs apart all the time I'd redesign it. The hip/crotch area and feet mainly, but maybe the helmet too.

[defanatic]

While the houses fold out 'in-universe', the player will probably never see that happen. It's mostly to build a setting, and also help other artists if they have better/improved ideas. Basically, should set the scene for a world where everything is manufactured, and very efficiently deployed on the spot, with little waste materials used in deployment or transportation. Resources are very expensive!

The power armour is probably the one I am least happy with. I don't really know much about exoskeleton operation, but from a gameplay perspective, the power armour should be much bulkier than normal infantry.

The detail on the militia is mostly for show, although I'm looking at around 500 polygons per infantry (more for power-armour), maybe more or less depending on how the engine pans out. It's more of a jab at the whole survivalist redneck "culture". Their presence in game will be limited to being "creeps" in some multiplayer maps, and some training missions.

The HAT is one of the factions, and the Medium Tank and Light Tank are from one of the other factions. The faction the HAT is from is a lot richer in terms of resources, although less so in terms of manpower than the MT/LT faction. Hence the power armour compared to regular infantry squads, and the fairly large tanks that can take on several of their opponents' armoured vehicles.