Hi! I'm Francesco Ruggero, a concept artist from Milan, Italy.
I know that i'm a bit late... this challenge will be twice hard for me eheh: i want make a cuban character!
This community seem amazing ✨ hope to get in touch with!
Mar 1, '21
Mar 27, '21
13 days later
MOODBOARD
I would like to make a powerful lady that could defend cuban people.
She grows up in the streets and build her own "robot" to make that possibile. Her mecha will be inspired by cocotaxis and wooden claves design style, mainly.
I will try to express the african inherit in the cuban culture by using masks, rumba and juego de manì. And since i need a strong symbol that could carry cuban culture i decided to use huge wooden claves that are used in almost every music style in Cuba: and music is so much foundant for them and really important even in every day life.
IDEA EXPLORATION
Hello!
I've got the idea to use rumba dress shape and transform it as an armor, but dancer silohuette do not convince me entirely due to slim legs. It seems convey vulnerability and not the strenght i'm looking for.
So i thought that i do not need the idea of an idealized woman to express this feeling: i can express her charm in other way. For this reason my mecha will have a really strong and sturdy shape, like a protective mother.
I'm going to use the big shape on the right: do you like that? I will do the head of the mecha as cocotaxi so my character can get inside and drive it. I think isn't a problem that she could get attacked from the sides... first of all because her main ability could be to use claves as a baseball bat and deflect ALL shots, hehe 💪 maybe this is an excuse, but legit. Then i believe that could give to her a good mix between tropical aestethic and rackless rudimentary, since Cuba is a poor and warm country.
For a moment i was discarding the claves idea, so this is the reason why i didn't draw it in this image: but they need to be present, i found a documentary video that shows how much it is important and fundamental in cuban culture that it seem essential to me.
Having said that, i could have a problem about materials, because this mecha would be so good with wood (tropical, poor country, claves, juego de manì...), but well it would not be so high-tech in a world war... Actually i could source cold war aestetic, using a bit of iron: but this maybe is too much fro my moodboard. Anyway, i will paint every kind of material with pastel colors, very bright like Havana streets, houses and cars.
DESIGN
I'm back: need to speed up my process! Feel the deadline D: Not a problem, however, i have figured out what i want and i'm pretty sure that my character could work.
So, i did a rough lineart based on these shapes: i'm not very good with perspective but i tried this kind of angle because my character is BIG and i need to show this.
WIP
I would reproduce the render that i realized on the right thight of the frontal robot on all painted parts. Still not sure if the brown part is made by iron or wood... must decide this tomorrow. I think its just a matter of vibes because it could work both way.
Pretty happy with this color palette... probably i will not change it.
C'mon! I can do this, i will be full on this on the weekend!!! 💪
