The director OKed my design and I moved on to the next stage: sketching out variations for several different enemy types, built out of different modular parts. I think the result is a design that, through its simplicity, conveys a lot of different expressions to suit the situation – sometimes cute, sometimes menacing.īy the way, I applied similar “subtractive design” principles later on in development, when I was called on to design the user interface. I chipped away at my designs, removing details until only the bare necessities were left. However, I eventually decided that a simple, subtractive design would make their personalities stand out the most. Make their silhouette easy to understandĪt some point along the way, I gave the Machine Lifeforms eyes and mouths.Stick to simple, symbolic characteristics, that even a kid could draw.I tried to make my designs meet a couple of goals: Soon it was time to take these preliminary sketches and build them up into the adorable Machine Lifeforms we all know and love. Machine Lifeform Concepts: Development and Polish Of course, I did this for my own amusement, but it’s also an important part of my process that helps me come up with a coherent mechanical design. I also came up with a few ideas of my own about how the Machine Lifeforms should move, and how they’d be put together, from a mechanical perspective. (Bats and birds, for example.) This is fudging the science a little bit, but my theory was that, perhaps in the world of NIER, all attempts to make the most powerful weapon possible would eventually lead to something like Emil – that his form would be the “fittest.” (Again, this isn’t canon! Just an idea behind my early designs.) To digress for a second, at this point in production, I gave the Machine Lifeforms an Emil-like appearance because I was imagining a sort of convergent evolution.Ĭonvergent evolution is the natural phenomenon of animals from completely different evolutionary backgrounds adapting into similar forms. These designs really clicked with me, but I was still surprised when YOKO-san and the other staff around me immediately gave them the nod of approval. You can see some of them at the bottom left of this page from my sketchbook: “Actually,” YOKO-san told me, “I’d rather you didn’t think too much about the designs from the original NIER.” Still, I started playing with silhouettes inspired by the distinctive motif of Emil from the first game.
But I just wasn’t satisfied – I couldn’t come up with anything that met my own ideas of what a NIER-ish design should be. With these rules firmly in mind, I started sketching.
And I figured, since some fancy new 2B and Machine Lifeform figures just hit the shelves, what better time to share my mechanical design process with all of you?įull disclosure: I get carried away when I talk about mecha design! But I’ll try to include as many images as I can to keep things easy to understand.Īs I worked on early concept designs for the Machine Lifeforms of NieR:Automata, YOKO-san gave me a few rules to follow: I’m glad to be back with my second NieR:Automata devblog.
#Nier automata mechanical arm full#
(I promise I gave the UI my full attention, too!)
I’m very passionate about mecha design – to the point that director YOKO TARO was afraid I’d put all my focus on that and slack off on the UI. You may remember from my previous devblog that I designed the UI for NieR:Automata, but that wasn’t my only job.