IDW #151

So, I decided to stop lurking and do some of the community activities on conceptart.org  I picked this week's Industrial Design of the Week, for which the prompt is an remote-controlled, surveillance ornithopter. Drawing mechanical things is a bit outside my comfort zone, so I thought this would be a good challenge.

Everyone seemed to be doing dragonflies, so I decided to start from a beetle. I ended up going with a scarab. Initially, I thought about trying to make some futuristic Egyptian-styled device, but wasn't quite sure how to pull that off without it looking like BattleStar Galactica... So, after playing around with it, the design kind of transformed into a very 50s... thing. Kind of an amalgamation of everything mechanical from that decade. I referenced cars, motorcycles, cameras, microphones, radios, TVs, and even refrigerators.

I'm pretty pleased with the design, overall. (Not sure if it would fit the "avoid detection at all costs" bit, but oh well.) The only thing I'm really hung up about are the wings, but I feel they're starting to look more mechanical, now.

1st image: Overall design and color, perspective view.

2nd image: Back view, refining details.

3rd image: Final for IDW #151, fully-painted perspective view, line-drawings for alternate views, labeling and size comparison.