The first thing we did to make the Scorpion more menacing was to beef up the limbs. We decided that the legs would consist of a piston-driven set of joints attached to a large shield piece and an integrated shock-absorption system. The claws, rather than oversized shears, would be immense axe-like crushers. Matt updated his cardboard mockup with the new additions.
Next, we reached out to Roger Oda, a concept artist specializing in precise, hand-rendered linework. Roger went all-out on the detailing, building up an elaborate structure of pipes, gears, hoses and rotors. He even introduced a hefty flywheel at the base of the tail, to lend the Scorpion that extra dieselpunk touch.
We finally had enough detail to move to the 3D modeling phase. But we soon discovered that bringing all the pieces of the Scorpion together would prove more challenging than we expected…