Beep Boop Whistle - Modeling R2-D2 in Modo

My love for Star Wars, the characters and vehicles spurred me on to start recreating the lovable droid R2-D2 in Modo yesterday. Here's my progress so far.

As usual I gathered lots of reference pictures and dropped them in to PureRef - a great reference tool for artists. R2 can't be that hard, right? I mean, he's basically a cylinder with half a sphere on top - along with some legs. That's what I thought.

Using reference pictures in Modo, I sketched out the basics. It's unmistakably R2-D2. Then I started making all the blue panels on the head, added more detail to the legs and used booleans to cut shapes out of the geometry where the legs connect to the feet.

Here I created the blocks that sit on the inside of the feet, copied and used that to cut out the curved shapes, again using booleans. I also created the housing for the front 'eye'.

At this point I decided to separate the panels from the head and to recreate the dome with decent topology. I was getting render errors where I had previously added extra edge loops in order to create the panels. Next I added the lens for the main visual sensor.

Next I set about modeling the swiveling second visual sensor on the front. I cut a hole into the head dome - using booleans - and then tidied up the geometry. I try to keep to producing triangles and quads throughout. Once that sensor was created, I duplicated it and moved it in position on the top rear of the head.

I then exported the model as an OBJ and imported it in to Keyshot to do a test render. I threw some basic materials on it and rendered the following picture.

Yes, he looks a little bare right now as I have not tackled the paneling on the main body, but I think he's coming along nicely.

Thanks for looking.

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