Space Mecha Warriors, a Designing Mashup of Anime and Table Top Game

Growing up I was a fan of "Patlabor" and playing a lot of strategy games including table top wargames, I wanted to create a proxy set of minis inspired from my favorite cartoon.

a computer, TinkerCad, a 3D printer, lots of time and creativity

"Patlabor" is an animated show taking place in a near future where Mechas (giant robots piloted by humans) are meant to be utility tools used in construction or community projects for their mobility and heavy lifting capabilities.

The show follow a newly created division of police department using “Labors” (the name of those particular robots) as a test project to explore the application of that new technology to support law enforcement.

Far from extreme sci-fi context with new energy sources or superhumans capabilities, the show is set in a very realistic and contemporary background. As I’m writing those lines many companies around the world are developing / testing mechas of various style in different field of application. A real size robot prop even got created for the filming of a live action movie (picture attached)

My challenge was to miniaturize the giant robot (size of a building) to not only fit in a human sized game setting, but I also wanted it to look more like an armour that someone could wear instead of being independent robot.

Based on a few pictures from different angles, I started to re-create each body part trying to adapt certain proportions in order to have it look like an armour worn by a humanoid person. The entire project was realized on TinkerCad.

When you design several parts that are meant to be assembled in the end. It is always a good idea to save your different elements in "your creations".

Once each element is designed individually, time to assemble it all as a whole character. Standing, then T-pose and finally a more dynamic action pose.

Trial and error lead you to make lots of adjustments, resize this or that elements to fit with the overall proportions. My biggest challenge was hands and fingers position.

To get genuinely dynamic poses, it is important to study anatomy and proportions like your wingspan should match overall height etc. The more time you’ll spend on little adjustments and tweaks the more realistic the poses will look.

I originally based my weapons and backpacks on the models produced by the leader of the table top wargames: “Games Workshop” The ones who knows will have recognized the inspiration right away.

Problem is that those particular features fall under copy rights and the and GW is pretty aggressive in protecting their rights.

Therefore, I redesigned and got creative with the backpack while going for a more realistic aspect for the weapons.

Having to do so, finally brought me closer to the anime style that was set to be in a realistic near future world therefore weapons had to look more contemporary. I even inspired my plasma gun from a someone who created a real life one. Plasma_video

Ultimate test has been to try printing the models. I only had a few adjustments to make mostly with the supports, but I was very happy from the get-go with the results. Specially that my poses are so well balanced that the mini stand on their own even without glue.

Finally, as the whole point was to create minis that could be used for table top game, I test painted my first fully home made minis of the "Space Mecha Warriors".

Et voilà! From giant building tall Robot to table top mini warrior!

Stl's are available on cults3D.