AMARO MONTENEGRO - HUMAN SPIRIT Character Design

I was honored to be chosen for this project by EDI Effetti Digitali italiani.
These are my original designs and their successive iterations for the "AMARO MONTENEGRO - HUMAN SPIRIT" commercial.

Director Xavier Mairesse needed a character who would stay true to the style of the other robots, make sense mechanically and run in a non-human fashion, to highlight the difference between the robot and the man.

I had the chance to coordinate the 3D modelling process by Hugo Vargas Monrroy (https://www.artstation.com/hugo_89), under the supervision of project leaders Riccardo Zoccarato (https://www.artstation.com/riccardozoccarato) and Giuseppe Chisari (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3638192/).
In-house rigging and animation by talented Tommaso Siragusa (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommaso-siragusa-925a44117).

Cool view 2

Cool view 1

Amaro Montenegro 90 sec cinema - by Xavier Mairesse

Making Of Amaro Montenegro

Prototype Alpha, 1st iteration.

Prototype Bravo, 1st iteration.

Prototype Charlie, 1st iteration.

Prototype Alpha, 3rd iteration.

Prototype Bravo, 3rd iteration, in two versions (Xavier was on the fence about the transparent cover, so we gave him multiple versions of the same character).

Prototype Charlie, 3rd iteration; on the left the head was borrowed by Alpha, who went on to be the chosen model.

The hand needed to be a lightweight, purely functional element.
These concepts explored various styles before finally settling on a combination of these models.

Advanced arm concept.

In the rehearsal room situation, a human performance was captured and animated and overlaid to the robot body. The arms had to be phisically built for some close-ups of the scene and needed to fit the style of the existing body.

Some advanced concepts of the runner head.

3D WIP Turnaround

Advanced Lookdev

Action shot