Week 4 – Second Concept – Tank Design:

Continuing on with the representational theme, I was reminded of Dave’s idea of the tank with propaganda covering its hull, which really interested me when he presented it. Tanks are a common symbol of war and militaristic power, so having one as a centre point of the extremist takeover would be a sound choice. The oversized tank would seem even more imposing as the player’s POV would be the girl’s eyes and thus close to the ground, thus making the vehicle tower over her.

Artist’s drawing of the T-1500 “Ratte”, a real-life (and rather ridiculous) Nazi super-heavy tank/land fortress concept. This picture captures well the sort of towering monstrosity feel I want the player to feel when seeing the tank.

In keeping with the style of the project, I wanted the tank to be a very stylised tank, not one necessarily based on real life concepts. I therefore see three possibilities for the design; making it a very curvy, ‘cartoon-ish’ vehicle, using a more blocky design, or using a vehicle from real life.

Examples of images collected for mood boarding the tank were I to go for option 1. These are some of the soviet vehicles from the RTS game “Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3. While the vehicles are interesting design-wide, I personally feel the curviness doesn’t really suit a heavy assault vehicle.

All three options would fit into the project well, though I think option two would be the better option, as it would be both an original design and suit the Dimitri Moor inspiration.

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Ironically, I may make use of an existing vehicle after all; the Ratte image I collected reminded me immediately of another WWII German vehicle; the Maus, one of which was actually built. It is a very blocky design with rather flat sides, which would make it perfect for displaying propaganda posters. I may decide later to create a more original tank design, but for now, I may make use of the Maus as a placeholder thank.

 

Diagrams for the Maus Tank, and picture of the single existing prototype in Kubinka Tank Museum, Russia.