It commences (again!): last year, not long after I completed my first set of Japanese tin robot illustrations in Blender, I started thinking about which ones I might want to include in the next round of 25 or so. Whereas the original series was intentionally faithful to the original bots of the 1950s-60s, I knew I wanted my subsequent designs to be more diverse, and not necessarily all real; for at least half of the new bots, I’d like to imagine what might have been produced if tin had remained a viable medium for toys beyond its relatively short era of popularity.

But first things first. There were a handful of real robots I wanted to build that I didn’t get to my first go-around, including this early 1990s Billken reproduction of a popular Astro Boy design that’s actually part of my small personal collection. It’s one of the first I bought when I was living in Japan, and a sentimental favorite.

The Blender model itself was relatively simple to build. The body is very basic, an archetype of a style that was often used for tin robots based on popular manga and TV characters. The plastic head is more complex, but I’ve been experimenting with new tools that help me generate a basic mesh that I can bring into Blender and Substance Painter for additional editing and texturing. I’m not quite happy with the materials and lighting yet, and I think I’m due for some Blender training to get more proficient at both. But I’m in a “move fast and break things” mode right now, with at least a half dozen other projects on my plate, so I’m fine with calling it good for the time being. I’ll take another pass later as this new set starts to evolve.