Bandit

Composition of both the solid and textured versions of my recreation of PTMC's Bandit.

With about 80 hours of work and being almost 5 times more complex than the GuideBot the Bandit marks the point when The Ascent Project went completely pedal-to-the-metal.

I spent a considerable amount of time theorizing, conceptualizing, and sketching this bot as I wanted to deviate from the "sleek and simple" style I had been generally doing thus far (E.g. PEST) and model the Bandit with as much "in your face" detail as possible. I was inspired by the engine bay in the PIG and wanted to break my norm this once by swinging the other way: favoring form over function and, after establishing the general shapes, I left pretty much no face untouched - I modeled details everywhere.

However, as we are our own worst critic, I am unsure if I will do this excessive detailing again as I feel best when I do things for a reason and many details on the Bandit have no reason to be there - they are just eye candy. Though I will admit that having swung so far the other way definitely helped me find a sweet spot between the form and the implied function of my models. In any case, nothing is perfect and one can always nitpick, this model is what it is and within that I was and am happy. I put my a lot of effort, time, and love into recreating this bot so I hope you enjoy it.

Notes on the model's features:
- Recycling the idea/tech I used for the ITD the lateral visors are animated to traverse back and forth horizontally along the sides of the face.
- The "tentacles" are rigged and the shoulder joints can rotate the same way the in-game model's do.
- Primary textures are custom map of mine applied globally. No skinning/UVWing was done.

Notes on design choices:
- For those who don't know, this robot's main in-game function is to steal your weapons/equipment by coming into contact with you. I spent a lot of time thinking how to portray this mechanic and in my final concept I followed the briefing screen describing the Bandit as a “modified trash collector” by taking some inspiration from the Sentinels in The Matrix resulting in what you see: the two frontal arms with grips hold on to the component while the posterior arms with plasma cutters slice it off your ship.
- The tentacles retract into the “shoulder” (as shown here) they can be longer and are made of extensible nanofibers ringed with armor so they can reach a healthy distance ahead.
- I am aware that the in-game model does not have visible engines yet it moves extremely fast, hence the reason why I added a pair of afterburners to my recreation.
- Canonically, I imagined this robot was mostly untouched by the infection, having simply replaced the single aft tentacle/grip with two smaller tentacles with plasma cutters and adding armor plates over the shoulder mechanisms (giving the shoulder spikes a good reason to be there).

Miscellaneous notes:
- Regarding the texture, my objective was to create a blend between modern camouflage patterns with “reptilian” characteristics as this bot always reminded me of a frog.

As always, thank you very much for your support.

Statistics:
Programs: 3DS Max, Photoshop
Total Faces: 172,405
Total Verts: 185,486