Specific Question looking for Varied Responses

[Jon O]

As I've been scripting and laying out my next book it's really hit me how much technical drawing (machines, robots, moving parts, etc) are going to be on certain pages.  I've never really drawn anything like that so I'd like to study a few masters first. 

For example, last year I was ironing out character designs for my super hero types in 3rd World.  As I was going through this process I also read a lot of Mazzuchelli's Daredevil, Kirby's 4th World, Veitch's Greyshirt, Premiani's Doom Patrol.  Things of the ilk.

What kinds of books artists would you guys recommend for a crash course on transforming machines and robots.  And if you say Transformers (which is valid) be specific.  In fact, I really appreciate specificity in my advice.  So really nerd out.

Karma for all that help.

[scoundrel3000]

I'm not an artist so this is coming from a fanboy's perspective.

I really like Pat Lee's "Transformers".  They are very Anime but it just worked so well.
Chris talked this week about Geoff Darrow. " Hardboiled" and "Rusty the Boy Robot" both have excellent use of robots.
The animated film "Iron Giant".
Old school Kirby FF.  You can get a good sense of weird machinery in any scene with Reed's Lab.

That's it I'm tapped out.  Hope that was useful.  Keep us up to date on your project and good luck.

[miraclemet]

you know, its not a robot per-se, but I really appreciated Quitely's robotics/mechanicals in We3 which gives a nice hybridization of machine and man (ok animal)

[AzizBawany]

I was thinking Miller/Darrow's Hard Boiled and The Big Guy & Rusty the Boy Robot.

[thefreakytiki]

A Distant Neighborhood (2 vols.), by Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)

Jiro is a master. 


the Tiki

[Jordan]

the battle suits in We3 are pretty amazing. 

A really good robot hand or battle armor shows up in Invincible from time to time, like Conquest's arm.

I would also check out some of the Starcraft art that is up over on Blizzard.com.  the Protoss have a alot of mechanical/robotic units as do the Terrans. 

[DGoodhart]

Well, I tell you, a big influence on me with how I approach robots has always been John Byrne's work, specifically with Rog-2000.

[Sampsa_G]

Masamune Shirow's Appleseed or Ghost in the Shell. Beautifully detailed technical drawing and if you can get your hands on the oversized full color collected editions they even have the concept art pages of robots and weapons included in them.