final drawing by Li Zhi Yuan - sketch by Nicolas Vallet
VEHICLES
The project required several ground vehicles to be designed, each with a very utilitarian feel and unique silhouette. In accordance with the tone we've set in the project so far, the trucks design are not far off what could be achieved now, with only some extrapolations and shifts in scale to make it unique.
CARGO TRUCK
Due to shifts in the tectonic plates caused by the engines thrust, trains were abandoned for a more flexible way to ferry cargo.
Giant trucks, hybrids between mining and freight truck, constantly ferry rocks to the engines.
Due to the constantly extreme nature of the environment, the trucks are designed as habitats allowing the drivers to stay several day at a time in the cabin.
The wheels were designed as all independent allowing the truck to translate in any direction if needed.
To go with the change of driving style, driving wheels were changed to steering spheres, allowing it to turn in all directions.
final drawing by Li Zhi Yuan - sketch by Nicolas Vallet
final drawing by Tian Zhong Li - sketch by Nicolas Vallet
Interior layouts
this was the only sketch we did of the cockpit, it was then took by the set design team that added roof windows and widen the cockpit. Both of those iterations were a good thing.
The cockpit, where the driver and the co-driver control the truck. There was a very heavy retro-sci-fi influence on this area, mainly because of the logic; rather than going for super hi-tech, we went for the most resistant feel for the design, giving it that bulky look.
Hatch details
lots of hatches separate the air-tight cabin with the exterior, and two of them received special attention as they will be used in the main action of the movie.
Design Process
Two artists in our team were asked to make series of thumbnails, working on the general silhouette rather than details.
The first pass produced a lot of interesting shapes but didn't sit well with the story, the cargo truck needed to have a trailer. We did push a little by doing a more refined pass from two options but we had to go back to the drafting board then.
These options were closer to what the director needed story-wise. The first iterations were very close to mining trucks, but we wanted to exploit the size of the trucks to get something more unique. I did a serie of sketch were the cockpit was protruding off the body of the truck, reducing each time the lower section were the wheels and the axles were. In the end it was approved with the director and we worked on refining the shape until the last version
First version of the interior
if the logic was rather similar, it changed a lot and became more dynamic in the second version