Nexus Prime: The Blockchain Warrior

Hello Again My Friends

Welcome back. I have a special project that I want to share with you guys today. I've been secretly working on this for about 3 weeks nonstop. You could even say that I put Japanese working hours into this (lol). 😂 But I was finally able to finish this on time, and I am super happy how it turned out. I also liked to mention that I am by no means a 3D modeler, I mainly make animation. So, this was truly a challenging personal project.

My Inspiration actually came from a game called Zero Divide, for the original Playstation 1. It was a fighting game where you choose a robot to fight other robots. It was quite similar to Virtual fighter, such as knocking opponents off the stage. Seeing something like that when I was a kid growing up, was truly something spectacular and just way past cool. Oh, and by the way. Playstation 1 cases back in the day were over sized rectangular boxes haha and came with manuals! Wow, manuals, a thing of the ancient past. What also prompt me to make Nexus Prime, was actually the 30 Minute Mission project I did not too long ago. You can click the link above to go read that article once you're done with this one. 😊 Now, without further ado, here is the process of forging Nexus Prime, the blockchain warrior.

I started out by taking a whole bunch of photos of the 30 Minute Mission figma model. This was for reference so that I could model the different types of body parts. I also used Pinterest, which is a really helpful website to look at other reference materials or to get inspired. The figma model was highly detailed with complicated designs for each part. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but I turned on my lofi music and hunkered down. When I said that I spent Japanese working hours into this project, that was not an exaggeration. I think I spent about 200 plus hours total on the project. I think the most trouble I had modeling, was the arm and head pieces. I redid the arm like 5 times before I got it just right. With the head piece however, was probably even more complicated do to the vertices and getting everything symmetrical.

Making the rig for Nexus was quite simple. Since Nexus isn't a human, placing the bones for each individual body part was easy. Normally when I make a rig for a character, I had to go through the pain stacking process of weight painting the model so that the deformation of every muscle were correct.
Although making the rig for Nexus was easy, it was also time consuming. Nonetheless, I had fun with this part. In a way, I am finally understanding why game development takes so much time. And I'm just one person. Modeling, Rigging, and Texturing.

Texturing

The texturing process went smoothly as well. I just pretty much worked my way from the helmet all the way down to the foot. For the side vents on the helmet, I went with gold because I thought it looked awesome. For the eyes, I went with neon green with a transmission effect to make it look like glass. The texturing process that you see on the right photo was a little different. I did a UV unwrap to make sure that it was on that spot, specifically on his left shoulder. I'll go into more detail on why I chose that particular Japanese Kanji for Nexus. After all of this work, I was finely able to finish my character.

The History

So why did I make something like this? Well, I've actually had the idea in my head since Hive was born. 5 freaking years ago! Whoa, time definitely flies by quickly! I wanted to create an animation where different crypto characters battle each other out to the death. As of right now however, I've only made Nexus Prime. But the plan is to make an animation where Nexus Prime (Hive) battles Steem on the blockchain and many others, later in the future. Again, I am only one person after all. So a project like this will take even more time, effort, and polishing. 😅

Behind the name

I chose Nexus because it means a series of connection, just like the blockchain. And with Hive being a community platform with multiple connections and bonds throughout the years, it just made sense to go with the name. Prime, the first of its kind, holds great significance for the people of the platform. And Shin, the Japanese Kanji character that you see on the left shoulder of Nexus. It means advance or to move forward. Just like Hive, it's constantly ever changing and moving forward with multiple developers making the platform a better place. I do like to point out that with Japanese Kanji, it could have several meanings. So please bear with me (lol ) 😅

This was a long overdue project that needed to be created. I'm glad that I was finally able to get a start on my vision and creating something truly amazing for the near future, and for the platform. I plan on making the opposing character, storyboarding, and the environments to set the tone. This won't be made over night however, like I said previously, these types of projects take a lot of effort to create. But I will continue to document and share my journey with this awesome community. I'd like to also say that Nexus Prime is just a prototype and is still a work in progress, in terms of the overall design. I will most likely change a few things and make upgrades once he's finalized.

Once again, we are at the end of the post. Thank you for taking the time to read about my project. For the next post, I'll make renders of Nexus Prime so that you guys can have wallpapers for your computers and smart phones. 😊 👍