Sci-fi Humanoid Mech Concept Design Blends Traditional Cultural Elements Applied Research

With the development of film and television and games,as well as the improvement of people’s living standards and appreciation ability,science fiction works are becoming more and more popular.The popularity of the "Three-Body Problem" novel represents that Chinese science fiction literature is at the forefront of the world.On film and television,"The Wandering Earth" has a total domestic box office of 4.687 billion,"Pacific Rim" has a domestic box office of 695 million,and "Tomorrow’s War" has a domestic box office of 679 million.As of February 14,2023,"The Wandering Earth 2" has a box office of 3.687 billion,all Indicating that mecha science fiction has a huge market in China.In the field of game art,the GGAC competition has launched a concept art competition with Chinese culture as the theme element for four consecutive sessions since 2019.With the growth of China’s military strength,the toy industry has also launched mecha toys based on Chinese weapons and equipment.In "2021 China Collectible Toys Industry Market Insights Analysis".In 2025,the market size of the domestic toy industry will exceed 150 billion yuan,and the core consumer group will exceed 100 million people.Among them,the market scale of collectible toys such as mecha deformation and dolls is as high as 52.5 billion yuan.Users pay more attention to spiritual needs,and collectible toys have exploded in an all-round way.Players’ willingness to purchase additional Chinese traditional cultural IPs has risen by 52.7%.All this shows that mecha science fiction works have ushered in more attention and a greater upsurge,and cultural connotation and cultural symbols have also become an important influencing factor in science fiction works.With the continuous improvement of the consumption level of the youth consumer group,the film and television toys and games with science fiction as the selling point have attracted the attention of young people,and at the same time created greater economic benefits.However,in this upsurge since the beginning of the new century,China’s local mech concept design has a huge lack and very little attention.China’s game and film industry started relatively late,and the theory of design,especially the theory of mech design,is not mature enough.There is little research in the field of how to integrate traditional elements into mecha design.Moreover,the mecha mechanical structure itself has no cultural characteristics,so it presents a large number of homogeneous designs.The Chinese market generally imitates the shape of Japanese mechas or European and American mechas.This indirectly caused the domestic mech concept design to lack its own design language and design foundation.It is not competitive against the Japanese and American mechas with strong system and ip value.How to integrate traditional modeling elements into the conceptual design of the mecha through design theory,and create a humanoid mecha with a unique Chinese artistic conception has great research value.This article aims to summarize and extend the theory of mech conceptual design,starting from the influence of graphics on audience psychology in visual psychology,and summarizing the visual aesthetics and mechanical functional requirements in mech conceptual design.At the same time,the author starts from the symbol conversion of traditional modeling elements,through the research in this article and his own experience,as well as the case study of the concept design of mechs integrated with traditional element symbols at home and abroad.Summarized and researched the design method of integrating traditional culture in the concept design of science fiction humanoid mechs: symbol transformation of traditional modeling elements(prototype repetition,direct reference of symbols,color borrowing)and transformation of mechanical structure sense of traditional modeling elements(graphic substitution,form-functionalization),graph regularization,structural references).The visual aesthetic requirements,mechanical functional requirements,transformation of symbols of traditional modeling elements,and transformation of mechanical structure sense of traditional modeling elements in the conceptual design of mechs constitute a relatively complete design method.At the same time,the author applied it in the practice of graduation creation,creating works such as "Xia-Zhu Rong" and "Ancient Voyager-Hu You",and the mecha design of "Backing Bright Bird" was also successfully commercialized.The author released a questionnaire to investigate the public’s preferences for mechs,and put the design works in the questionnaire for evaluation and comparison.Further verify the feasibility of the concept design of sci-fi humanoid mechas integrating the primary colors of traditional shapes and the usability of the author’s design method.Provide some reference and reference for creators of sci-fi mecha concept design.