Assembly of the Koids
When Jay Worth and Mark Spatny came to Refuge looking for a design for a robot endoskeleton, it lead to a creative journey for the show The Peripheral that was extremely rewarding. Not only did we land on the right design for the skeleton underneath the robots synthetic skin, we also designed the look for the Koid heads and completed over 600 shots throughout the show.
We also developed a nano bot technology that could assemble full androids and deep faked a synthetic character that lived inside the Koid.
A short interview with the team working on The Peripheral
The Peripheral Endoskeleton
When it came to the endoskeleton of the peripherals, we worked with the production team to develop a not just how the endoskeleton might look, but also how it might work. We started this by developing a style sheet of the mechanical parts and the materials used.
Once we had an approved style sheet, we turned to our friends Jacob and Arnold Pander to sketch up the design. A little back and forth and the results were a design that could work in a mechanical fashion, but also feel synthetic like flesh and bone.
Original Design Sketch
Final Design
Once we had a final approved design, we used references of real surfaces like meat and metal in order to execute the look development. Here is the final turnaround of the model with textures and shading.
3D Turnaround
The Koids
The Koids are servant robots, that could do a myriad of tasks. They were drivers, servers, child care takers, henchmen and assasins. The Koids could also be personalized by their owners, and their heads could have imagery and even holograms of human faces in them.
For the design of the Koids, the team wanted to really lean into the science fiction of the show. So to achieve that effect, we wanted to allow the viewer to see through them. Here are some early explorations.
Early Design for The Peripheral Koids
After showing ideas to Jonah Nolan, he pushed us to move towards a geometric design, built with triangles. So we then explored that for a few rounds before landing on our final Koid head design.
Final Koid Design