#propdesign

Huzzah! Day 2 of Red's Portfolio where I share my self-made designs! This is one of my favorite costumes I've ever made!! Yee can watch the full crafting process here!

Maarten Hermans

Freelance concept designer

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Aerisian Nanobots - Blender - 2026

Early Blender blockouts for the KOATR nanobots, based on their function as neural pathway architects: scouts, pruners, builders, bridgers, and regulators. These are not final story art yet, but shape studies for the tiny machines hidden inside Aerisian medicine, sold to the public as care. Quietly, they teach the brain where to grow, what to strengthen, and what to cut away.

Nanobots in KOATR

Android Doctor administering nanobot spray - Digital - 2026

Nanobots play a central role in King of All the Rust, serving as both blessing and curse to those who receive them.

Publicly, they are hidden inside routine medical care. Privately, they are part of a secretive program designed to shape the minds of Aerisian citizens from birth.

Their primary purpose is to keep higher understanding of the wormhole out of public reach. Their secondary purpose is regulation: guiding intelligence, limiting dangerous curiosity, reinforcing social order, and stratifying the population.

In KOATR, the nanobots build pathways, cut pathways, and help decide which thoughts are allowed to grow.

But with this regulation comes stagnation, and innovation is salvation for the rulers of Aeris.

Enter the Wildcard

Wildcard nanobot pruning neural pathway - Digital - 2026

Unlike standard nanobots, wildcard variants do not suppress dangerous thought. Instead, wildcards seek out the recipient’s strongest areas of interest, curiosity, talent, dream, or obsession, then magnify them.

To the rulers of Aeris, they are a necessary risk. The wildcard nanobot variants, administered "randomly" among the popuplation, are a way to restart invention in a civilization made too obedient to grow on its own.

Inktober 2024 Day 1: Backpack