A steel, robotic killing machine that's ready to take orders. It's like something out of science fiction. Or, rather, an artist's online portfolio.
Yesterday, a different image of the above mecha was tweeted out in Japanese, with a note that this was "America's latest model of an unmanned machine." The tweet also noted the mecha would begin active fighting "soon."
The image was retweeted over 700 times, with some totally blown away by what was supposedly America's newest weapon. As website Byoukan Sunday pointed out, the image has become a hot topic online in Japan.
And today, that image popped up on 2ch, Japan's largest forum, with people wondering why the hell the mecha had what looks like speakers in its shoulders. The post also had pictures of the mecha in motion. There were those who were unsure if this was, in fact, real (the original Twitter user's account, packed with humorous images, should have clued folks in). Everyone thought it sure looked cool!
Recently, on Twitter in Japan, it's become a thing to try to ferret out stupid Twitter users—you know, those kinds of people who just retweet whatever. Some folks on Twitter realized that, well, obviously this isn't an American military weapon. Heck, just look at the actual photo that was tweeted out (below). It essentially says as much!
Well, the "design", "modeling", and "rendering" bit. Oh, and the artist's name, Vitaly Bulgarov. Google that, and you get the "Black Phoenix Project", which was an artist exercise. Bulgarov created a mecha every day in 3D. It's a very cool project and it's a testament to its realism that it fooled some folks.
(Also, with Boston Dynamics making some seriously real, cinder-block-throwing Metal Gear stuff, it's also easy to see why someone would fall for images like this.)
The best part? Bulgarov is a senior cinematic artist at Blizzard. So if you are going to get fooled, please get fooled by a talented Blizzard cinematic artist.
Below, you can see more of Bulgarov's work. If you want to know more about the Bulgarov, here is an interview with the artist.
Bulgarov [Official Site]
ターミネーター実用化来たか？米陸軍の新型無人機がヤバいとネットで話題に [秒刊SUNDAY]
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