Bunraku Robotics Android

NPC illustration drawn for an RPG campaign in the Interface Zero 2.0 setting by Gun Metal Games ( www.gunmetalgames.com ) for the Savage Worlds RPG (Pinnacle Entertainment Group -- www.peginc.com ).

For a sci-fi/cyberpunk/horror campaign I ran for my group, several of the players were employees or contractors working for assorted megacorporate interests on the remote asteroid mining base on Ceres, primarily administered by the Japanese-based Dakiniten Group.  One of the local industries was the Bunraku Robotics company (a subsidiary owned by Dakiniten), which manufactured critical processors and other tiny, high-value components directly there on the asteroid via largely automated factories -- as manufacturing such small but expensive components on-world was more cost-effective than shipping the raw materials all the way to Earth and then manufacturing them THERE.

A large number of prototypes in Bunraku's android lines were in use on the asteroid.  This particular model was widely used in the Piazzi Starport area, based off of an endoframe similar to that used by many of the full-conversion cyborg miners.  Although personal models were capable of being given a more lifelike synth-flesh covering, there were still problems with this particular generation of androids in overcoming the "uncanny valley" issues associated with replicating human likeness and behavior, given the expense in on-board AI processors.  As a rather crude, low-cost work-around, the prototypes from this line still in use on Ceres were just given deliberately NON-human-looking faces.  (A little more effort was put into the female-appearing models, for corporate culture reasons.)

Now, just how reliable were these androids, given that this was a sci-HORROR campaign?  Well, answering that might comprise SPOILERS, if I were to ever try running that adventure again.    Let's just say that my players were not terribly surprised.

...

Or, rather, that's my excuse because when I was sculpting minis to represent the androids, using Reaper "dolly" models as a base, I put a bit more work into using the "green stuff" to make facial features and fake hair on the "female" bases, and on the "male" robots, I just decided to go for something abstract.  When it came time to draw up a player handout to show the sorts of persons and creatures and robots that might be encountered, my illustrations were heavily influenced by the details of what minis I had painted up at the time.