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Marvin was the toughest of all the characters to make. For one thing, he was one of my absolute favourites, and there were just so many ways to do him WRONG, in my mind. For a very long time I knew what he was NOT, but I couldn't place my finger on what he should be.

here are some pictures of previous interpretations of Marvin.

Marvin from the BBC production...Everyone say "cardboard"! well, almost.	Close up of his head.
Marvin. Retro stuff.	Marvin from the illustrated coffee-table book.

Marvin was another of those characters with minimal descriptions in the book. The best bits come from the first time Marvin gets mentioned.
"In one corner a robot sat humped, its gleaming brushed steel head hanging loosely between its gleaming brushed steel knees. It too was fairly new, but though beautifully constructed and polished it somehow looked as if the various parts of its more or less humanoid body didn't fit quite properly. In fact they fitted perfectly well, but something in its bearing suggested they might have fitted better."
So we know 2 things about Marvin:
-He is humanoid
-He is shiny
later some more things are mentioned and we can gather that
-His eyes may glow red
-He has this pain that runs down his left diode

So working with that description, I tried to design a Marvin that would fit with my image of him. The most striking feature of Marvin is, in my opinion, his dull droning voice from the Radio play, so I used that as a source of inspiration. Since the Guide was written in the 70's/80's, i thought a Retro look might be suitable. Not so retro as the BBC "man in a cardboard suit" version, but none of the sleek and smooth - amazing gadgetry - techno organic - business that Hollywood has been feeding us for the past few years with movies like Bicentennial Man.

Initial Marvin sketch. I really liked the head, so i kept it.
Click to zoom

I was thinking more along the lines of designs from Futurama, but slightly more, erm, complex looking. But not as humanoid as a certain famous Star Wars android.

Then I had one of the most troublesome ideas. I would use scrap parts to build Marvin. Worst decision I could make, but I did anyway. Two things popped into my head: Bandai's Rockman kits and Zoids. I had a few spare parts lying around so I tried mixing and matching. I found some parts that looked like they would make good arms but nothing that remotely resembled a torso in the scale I needed. I thought about cutting up a Spider-man figure for that but I didn't have any spares left. Then I remembered I had an old Silver Surfer figure at the bottom of my spare parts stash. I once bought it to use it for a base of a custom that I never got round to doing. So why waste it. The limbs were horribly warped (plastic tends to do that after a time) so I couldn't use them. Off they went. Zoid pieces as arms seemed to work. I bought some plug-things from an electronic parts store for his hands. Real nuts and bolts held the arms in place. Marvin was underway.

Ok, the pic is weird. I drew it while on a bus. Here I'm trying to develop the body, having established what to use for his arms.
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I knew I wanted Marvin to have ball-hips, just for the look. It's just something I associate with retro-robots. So a lot of drilling, screwing and bead-hunting later I had what I wanted. I planned for the legs to be constructed out of parts. The main problem was the torso. I would have to sculpt it, but first i needed to base it on a solid design. I usually do my sculpting on the fly with a general idea of what I want out of it, but in this case I couldn't get started with a design first. I ended up going for a kind of hybrid futuresque/retro look,part klunk, part sleek.

90% finalised look. I changed his lower legs. In this picture, they were supposed to be made of marker caps.
Click to zoom

photos and pictures featuring the Marvin the Paranoid Android figure