Been drawing mechs this year and recently opened up commissions, so thought to advertise myself a bit on here since I really like the new multi-image posting. Community aspect is nice change of pace too since DA is a zombie site and Artstation is ever-sterile
Started making stuff again after a long hiatus in May with this project:
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
The gist of it was me being dissapointed at the Front Mission 1 remake because they switched from nicely done 2D sprites to shoddy looking 3D (FM4 and 5 that came out 2 decades ago look better imo). So I wanted to reverse engineer the isometric multi-part look of the original, plus I also got to talking to a friend about a mecha worldbuilding project I wanted to start. Some of the initial exploration:
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
I actually like these quite a bit as individual pieces of art even, but they didn't really get seen because I had like, 0 social media following at the start. Will probably try reposting them elsewhere to get more eyes on them at some point
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
Response to Tide's art thread (more or less a year in review for 2023) 2023-12-12 09:56:08 (edited 2023-12-12 09:58:56)
You can look at the galleries themselves to see the full extent of the customisation, just going to show a few examples here. Made 4 distinct mech chassis with cutout parts before taking them apart and swapping bits and pieces around to see how they'd look recombined.
2 of the base designs:
Vega - named after the star, play on the 'Omega' naming since it's blatantly based off the Digimon of the same name + Virtual On and Advance of Zeta influences
Frank - named after the 'franken-mech' concept from Battletech since it's alraedy kind of roughly put together
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
And here's them with new parts attached:
Vega (Repair) - themed after being a field repaired version of Vega where it's torso and arms were too damaged and needed to be hotswapped with battlefield salvage, still trying to maintain a similar mixed ranged/melee combat role
Seagull - Named after both it's beach-like colour scheme and it's tendencies to linger around conflict zones but flee as soon as it takes fire, it's themed after being a dedicated supply and comms support unit. Nearly no weapons, but heavily armored and relatively speedy
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
The full parts spread (pretty proud of the variety honestly):
Also tested out alt colours using a standardised Main - Sub1 - Sub2 - Highlight - Grey colour scheme before going on to do the actual kitbashes. Looser themings on these:
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
These look really sophisticated.
It's also interesting to see someone else who draws things in parts and puts them together.
At 12/12/23 11:44 AM, RepriseAgain wrote: These look really sophisticated.
It's also interesting to see someone else who draws things in parts and puts them together.
Thanks for the comment! Um, yeah some aspects ended up a bit too complex since I was still experimenting as I went, ideally if I return to this concept in the future I'd want to streamline and standardise the level of detail/complexity
It's not far off from my default process which is quite layer heavy tbh. It's still more practical to do initial design sketches as one whole form so the whole thing is cohesive, but afterwards it's pretty fun to think about how things connect/ range of movement etc while in the lineart phase
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
After got done with those, took a bit of a break. Looked into an OC exchange sort of thing but got cold feet. Still ended up fleshing out two of the designs from it. Both ended up being fantasy themed funnily enough:
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
First one was this animated armor. Idea of it was that it was an abandoned relic of some bygone war, it and it's brethren long having been abandoned where they were defeated as nature grew over them. Only this one still had a bit of magic in it, enough to be reactivated by a curious feline.
Second was a fun little chimera creature. Part millipede, part rhino, part starfish, the Milli-beast was an arcane engineered warbeast created by a mad mage for his army. After the mage was slain by a band of brave adventurers, his creations have since integrated themselves into the local ecosystem as a rapidly multiplying (quite literally since they reproduce via budding, their 'head' falling off to grow into a new Milli-beast) invasive species. It's gotten to the point where nearby towns have to organise annual hunts to cull their populations lest they creep too close to human settlements, proving to be a steady source of income for mid-level adventurers in the area.
Both of these are kind of random, but that was the point. I felt like I needed to be more freeform in my art process, since I had often gotten caught up in large overarching projects in previous years and ended up not making that much stuff.
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
Next up were 2 pieces of fanart for upcoming games (at the time). The first was done pretty quickly for a Twitter art contest held by the dev, done in around 4-5 days. The second one stretched out to around 4 weeks as I worked on it on and off:
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
This was a pic of a Hydra bot found in the demo for Reverse Collapse: Code Name Bakery. Got some nostalgia for my time fighting these guys in GFL, and found that there wasn't that much art of them outside official material. Ended up being my still most liked+retweeted post on Twitter
The second one was of a hypothetical armored core in Armored Core 6. At the time, the gameplay and story trailers had just come out, so I tried to base the design and tone of the piece on the atmosphere shown in those. I'd say it deserves its spot as the peak of what I can do illustration-wise at the moment. Ended up finishing it a bit after AC6 actually came out.
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
Response to Tide's art thread (more or less a year in review for 2023) 2023-12-13 00:42:34 (edited 2023-12-13 00:43:24)
Did some supplemental stuff for the AC6 adjacent mech as well, much like the stuff at the start of this thread. Here's only 2 images but there's more within the actual art post of this:
Split up parts once again with listed original configs/sources. The head ended up looking quite similar to the Verill head in the final game, but it's an honest coincidence. Originally the head was where the radar dish was on the final design, but thought it looked too 'normal' so I shifted it downwards towards the chest Titanfall style. If I had kept it up top, it would've also resembled the Da Feng core funnily enough
And that's the pilot before he gets in the hotseat and jets off on another mission, being interrupted by an urgent call. A counter offer from the force he was about to go attack, promising quite a bit more pay to backstab his current employer instead. The mech mercenary economy's a cutthroat place.
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
To cap off this thread, my 2023 Mechtober run. I did Inktober in the past, but only did the full month once before. Didn't actually end up finishing in October itself due to irl stuff and wanting to polish up the last third, so ended up finishing on the 6th of December. Here are the entries:
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
Will just be posting some of the personal highlights as opposed to everything.
First one of the month, cemented that I wanted to try to inject more graphic design elements into the pieces in place of scenes or backgrounds per say. QR code leads to a rick roll lol
Not as much dynamism as I'd like on this one, but the colour seperation was fun to play with and there was an attempt at foreshortening.
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
Maximum dakka on this funky guy
This one went slightly viral on Twitter, with a lot of people comparing it to the AdMech Skitarii from W40k. I can see the comparison. Cowboys and mechs just go well together as an aesthetic imo
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
This 2-parter was definitely one of my favourites. Maginot here is a reprise of a really old design I have in my backlog
And the sequel. Learnt an easy process to make organic looking rain streaks, got to go ham on that lightning effect, and used a glitch overlay effect to spice up the Mako's active camouflage system. The idea of a small laser/machine gun spamming light mech is definitely Battlectech inspired (the Pirahna in particular)
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
Done between planetrips, this one was pretty inspired on the bg end. Actual design ehhh I'd redesign a few things but I like it enough. This is the start of me spending too much time on some of these
Case in point. Experimented with the ice effects here a ton, will help when I have to draw the stuff in the future. Roughly based on the The Thing where you got some ancient unknowable horror frozen in the ice.
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
Pretty blue orb, a reminder that what we got going on this planet is special I guess
This one I had low expectations for when I started but it turned out way better than expected. Has a kind of porcelain art vibe + colour scheme. I should see if I can get this printed on a cup at some point.
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
Another reprise, one of the first mechs I ever made updated to my current style/skill level. Zeon influences down to the oil spurt ala that one famous Gouf custom scene
Not exactly a redo of an earlier design, but I have been chipping away at a sort of insectoid mech design language and this is the latest iteration of that. Tail is very Epyon inspired and the multiple chain guns is derived from this old game I'm nostalgic for called Drone Tactics
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
Last two are also kind of a two-parter. Badb-Catha over here is playing the part of the massive mobile armor, distant and cold in it's casual destruction of an entire city.
And then Silverfin's the direct opposite where it's right in your face and as loud as possible. Only V-fin of the entire month gives it protag privileges. Eventhough both of these are derived from older designs, they take influence from some of the stuff I've watched/seen since I made the originals. Variety of Zeon mobile armors for the former, Armored Core (particularly White Glint) and Advance of Zeta designs for the latter.
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
And that's about everything I got this year. Hope whoever finds this and manages to read through everything likes what they see.
Drawing mechs and monsters because I relate more to them than people somehow. (Commissions open rn btw)
