The Mecha Musume discussion thread

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Strike Zero
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Strike Zero wrote:Quick query: You wouldn't happen to have any plans to color, would you? Because if not, I'd like to do so.
Due to an unfotunate instance involving a program crash and the loss of a bunch of progress, this little side-project ended up taking a little longer than I initialy figured it would. But, it's finished now, so hey, here we go.

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g298/ ... -color.png
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Strike_Rouge_Mk2
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Wow, that looks really great! I wish my line art was better, it doesn't give that coloring justice. I should totally pay you to color stuff :D
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tehprognoob
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

smooth, merging hair and helmet
she looks sad, tho
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

tehprognoob wrote:she looks sad, tho
Yeah, I did that because the Plutone Gundam caused the death of her two friends and also caused her cell damage that made her hair turn silver/grey. I'm not sure if Strike Zero did that on purpose though. :P
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Strike Zero
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Strike_Rouge_Mk2 wrote:I'm not sure if Strike Zero did that on purpose though.
Erm, I'm not quite sure what you mean. All I did was add color. If anybody's responsible for making her look sad, that'd be you, bro. =P
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Strike_Rouge_Mk2
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

I meant the silver hair color, I should've been more specific. xD
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Strike Zero
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Well, yeah, that was on purpose. You did say it was supposed to be Chall from 00P/F, after all.
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Seraphic
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Found some new specimens for you, sirs and madams:

Mio/Chengdu
White Glint
Dra-C

I love the ChengDu one. It's just lovely and flows so well. Very good design. The hair is so nice. And White Glint there is just jaw-dropping. Man, I'll never be this good. >,>;

Anyway, I'm working on stuff, but I'm having a hard time find a good opportunity to make any progress. I don't feel like I can have the drawing out when anybody else is around, lol. Eventually!
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tehprognoob
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Cannot download white glint to phone T_T
I jelly now.
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Strike Zero
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Seraphic wrote:Anyway, I'm working on stuff, but I'm having a hard time find a good opportunity to make any progress. I don't feel like I can have the drawing out when anybody else is around, lol. Eventually!
I'm, like, always around, so I've got you covered there. :wink:

On-topic: When it comes to finding good mecha-musume design, I've come to realize that you really can't look any further than the work Akitaka Mika. This dude was the one who penned the very first MS Girls back in 1982, and he's still doing it today. His art style has since evolved along with the times, but he's still just as good as he ever was IMO.

Lately, he's also apparently been doing this thing where he takes some of the more popular characters from recent anime and Mecha-Musume-ifies them. Examples include:

Akemi Homura from Madoka Magica.
Index from To Aru no Index (death by kittens).
Ika-musume from Shinryaku! Ika-musume (death by squids ~degeso).

There's a whole lot more where that came from as well. If anybody else happens to have the inclination check them out, they can be viewed by traveling a-here.
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Seraphic
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Strike Zero wrote:I'm, like, always around, so I've got you covered there. :wink:
Haha, I meant something more like "I can't work on the drawing if there is any possibility of someone looking over my shoulder and seeing it because I am embarrassed." Meaning, the picture is NSFW at the moment, and will probably still ride close to being NSFW after it's done. And the waifu is always home when I have free time, so I don't get many chances to draw. Still, the drawing is proving to be a difficult challenge, and that is slowing me down. I caved and had to use references to get some of the anatomy right. =(

Anyway, thanks for the Akitaka links. I also have a prominent mecha musume artist to discuss in the future.
"Red particles are bad, they mutate you into... dead? But green/blue particles are good, apparently, for reasons and for purposes yet to be determined. Isn't science sometimes nicely color-coded?"
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Strike Zero
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Ah, I see. Well, that is a problem. :lol: Hope you eventually find the time to finish it.

And really, there's no shame in using references while drawing; I do it all the time. If it helps, it helps.
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crashlegacy14
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

not only is it there no shame in it, using references is something we should all strive to do more often.
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

crashlegacy14 wrote:not only is it there no shame in it, using references is something we should all strive to do more often.
To be honest, one of the main things that keeps me from using references is my pride. I figure that I should generally know how something should look, and I am interested in seeing how well I do on my own. However, I find that this always gets me in trouble because it's either very difficult (but I hammer out something workable) or I draw something completely inaccurately. For instance, one of my attempts for Epyon looked really different from the official art in some of its details, so I had to go back and rework all of it.

Another thing that gives me reservations over using references is my fear of taking too much from the reference where my drawing is too much of duplication. I wouldn't feel like I had drawn it on my own. Of course my drawings always end up unique in the end, but the process itself makes me uncomfortable. How do you guys deal with this?

But yes, I agree we all should work to use references more often. You'd be surprised how quickly you improve with using references. Sometimes you just have to set aside your pride to improve in your craft, and really, removing your ego from your work is the best way to go about anything. It's something I've got to work on.

Thanks for having my back, gentlemen. =o

edit: And I forgot to mention that some of my other redesigns were drawn without references to the original, and ended up looking much less complex or cool as a result. You'd be damn surprised at how cool and complicated some of the grunts in GW happen to be.
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tehprognoob
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Seraphic wrote:
crashlegacy14 wrote:not only is it there no shame in it, using references is something we should all strive to do more often.
To be honest, one of the main things that keeps me from using references is my pride. I figure that I should generally know how something should look, and I am interested in seeing how well I do on my own. However, I find that this always gets me in trouble because it's either very difficult (but I hammer out something workable) or I draw something completely inaccurately. For instance, one of my attempts for Epyon looked really different from the official art in some of its details, so I had to go back and rework all of it.

Another thing that gives me reservations over using references is my fear of taking too much from the reference where my drawing is too much of duplication. I wouldn't feel like I had drawn it on my own. Of course my drawings always end up unique in the end, but the process itself makes me uncomfortable. How do you guys deal with this?

But yes, I agree we all should work to use references more often. You'd be surprised how quickly you improve with using references. Sometimes you just have to set aside your pride to improve in your craft, and really, removing your ego from your work is the best way to go about anything. It's something I've got to work on.

Thanks for having my back, gentlemen. =o

edit: And I forgot to mention that some of my other redesigns were drawn without references to the original, and ended up looking much less complex or cool as a result. You'd be damn surprised at how cool and complicated some of the grunts in GW happen to be.
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OT:
What do you think of mecha parts being super-oversized? As in loli-METEOR, with the loli at ~half the size of the Freedom in relation to METEOR?
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Ryujin
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

A bit late but, with regards to references, I use them all the time. Asides from my being obsessive-compulsive when it comes to rendering this or that mobile suit design as close to the official lineart as possible, it lets me focus more attention on the other aspects of the artwork, such as lighting, composition & perspective.

Truth to tell, if I didn't have references for artwork involving official/non-original designs, I'd probably be three times slower than I already am.
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crashlegacy14
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

- perhaps someone should make a thread focusing on references and their use? just a suggestion.

I tend to use references mostly for posing and almost exclusively when I'm planing on making something more than just a speed sketch. The most common references that I use however are existing drawing of my own designs so that I stay accurate to the designs.

tehprognoob wrote: OT:
What do you think of mecha parts being super-oversized? As in loli-METEOR, with the loli at ~half the size of the Freedom in relation to METEOR?
I don't think anything is wrong with throwing proportions out of wack when making mecha ...anything. one could claim things like empathizing the design's more ridiculous elements or such but honestly if it works then it works.
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Seraphic
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Whelp, looks like somebody decided they wanted to kick me in the balls:

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c353/ ... d4c162.jpg

The artist is one "raptor 7". Great job, hahaha. Makes me realize my designs will never look super detailed and complex like some pieces because I follow a strict guideline of functionality over appearance. Oh well.

Working on a drawing as we speak. I may begin a discussion on references in the Doodling thread later.
"Red particles are bad, they mutate you into... dead? But green/blue particles are good, apparently, for reasons and for purposes yet to be determined. Isn't science sometimes nicely color-coded?"
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tehprognoob
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

You might also want to lighten your lines (something I should also do). Also, your avatar is broken I think.

As for complexity, if you plan it out it shouldn't be too hard. Did you ever take technical drawing/drafting in school (It's a required class where I go to High school...orz)?
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Seraphic
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Re: The Mecha Musume discussion thread

Photobucket must have just had a hiccup or something. It seems fine to me.

I can plan out complicated drawings just fine. What I meant was that my drawings will never be as visually striking as some because I don't like things that are frilly/big and impractical. It's part of why my Epyon has much smaller shoulder armor than the original Okawara version. In the Epyon drawing above, the wings look cool I guess, but look impractical and useless.

What drawings are you actually referring to, prog? I haven't actually posted any new lineart in a long while.

Also WHY should I lighten my lines? People keep saying this, but don't explain a need for it. I keep telling Crash to darken his lines, not because "he should draw like the rest of us" but because I genuinely can't see anything. But he understands he doesn't have to and it's not a big deal.

It's not like I erase a lot. I actually do very little erasing compared to most people. And my lines/pencil strokes are not heavy/dark the entire time I am sketching. I just solidify them before I scan the image so the scanned image comes out well. I'm trying to approximate inking with a pencil. If I actually went over the lines with a pen, would you still tell me to lighten my lines?

And some things are really starting to grate my nerves. You can't tell other artists to change something just because it's not in your taste. You have to learn the difference between something being different from your preference and something that is erroneous and should be fixed.

Crash likes to draw thin mecha. I don't tell him to make them bulkier. He likes using square angles in his lines. I don't tell him to use hexagonal lines just because I like them better. But if he messes up an ankle or whatever or the perspective looks wrong, I'll tell him.

Now it might have something to do with my scanner settings (I will test this later with Crash's help, I hope), but I like my dark lines. I'm not going to change how I work without good reason.
"Red particles are bad, they mutate you into... dead? But green/blue particles are good, apparently, for reasons and for purposes yet to be determined. Isn't science sometimes nicely color-coded?"
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