A new Mega Man game being announced was cool, but I was super excited that they brought back the Robot Master contest!!!! I had drafted up a blog post lamenting how Mighty No. 9 dying upset me not necessarily because there'll never be a sequel, (I wish!) but because it was the last time that anything remotely close to the Robot Master contests happened. Maybe I will finish writing it and post it....
Anyways, yeah I was super thrilled! Unfortunately it came at a particularly busy time, so I didn't have the most time to come up with something... My biggest hurdle was trying to come up with something "unique", the amount of vacuum/maid related entries speak for themselves lol. I didn't want to fall into that, maybe to a fault, since I would not work on anything until I had a better idea.
My final entry funnily enough was the first idea I had. I don't necessarily think he's a great design, but something in me just made me think "wow he's cool!", which I consider more important. I wanted to make something that would excite me.
Other ideas were something alongside the lines of a snake or frog arm that would suck you in, given that there's already Robot Masters based on both animals I didn't choose to go further with them lol.
I randomly remembered the scene where Woody gets fixed in Toy Story 2, the fixer using some sort of machine to mix paints was interesting. Mega Man's main gimmick is color swapping, (not counting 11 I guess lol) so what about a robot that sucks away your colors and using them against you? A boss stealing your powers sounded interesting, given that is YOUR main ability. I really liked the idea but I couldn't really come up with a cool visual.
Knowing the rules of what makes a "good" design is a bit counterproductive, I wasn't letting myself pursue stuff because it's not unique or good enough design wise.
I wish I could have participated on these contests as a kid, I remember coming up with my own with my own armors for X, whatever I thought was cool. I didn't have the limitations of knowing that giving characters a bunch of guns and spikes wasn't the best design wise, but I thought it was really cool! So I wanted to tap in on that.
The last idea I got was Energy Man, pretty self explanatory he just sucks your power to make you weaker while he grows stronger. I wanted him to have a crazier personality, something akin to Burner Man, but then again the concept was so vague it never went anywhere.
At this point it's December 28th, I only have 3 days to do something lol. So I decided to go with the most polished idea I had. I have been really enjoying working with markers lately, so to the sketchbook I went.
Debris Man is supposed to be a rescue robot, so I decided to include some Met elements, the green cross and black stripes to make a vague connection to them. The more I kept drawing him the more he started growing on me, the feeling of "woah this guy's cool!" kept happening, so I knew I was onto something. Despite not being anything substantially great, I was having fun!
I spent New Year's working on this lol, but I made the deadline and was overall satisfied! I am excited to see what the chosen 20 are. I scrolled through the tags myself and was happy to see other people coming up with the similar paint/color ideas I had, but waaaay better and more unique than I ever could imagine! I root for them....
I think the contest came at a particularly good time, in all honesty I have not feeling very strongly about drawing, both in my skills and just generally feeling down on it, not being good enough not enjoying it impostor syndrome etc etc. But this was very revitalizing, I just had to do something, anything!
While it would be cool to even make the next phase, I did not go in with any expectations of winning, I was just happy competing. The Robot Master contest excites me because I just imagine aaaall the entries one against another, that alone is cool to me and satisfying enough lol, so there was no pressure on doing something that everyone would love, I just wanted to do something that would bring back those feelings of being a kid, and it did. : )
Most probably assume Mario is my favorite series, but creatively speaking, it's Mega Man. I'm happy that it still is inspiring me after all this many years.