Boxman Jr. - inspirations & concept sketches!
First off!!! Julia did such a great job of taking in how we (Haewon, Stevie, Danny and myself) all drew him in the boards and distilling it into the malevolent little stinker that shows up onscreen! Also, Kali’s colors for him were really great!
Since Haewon and I boarded the first part of the episode, we were tasked with coming up with his design! Here are the first passes i made for him:
the main thing in my head when drawing this was that i didn’t want him to be traditionally cute - i definitely wanted him to look like a gross, stinky baby. one that looked looked like it smelled a litte sour.
You might think he looks a bit…. familiar, and you’d be absolutely correct! When we started working on the episode, the main direction we were given for his design was…. unsurprisingly, Bowser JR. And it shows!
Buuuuut..!!! While one might think he was based COMPLETELY off of him… it was actually a subtle blend from a bunch of different sources!
Since he was a humanoid baby, and not a dragon-lizard baby, he was gonna need a nose, so I based his nose off of Olimar. Also, I’m a HUGE fan of the Breath of Fire series, so when i thought of making a strange stinky lump of a baby, Yohm (from Breath of Fire 4) immediately came to mind.
The MechaChair transformation was also really fun to make! I thought it’d be fun to make the chair an actual part of him! I wanted to highlight the fact that despite how bumbling Lord Boxman can be, he’s still a pretty capable scientist and robot engineer.
The design is partly inspired by a character named BABY HEAD COMMANDO, from an old arcade game called CAPTAIN COMMANDO!
His design has stuck with me ever since I played it, so when I thought of how Boxman Jr. would fight, I felt it would be cool for him to ride around in a weaponized high-chair version of Boxman’s desk. i mean, c’mon, what’s cooler than a baby controlling a mech??
As for his attacks, in addition to having baby-themed attacks, I wanted him to have elements of his other robo-siblings! giant fist a la darrell, razor blades a la shannon, and a giant soccer cleat a la raymond… let’s not forget he’s not just a romantic bot, he’s a romantic SPORTS-bot.
Siiinnnnnncccceee he’s a gross stink baby, it felt right for him to have an attack based off a tantrum… so I gave him a Tantrum Mode transformation! The beam that he launches is in the shape of an exclamation mark, since. yknow. it’s a tantrum!
That’s pretty much all I got for Boxman Jr! That’s not all of it, though! Stevie and Danny made a bunch of really cool weapons and attacks for him too!
Good night, sweet prince… at least, from me, you were loved and appreciated.
