Shhh... secret draft designs. Don't tell Twitter yet. Please give me any feedback, and feel free to read my many design thoughts under the cut. Also feel free to use the designs yourself.
Alright! The things right at the top that i wanted to keep in mind were things in the series that are distinct to mechanites vs things warforged have.
As far as I remember, there are only two notable ones. Mechanites have jaws that cannot move, instead they have face plates that can open up. And while the other isn't stated in canon, warforged have crystals in their eyes, and mechanites are never pictured or described in that way.
I almost broke the first rule on purpose with DX-TR, seeing as he's described as human-like and the negotiator, but as I was going through the series again, he was explicitly stated to have the same stiff jaw.
The only heights (I think) we have were that VR-LA got the haha funny meme number at 6'9", MR-SN was a few inches taller, and C-RA is at least as tall as Finbar (7'2"). From there, I wanted DX-TR to be nearly as tall as VR-LA, so he's around 6'6"/6'7". E-DN is about the same height as him because I feel like with her satyr legs, her being taller made sense. I put K-LB around 6'2" because I was originally going to have a slight joke that this height was after he'd already made mods to himself with heels and his mohawk. I didn't like how the heels came out, so I left it out. AS-TR is the shortest at the bare minimum height for warforged at 5'10". I'll get into that in the section discussing her design.
While it didn't really come up in these designs, since VR-LA has been pictured with yellow eyes, and described with blue, I've headcanoned that mechanites eyes change color based on how much processing they're doing. So the default would be blue, when they're calm and just hanging out. Their eyes switch to yellow when they're concentrating or focused on something specific. Orange is when they're flustered or upset. Red is the dramatic color for when they're really angy. I'd imagine someone like DX-TR can deliberately control it to avoid giving away some tell, but I don't think it's common for mechanites to do it.
The designs are mostly based on the same shapes and pieces that VR-LA has, rather than Vice/He-11, as those feel like they're kind of unusual in that regard. And even if they're not, I'd still chalk it up as a difference in their plane of origin. Onto individual character notes!
C-RA was described as being large, having a sort of knights templar, aesthetic, somewhat like living armor but more organic. Mostly what I referenced was plate armor, so pretty straight-forward. That being said, I feel like her design's a little plain. I wanted to add something to her head to help distinguish her head silhouette more. Plus I feel like her colors are too desaturated, and she just doesn't really have a shape that carries throughout her design. Idk, it's fine, but it just doesn't feel striking.
MR-SN was described as being slender, regal, and with a permanent smile in his eyes. I feel like I had a similar issue with him that I had with C-RA where there doesn't seem to be anything that carries through his design. I feel like I captured the face pretty well at least where he looks kind and kind of like a dad who's just proud of you. He's one I kind of feel like with clothes, his design might work better. I had no clue what color to go for, so it's just a color that I thought would be unique enough to the group.
VR-LA is just based on his season 1 art. The only thing I changed from how I drew him before, was mostly just proportions, like around the joints. I wanted him to be a thin, scrawny nerd, so he's also more narrow than before. My goal was half of C-RA's size, and I think C-RA's about 1 1/2 VR-LA's, so it's close enough.
DX-TR was described as human-like and bald with a flesh tone color. He was honestly really easy. As a joke, I referenced Seth Everman for his face sculpt, and I think it came out well. Mostly I referenced human muscles for his sculpt. I considered giving him tattoos, but didn't really have any ideas for that. He's got two notably unique traits from the rest of the group. He's the only one without shoulder pauldrons, which I kinda want to change, but idk there, and the light in his eyes is round rather than the cross design I treated as baseline. I wanted a less human saturation in skin, and I don't think I achieved that, but I'm not sure it'd look as good. I kinda want him more uncanny valley, but idk what to do there.
E-DN was described as a similar mechanite design as VR-LA, but with satyr legs. I gave her horns and horizontal pupils, mostly just for variety. I gave her a little more of just a round shape compared to VR-LA's more angular shapes. Her design I like over all. I like the colors, and I think the mint accents help her stand out. She's got good shapes and a good silhouette. And everything feels like it came out pretty well with her.
K-LB I'm torn on. I almost feel like he stands out too much. As far as what's described, I had the hardest time figuring out his design. He's described as a standard mechanite that's gold with fine gold filigree that looks like wire mesh, as well as a blue glow from his arms. I was going for somewhere around a punk-ish Rodney Copperbottom from Robots kind of idea. The filigree mesh I just used a nonsense text brush because i didn't have any specific ideas there. I like how the yellows/blues look together. I like the hexagon shape that carries throughout. His silhouette's mostly different enough from everyone else. I don't think he's too saturated. Yet I just don't feel like his design fits him, and I don't know what to do. He's the one I feel like scrapping and redoing the most.
AS-TR was described with long hair, and a slight glow, but didn't have much of a description as far as I remember otherwise. She had two notable design inspirations. Selûne and my cat who coincidentally has the same name (mostly my cat lol). One of Selûne's avatar's is described as long limbed (which is kind of how I just drew the mechanites), with pale hair, dusty skin, and green eyes. The pattern around her eyes is a less exaggerated version of some of her iconography. Her eyes are tinted green with her holy symbol as the shape of the lights. If I were smart, I'd actually have put all seven of the stars that are a part of Selûne's holy symbol (and I might change that later). Aster (my cat) is a tiny little black cat with a grey undercoat and two tiny lil white spots. So from there, I made AS-TR the smallest mechanite, she's two different shades of grey, and she has two little white spots on her chest in a similar size, shape, and location as Aster's. As a result of the name coincidence, and from what we've seen, similar personality, AS-TR is required to be my favorite, lol. Even excluding that though, I do like how her design came out too. Like I said, I might change the design slightly to have the seven stars across her, and I might change the greys to have more contrast because they're too similar, but the whole design came close to what I had in mind.
Over all, I'm pretty satisfied with all of these designs, and while there's things I'm going to change, I think these are all pretty solid.