There's occasionally technology in Mega Man games, usually on the Wily Capsules, that let a robot or device go completely invisible. Ghost Man was born from me thinking it would be funny to give this technology to a Robot Master, and then cover it with a blanket. It would create a nice illusion of a traditional sheet ghost.
They would work in a haunted house, basically being both an employee and a prop at the same time. Their torso can extend to make it look like they are flying around, and the (unweaponized) Ghost Wave could interact with other props in the attraction, like knocking something over while they distracts guest to get a cheap scare.
Ghost Man doesn't like their body being visible. If this project ever became an actual game, Ghost Man would be weak to Paint Man because it would prevent them from going invisible.
Because the invisibility made me put this one together a bit differently, here are some bonus pics:
pose, invisible (how they normally look)
pose, visible
neutral, visible
The main body. The head contains the cloaking tech, and the chest generates the Ghost Wave.
So, funny story: This was supposed to be finished months ago, since wrapping up Paint Man gave me some motivation again, but then Mega Man: Dual Override got announced out of nowhere, so OF COURSE I had to drop everything to participate in the Robot Master Design Contest (didn't make it past round 1 but my guy was kinda crap lol. I guess that makes him SBN-009 but I don't consider him part of this project. I'll clean up and post my entry some other time, after I'm done with these guys). And then I got distracted. Whoops.
Turtle Man came from wanting a weapon thats basically a Koopa Shell from the Mario games, and working backwards to make a robot that would provide that. He's naturally based on Bowser, but a lot of his design is loosely inspired by the couple of other turtles that show up in the Mega Man games, like Gamerizer from MM7. He's also kind of evil - his job is to "protect wildlife" from things like garbage and pollution, but takes it to it's natural extreme of "wildlife would be protected best if there was no pollution, and the best way to get rid of pollution is to get rid of humans." He was friendlier looking but self-modified to appear threatening. Despite that, Turtle man is actually pretty gentle with animals.
I wanted to do a paint-themed robot master but I didn't want to just make a generic "artist" character with, like, a beret and paintbrush. The big breakthrough I had was making the design based on paint styles, rather than making it just an artist. That way he could be "Paint" Man, and not just "Art" Man.
This then created the problem of "how do I stylize the character to look like real life painting styles while also still (kind of) looking like a Mega Man character?" The solution was to use styles that could be simplified to work in the style I wanted the project to be in, like Cubisim, Geometric Abstraction, De Stijl, etc.
I didn't really have a good solution for the rest of the body without getting too abstract with it. I totally could, but then it wouldn't really fit what I was going for with this project so I settled on just stylizing the head (went with Picasso since thats easy to tell at a glance, and its cartoony enough that it can still read as a Mega man character). In universe I think his head is just made entirely of paint and he can make it look like whatever he wants.
Anyway, cans of paint can be installed in his chest, which he can then mix into new colors (for example, putting red and yellow can let him dispense red, yellow, orange, and any variation of those three). So long as he has a good supply of a few basic colors, he can create virtually any color. It comes out of his finger but he usually paints with a brush.
I like the design I ended up with but this took waaaay too long. Now that he's out of the way, the last three should be easier.
I mostly wanted to try and make a robot with an unusual amount of eyes. The first draft had just one eye, but I couldn't figure out how to make it look good so I went with three eyes instead.
Part of what makes this project fun is trying to make concepts that feel like they could work in the Mega Man universe. Mega Man 5 already established that there is a gravity research lab, so surely there’s experimental research in there. Psi Man isn’t really psychic, he’s just using gravity manipulation. The researchers thought it would be cheeky to make him look psychic themed.
I realized that the helmet doesn't really make any sense if you look at it for too long, but I'm really proud of how the hands turned out on this one.
I'm back and it didn't take me over a year this time 🫠
Brass Man was mostly inspired by those images of people wearing parts of tubas and other brass instruments as if they were armor. It felt pretty natural to make a music themed robot master, especially with how important music is to the Mega Man series.
His design took longer than I thought it would - I originally wanted to have more instruments/parts of instruments sticking out of him but he ended up looking more like a Dr. Seuss character than a Mega Man character. I didn't want to make him too simple either so I think what I ended up with is a nice balance. Shading in the posed image was a bit of a pain but I think it came out alright.
Also I'm apparently committing to making stage-select-esque pixel art, so thats another fun challenge for me. I've already posted Shroom Man's in a separate post but maybe I'll edit their original post to include it.
I thought it would be a fun creative exercise to make a set of Mega Man Robot Masters! Basically just coming up with a theme for a robot, thinking about its function, and then drawing it in that official style.
You might have noticed that this one is number 8. I drew Shroom Man first because I’m a tad out of practice and his design was the easiest out of the set I came up with (Plus it might help motivate me to finish the set quicker since I hate leaving things unfinished. By posting the last one first I feel the need to do the others).
Anyways, Shroom Man! He grows mushrooms! He spreads spores! Most of his design comes from wanting to draw less humanoid robots, since I have a bunch of those. Also I wanted to have a design that counters one of the other robots in the project, and having a red, mushroom-themed guy that throws a projectile that bounces along the ground felt appropriate (hint? maybe??).
