i started working on these months and months ago but only just came back and finished the rest so i'd have some extra reference material for artfight - classic-styled sprites of all my robot master ocs! left to right the palettes are nes colours, nes without palette restrictions, and colourpicked right from their art
[click for quality since i imagine tumblr will butcher my perfectly good nearest neighbour upscaling]
i love him too so i can absolutely talk about him!! tide man infodump under the cut
tide man is an aquatic robot master who works in coral reefs! he's more or less an undersea janitor, hauling garbage or debris that's damaging the ecosystem back to shore. he also monitors the health of the coral and resident marine life, and helps with efforts to cut down on pollution and improve the water quality of the ocean. he lives in queensland, australia, where he's part of a massive ongoing effort to clean up the great barrier reef, but he's been called out to help with other coral reefs all over the world. he's based on the unused concepts for ocean man both in-universe and in real life, the same way vesper woman is based on the concept art for honey woman, and he was redesigned and built by dr. astil! unless archie mega man returns from the dead and gives the number to someone else, his official serial number is DAN-002
he's very easily stressed, even by small things, and his perfectionist tendencies only make this worse. he often places unrealistically high expectations on himself due to the [largely incorrect] assumption that, as a robot master initially designed by dr. light himself, they're the expectations that everyone around him also has. because of the unnecessary pressure he puts on himself, he's chronically anxious and prone to panic attacks, and struggles with depression and very low self-esteem. he has a short temper and tends to shout at people when he's freaking out, but he tries really hard to keep this in check and quickly apologises to anyone he upsets. once he's had some time to calm down, he's polite and good at working with others, if a little socially awkward. life isn't easy for tide but he's trying his best
despite the stress it causes him, tide is committed to his job and takes it Very Seriously. while it's partially due to his desire to be seen as competent and valuable and deserving of praise, his dedication mostly stems from a genuine love of the reefs he watches over. he has a high level of empathy for nature, especially sea life, and feels he has a responsibility to protect it. because of this, he's very conscious about things like recycling and treating natural environments with respect. he's appeared in a handful of psas about recycling and keeping the beach clean and not littering and all that to help raise public awareness about taking care of the environment. nothing angers him more than senseless littering, and he has a particularly seething hatred for plastic waste due to the damage it causes to ocean ecosystems
like many water-themed robot masters before him, tide is more suited to moving underwater than on land. his body is much denser than it looks, allowing him to sink to and walk along the ocean floor without assistance, but not so heavy as to impede his swimming speed or agility. he usually moves very slowly so that he doesn't accidentally break any coral or scare any marine life. the harpoon gun on his left arm is mostly used to pull up particularly large pieces of debris - he's permitted to use it for self-defence if he absolutely has to, but so far he's never fallen into such a situation. his weight and lack of a left hand make him clumsy above water, but the caution he takes while moving helps to alleviate this somewhat
tide absolutely loves animals, especially the sea life he interacts with on a daily basis. he tries his best not to give them attention and risk disrupting their behaviour patterns, but a lot of the fish and other animals in the great barrier reef recognise him as nonthreatening by now and will come up to him or swim alongside him of their own accord. being around animals calms him down, and if he's having a panic attack he can usually bring himself out of it by going to the beach and chilling with some seagulls or fish for a while. usually if he isn't busy he'll just sink gently to the bottom of the ocean and watch all the sea life swim past and get lost in that for a while. his absolute favourite animals are sea turtles! he loves the way they look and move and finds their social patterns fascinating. he couldn't choose a favourite species if he tried, though. don't ask him. he will get decision paralysis and he will cry
when he gets his laws of robotics surgically removed, tide man forces every human and man-made influence on basically the entire coast of queensland out of the ocean with the threat of gratuitous robot violence, then goes to sit at the bottom of the reef and scowl and occasionally vent his frustrations with incredible destructive force at any ships unlucky enough to still be floating through the area [then spend a few hours cleaning up the mess he made]. it's unclear how this gets wily any closer to world domination, but at least it gives tide something to do with his pent up frustration. the pressure of having to take over the entire world dials up his stress responses even further, shortening his temper from irritable to outright explosive. he sometimes tries to take charge of the group or set an example for his fellow robot masters, but in practice he isn't nearly intimidating enough to give anything stronger than a suggestion
his stage begins with a scramble through the robot-infested wreckage of a ship he took out his anger on, then once you reach the end and jump out it becomes the obligatory water level. there's a lot of downward movement in the second part as you travel deeper and deeper into the reef to find him. naturally his stage has plenty of thematically appropriate hazards - shards of coral as spikes, bubbles as temporary platforms, robots based on all his favourite marine animals, the works. in true tourist-in-australia fashion rock teleports in and immediately gets swooped by 40+ seagulls
tide is weak to sleet foot because he isn't well equipped to handle the cold. he was built under the assumption that he wouldn't ever encounter freezing temperatures, since he lives in queensland [one of australia's warmest states] and coral reefs only form in warm waters. when he gets cold, his movement becomes stiff and even slower, and if ice crystals manage to form in or around his joints they can quickly and completely incapacitate him. sleet foot being a low kick also gives him trouble, since his body's density means it takes some time for him to get up if he's knocked over
designing tide was interesting since i was actually referencing canon mega man designs instead of just making stuff up. in addition to basing him on ocean man's concept art, i also took a lot of design cues from plant man, since he's the only other robot master canonically built by dr. astil so i thought it'd be nice if they had some design elements in common! it's probably because of this heavy referencing that he arguably looks the most like a 'real' robot master in terms of design. [i don't think that by itself makes him a better or worse character design, it's just something interesting i noticed!] i'm particularly proud of taking the pattern on ocean man's helmet and turning it into the coral-like decal that tide has on his, even if it's a bit of a nightmare to draw lmao
due to sharing a creator, he and plant man consider each other brothers! their work doesn't overlap what with them being in different countries most of the time, but whenever they both have time off they take the opportunity to catch up and talk about how things are going. having each other there really helps them both with their depression [one day dr. astil will finally make a robot who isn't chronically sad], and while he's too shy to admit it tide really looks up to plant and is kind of awestruck by him. this is objectively a bad idea because plant is an emotional disaster, but tide is a baby sibling so he's too busy thinking his big brother is cool and awesome to notice
i think that's a good place to wrap up the tide man post, thank you so much for asking about him! as always here's the unfiltered and transparent versions of his art
