mech1

Anime Tips (or how to draw mechs!!)

First the rules - There are none!! A mech is a thing of beauty, if its for your/your characters use, design it the way you want it to be. After all, anime mechs don't follow the laws of physics or (occasionally) common sense, so why should you?

Step 1 - Armaments (part 1)

The first thing you should do is work out what type of armament you want - this helps determine the size/shape of your creation. For example, if I used missile swarms as my main weapon I would usually have oversized shoulders and lots of angular armour as each suface will move to let out a missile. If I wanted to have an close combat 'enforcer' type, I would make it big and heavily armoured

Of course, the thing to remember is what your weaponry looks like - if you want it another way, do it - after all it is your design!! For example, if you gave the missile swarm-type a rifle, you could remodel it to be angular so as to fit in the design - the trick is to leave enough of the original design to make sure that people know what it is

Also, remember that you can have any combination of weaponry - it is all up to you!

Step 2 - The mech's body

If you are drawing a Mech-tank type (as in the Mechwarrior games), the design is usually capsular and almost always have two arms and two legs - Of course, if you wanted, you could have a spider mech.......

A 'humanoid' mech (as in most anime) is simple to draw. First draw a stick figure on a scrap piece of paper - from there, start to 'flesh' out the mech, adding musculature, etc (don't do it too detailed as this will be encased later in armour - unless you want that to be the armour)
The cockpit will be (9 times out of 10) where the 'head' is or in the torso region, or even in the pelvic region! (don't ask - maybe a little bit sad, eh?)

Next comes the easiest part in my opinion - the armour and the oversized body parts!

The armour basically fits over the musculature you designed on the scrap piece of paper - but first, attach the body parts. If you have large shoulders, make them taper outwards and over the body width. With the oversized body parts, make the armour in those areas very chunky - There you have it, the first part of your creation (well... on the scrap paper anyway - remeber to write notes as you go!)

Step 3 - Details, details

Now, the main things any self-respecting mech should have are jetpacks, sensor units, pipes and tubes and of course, lots of hi-tech equipment!

The jetpack

The jetpack is the staple of (almost) any type of mech as it allows a high degree of mobility. The jetpacks fall into a few catagories:

The 'Angel wing' - a unique type of jetpack, this is mounted to the back of a mech and consists of two 'wings' with thrust motors mounted inside - this is usually for the fastest mechs

'Multiwing' - like the angel wing, but with more than 1 pair of them

Jumpjets - These are huge contraptions are either fixed to the back or on the legs - they usually have a visible rotor and are always huge

Anti-gravity - Various methods - Just have some large 'boxes' that have nothing to do with the design - write AG sys or something like that on them (or just chop off your mecha's legs!)

Sensor Units

You only need a few of these - I usually add it on top of the cockpit as a funnel with little lights, etc - just don't go into overkill with them - remember that in battle these can (and usually are in my case!) be destroyed - useful to remember if you're drawing a 'battle damaged' mecha.

Pipes 'n tubes

The amount of these will vary - usually I use them plus hi-tech looking bits and bobs to fill in the visible inner sections of your mech (ie, when drawn in a crouching pose) - Remember to actually lead them to the different parts - otherwise how does they get fuel/power?

Hi-tech stuff

This is hard to catagorise but it is usually little anonymous rises and boxes coming out of the armour - addition of lights or even a seachlight can improve a design immensely. I tend to use strip lights and little windows to accenuate size - which brings me to that subject...

Size matters

The rule of thumb is the larger the mecha, the less 'human' it looks - Take, for example, a transformer - the smallest ones are more human looking while the biggest (Fortress maximus, Scorponok) look human but have blocky constructions - But as I said above, go with what you like - My advice though is to add little details to the picture to illustate the size (maybe a small person or building) and to add small details like the windows mentioned above

Variable Modes

My favourite thing about mecha - they can transform - the general rule is to make it look possible and keeping the proportions similar - and to actually work out the transformation sequence of the machine is a must as this can help provide an idea of where certain parts go when not in use - and when they are not in use that they go into a sensible storage area