Iron Awe

Metal made real in every way, Night time delusions that lead all astray

Your art is just. SO COOL!

glad you're enjoying it ^-^ , may the echoes of the lines and shapes drift into many memories

u r the michelangelo to my sistine chapel

may the legions of robots spill forth unending upon your ceilings * -*

reading this ask / comment makes me hope some day I will have the confidence to post the architecture of the world the robots are from, they have grandiose murals and carvings paying tribute to their forebearers and heros - but I think I know where my limits are for now

Burnished Wishbone

I think I may, I think I might, burst into flames in the umber light tonight

More robobt sketch. There is no end to them. One day the star will collapse but they will still be here, drifting on the echoes of memory.

Some obvious influences, wishbones and fishbones and umber o- o. Asymmetrical fashion is so cool but I struggle with drawing it in perspective. Now I must go, to dream of more robobt.

Dark Dweller

Depth dwellers unite, and swan dive in the Dark, Metal Masked Machines designed to always hit their mark.

obviously all of the cool energy tatoos carved onto the robots are so that they can be lights amidst an infinite expanse of darkness, duh. they were Made this way.

About the piece - I'm still feeling inspired by anglerfish and other deep sea creatures, I spent more time than usual adjusting the texture on this one to give the dark blue a sinking feeling, but it being this dark also means the turquoise can stand out more which I like. I didn't get the detail as intricate as I would like, but its cool that this feels like more of a full body piece than I usually do, theres a bit more posture here.

One aspect of my setting I want to get better at depicting is there being "Celestial, Skybound" robots, and "Terrestrial, Groudbound" robots - they are sisters, at once the same, and yet parallel. Sometimes I like to think of variants, like what would the Celestial variant of this Terrestrial one look like or vice-versa, and that leads to some of the more exciting designs to try.

The Celestial ones live in and explore space - their part of the Singular Empire probably looks like thousands of space stations. The Terrestrial ones live on the ground so they have more complex structures and cities, but the "ground" also has unexplored frontiers, locales and wildernesses that require specialised equipment.

I like the idea that the robots can be natural astronauts of sorts, they're robots so maybe they don't need to breathe, but maybe they might still need tools to travel and move around or interact with their environment. Recently in the limited spare time from work I've been thinking about what their tools and equipment could look like, given that setting lets me have all kinds of different explorers.

This ones "wings" are probably meant to be one such kind of equipment - maybe it's like a jetpack - the idea is in the setting that the machining (lol) and craftspersonship of tools have gotten so refined that the cyborgs can get equipment that looks "like themselves" from a competent enough smith, even if they have really ornate or unusual patterns or shapes. Maybe amusingly when theyre using something generic second hand it very obviously doesn't look "like themselves".

In the past I've drawn others with similar backpacks that have gatling guns or other equipment instead, like the wings are a storage platform or something (while still maintaining the silhouette of being wings). I've somehow lost confidence in giving them complex looking equipment in the years since then, and should find a way to get it back.

Dark at the End of the Tunnel

Sink into an Anglers grasp in a dream, like the undersea the Night cradles screams

Been inspired by anglerfish recently, so I'm going to try to do at few of these dark background ones back to back and see if I stumble into something new. I noticed I tend to draw characters / mechs / robots in these oneshot illustrations extremely lanky, but I wonder if I made a comic, whether I'd keep these exaggerated proportions - I'm often indecisive about how much mech vs character is in these biomechs, so I usually just don't think about it and draw what feels interesting in the moment.

This gives me a chance to lay down a meandering anecdote - many years ago as a dumb teenager, I'd stay awake every Friday evening / saturday morning till 4 am, hoping to catch my favourite developer, Digital Extremes' weekly devstream. I vividly remember during closed beta in 2012 people would introduce the game as being about futuristic space pirates zipping through corridors - the games fidelity back then was really quite different, one of the early warframes, Ember, even had her whole model redone at one point. Around 2013-2014 ish when I was most excited for these streams, I noticed the games tagline was "ninja's play free", nothing at all to do with pirates - but it was catchy, and you'd see all over in the advertising because of the parkour moves you could pull off in the game were genuinely sick.

Incidentally, both the Defiance MMO (rip) and Destiny 1 (rip) were what warframe tended to be compared to at the time, both released a little after warframes closed beta, neither of which were piratey or ninja-ey , I think probably 80% of the reason for that was that they all had both guns and abilites ... I guess they were also all live services, I don't know if they were called that back then.

Compared to Defiance and Destiny, I was puzzled at what it was about warframes identity that made the aesthetic feel "itself" - and I got my answer on one of those devstreams - the art lead at the time brought out what they called a "faction pitch bible" a one pager showing all the factions they had in the game at the time, each of them with a few lines of flavour text.

What struck me from that faction pitch was that the Tenno / warframes "cyber knight" description was nothing at all to do with pirates or ninjas, it was a third, wholly other thing, and yet by virtue of being first, it might as well have been the "true" description.

But there was another original, even more original than the "true", Warframes predecessor game, Dark Sector, was a spy thriller with biomechanical aesthetics, or perhaps a powered suit superhero series. Would this original, more original than even the initial, not be what it truly was?

I think what my takeaway was from all of these, is that first an foremost, the aesthetic is "itself" rather than any arbitrary descriptors - I enjoy this about my own pieces, that they mostly still feel like they were made by me even if I can't quite categorise them or explain myself. Perhaps I'm happy if the takeaway is "cool mech", "weird robot" or "wacky character" because maybe it's all of those things and even more!

Beyonder

Rend, Rip, Transform in phase, machines unleashed in different ways, forms that pierce beyond the veil, Metal Masked Machines refuse to fail Reject the mecha industrial complex. Embrace transforming biomechanical void constructs from Beyond an Infinite Haze.

I saw a thread helped me understand my setting a little more, I think it helps me get why I like biomechanical patterns so much, I don't want the escapism to just be robots looking like war machines, I want the Transfiguration of shape and function to be a central theme too.

What does this form let the character do? How does it reflect their goals? I'll frequently draw them with armcannons, claws or swords, but the idea is that despite looking like weapons they're choosing to be adventurers and explorers out in the untamed wilds and spirit breaking labyrinths, rather than conquerers, obliterators and annihilators. That being said this kind of distinction would probably only make it through in storytelling and not the oneshot illustrations I've been doing.

Some transhumanist escapist art, while being incredibly cool and detailed, also goes way too close into looking like a real world tank for my liking. There is a pain response in my mind when I consider the possibility of my art going the same way.

Needless Simplicity

A butterfly with no wings dares not try to fly... It never needed to be this simple, and yet, here we are again.

Really simple half hour sketch of this butterfly character. I would have made the dress more intricate but hit my self imposed limit on this. I think my favourite part of this one is how the top half of the helmet almost has continuity with the "eyes" past the domino mask looking thing. Love framing the face like that.

Flutter flutter away little butterfly, so graceful and free, but without any wings, what would you really be?

Unpolished Gemstone Even robots get boring portraits taken just to break out of the routine...

A robot I didn't even finish drawing, imperfect, like an uncut gemstone. Let the gleam shine vividly through all the fractals yet to come. I think if I had spent more time on this I'd probably have worked on dividing the hair and main shoulder areas better. Finishing any drawing is an exercise in compromise I suppose.

The original intent was going to be to brainstorm what the Emperor could look like, probably with lime green colourings. Maybe jade would be like, the mark of royalty for this one. I don't know if the marks of royalty (like, the things that tell you this character is a big deal) would be similar for each Emperor, its actually a lot more interesting if its something completely different between each - I want to imagine the transition in imagery and regalia between two emperors with completely different insignia would be a tough one.

Of course these robots's features are all meant to have some sort of barely hidden purpose too. Those "honeycomb eyes" perhaps could be used in insignia to convey vigilance, but as a tactical tool maybe this character is able tocast a different spell effect from each "eye" looking at a target.

Lorewise "the next Emperor can come from anywhere". At this point of planning the robots don't have families but they can still mentor and guide each other, so maybe whenever the next candidate for the role is selected, they're inducted into the palace where they learn to be charismatic - it's not totally ceremonial but the role is all about keeping robots of the Singular Empire united and confident in the Empire's objectives.

There is meant to be a secret reason only specific types of robots can be the next Emperor, so you won't see a spider tank wearing a crown and giving motivational speeches.

The orange and purple came from an unexpected layer effect combination that was too striking not to keep.

Blue Ember

 *hair toss* I guess even robots can be a little bit devilish

A bit more organic than I'd prefer for something for march of robots, but I'm happy with the design nonetheless :>. This one's meant to be an oni rather than a demon but I guess there's enough overlap that the theme kinda gets across.

If we're talking lore for my setting, the regular robots are meant to be characters, but the cabal of Over Gods are meant to have speechless "demon" servants that I've tentatively called Machine Daemons. I often try to think about ways to differentiate these two groups beyond the fact that daemons don't talk (or vibrate their skin to produce words etc). Sometimes I picture daemons as more savage and jaggedly shaped, other times I think they should have horns or halos because they're servants of Divinity ... though nothing has stuck so far.

One thing that has been somewhat stable though is that the more powerful the form they perma-transform into is the more likely the individual is to be overtaken by one of the Over Gods - those Over Gods are like giant supercomputers with their own pocket dimensions, so they exert strong influence wherever they can.

A lot of cyborgs carry a little bit of influence with them because the connection to the Over Gods lets them perform useful skills, magics and feats. This way they can teach each other abilities even when they respectively have extremely different body formats.

Most of the illustrations I post are oneshots, so maybe these and the accompanying writings are all my practice attempts to get to a place where I know exactly what the things in my setting should look / be like. Part of the fun comes from the exploration and not knowing where I'll take these.

Vampire Squid

Machines Rebel in every way, in shape, in will, distraught. Some sing, and then exsanguinate, without a second thought

Well, this robot girl looks a bit different... must be the hair. I mentioned before that I rarely do non humanoids recently because I can't just pose myself in the mirror for reference, but was inspired to do this this kraken looking one out of the blue, partly because I remembered Katie Dey's kraken song. Check that out, it is divine!

Granted maybe this is a bit more stiff than my regular art, but working on this one I was remembered the feeling that art can be whatever - sometimes I stress too much about "reaching my personal quality threshold" or some strange thing like that. But if I want to make this kind of thing on a whim then I should be able to, especially if I want to eventually ease myself into drawing the more exotic designs I keep dreaming of.

This is a bit of a composite of a bunch of squid species, not just the namesake. The maroon and red came out pretty good, almost tot he point that I immediately want to use this effect again haha.

Ice Artifice

Machines, cold blooded as they seem, yearn to stay unseen, in bright furious dreams.

This one's meant to be inspired by ice dragons, but I had no idea how I'd draw the tail, so I guess they don't have one. I wonder if subconciously I thought it'd be too xenomorphy that way. I wanted to capture some elements of the "Bright Night Terror" piece I did last year but also try out a palette I haven't used recently.

In my setting the robots are meant to be able to start out more humanoid, then transform into increasingly strange and curious forms, and the later ones are supposed to be crazy like dinosaurs, spider tanks, squid planes and so on.

So, where are the later forms? Somehow in between 2021 (?) and now I lost some of the confidence in just dumping pieces with unfinished ideas - there was a point I'd have one out every one or two days... Nowadays I give myself an hour or so to draw these and just accept that I have a tendency to do the humanoid ones cause I can pose myself in the mirror as reference. Unfortunately I am not a beautiful robot lady (yet). I'm just a robot beep boop.

By the way, this five fingered hand is just because I had some confidence today in my hand gestures again. The ones with weapons for hands probably just transformed their arms into those temporarily - maybe most of them have "natural" hand states. If so I intend for plenty of them have "natural" hands that are claws or have unusual finger counts, formats and arrangements - I don't think theres any "default" hand.

Accessibility for the different hand, claw and manipulator types is meant to come up from time to time in the setting - so not everyone can pilot or operate everything, but theres accomodations that can be made for most robots to operate most things, because that is what the Emperor wills.

Why would robots have an Emperor? So that I can write a story about what happens when the Emperor falls.

Chiropteran Battery

Silence when in sight of a magnificent Blaze, Echoes pierce the Night amidst a despondent haze.

A bat creature thats also a jet. Maybe part of the gimmick is that theyre so bright and loud as an echolocating bat jet plane thing that they actively attract attention even in the dark mist.

I think some aeromorphs are interesting but I still like helmets or shrouds on the ones I draw myself. If I drew this again I'd make the "legs" like a rocket dress probably. Just wanted an opportunity to draw organic looking aircraft nacelles for this one though. I have a tendency to make them look too spiky to be practical though, I wonder if the balance between "useful mech bit" and "surreal abstract creatur bit" is something I'll get better at in a few years.

Nameless

Something inspired by orchid mantises and octopi. This one was way more about the journey than the end for me, someone on discord kept accusing my art of being AI, so I recorded a process video to show how I make these. Downside, the video is so large that it busts tumblr's upload limit, so for now its limited to my other socials I guess.

Whatever This Is

This was meant to come with a timelapse but clip studio paints file corrupted, which almost never happens. I guess it just means showing off the process some other time.

IDK

Some sort of ghost in the machine idk - I guess there is a limit to how well colour mixing can go without some proper planning - here it feels just a tad too faded compared to normal haha. That being said there were already way too many layers on this, it's kinda like the digital equivalent of having so much ink on the page that it feels like the paper could tear at any moment. I picked out this one from a page of expression studies, but the downsides are that it means the figure is a lot less interesting, and I also tend to cut down on the detail on the expression , in the sketch this was a lot more free flowing and sketchy.

Temperamental Tranquility

Tear away at tyrants tales, turned truths in troubled times, for Metal Masked Machines will bask in the brightness so sublime Another one of these one hour Not Warframe drawings, bizarre fashion robots to soothe the weary self. The blending of the oranges into pink and purple involved some colour math shenanigans adding and subtracting layers. I was really interested in how "dull" the purple looked given I usually go for extremely strong bright colours - it goes well with the already bright main figure but maybe theres room for more contrast. Another thing I really like was the flow of the lines on the weapon arm, arguably a solid orange shape there would have given a much more intense silhouette, but its hard to best the organised chaos of so many evenly space lines.