So, I wanted to design a borderlands robot character that fits into the preestablished canon. If you are interested, I thought it might be cool to discuss my method for coming up with new designs.
First step: establish groundwork
Now, an oc can be anything. and by OC, I mean a character you put into a preestablished canon. You want to put Sonic into Borderlands, go ahead, but I wanted this robot to fit into the canon. So, since I had a basic concept (war robot likes music but is captured by bandits) I looked up some basic components to that. What do the robots look like? What distinguishes bandits from other NPCs? What is the common fashion found in Borderlands games? The text is small, but I did spend a whole lot of time just finding things that were seen frequently enough to be a trend.
second step: Doodle based on the basic concept
Music robot. was what I was drawing at first. A little guy sitting on a chair playing a guitar. Then a thought came to me "what if 1 arm was gun." Then I went on a rabbit hole of what instruments could be played with one hand and a gun.
Third step; fashion
Usually I do face first, but robot faces are very hard for me to design, so I wanted to get a basic style/silhouette down first. I have a problem where I really REALLY like designs like the travelers in Journey or the Vagabond in Homestuck. So, even though most Borderlands characters don't fit into that design I did lean towards it. I drew a very basic humanoid shape and copied it 5 times.
The results have a very Fallout vibe, I must admit. So, who knows where that will go?
Fourth step: Faces.
Oh dear, I LOVE robot faces, but suck at drawing them. The first one has the "no" by it. Then I decided to try to create colored shapes then try to create faces out of those. I ended up enjoying most of the faces, but really liked 2, those 2 I then tried to draw bigger and expand upon. the noodle head, while it looks cool, does not fit with the character design I was looking for
Then, I ran out of room. I will probably doodle more outfits and then try to mesh it all together then decide on the final design.
I will probably look at the artist Sergi Brosa for more inspiration.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed my rambling. Let me know any suggestions you have?