Vengeance Manga - Page 0 of 2

Given how old this is, it's about time I whipped it out and posted it on DA - and to the SoM DAClub.

This was actually my very *first* time drawing Protoverse Proto and Mega. Every since then my vision has shifted a little (I even made one huge airbrush collage with a bladerunner-y feely to it, with Mega wearing worn-out jeans and post-Wily Proto decked in leather), which is the main reason why I never continued the manga. XP

Note 1 - The Setting: the scene I depicted takes place in the second half of the album. Megaman, second son of Dr Light, has surged against Wily’s army, to both liberate mankind and to avenge his brother’s death. However, as he nears [the gate and the leader of the Robot Army, Megaman’s fury yields to confusion. This Commander is not just a machine.] (quote). Megaman struggles with his confusion for a moment, then renews his threats to Wily’s 2nd in command, ordering him to [step forward, step into the light].

This is, more or less, where the last strophe of track 5, “Vengeance”, starts. Which is what I choose to illustrate. The text that appears on the pages of the comic is taken from the CD’s booklet. As such, it was written by The Protomen themselves, and can be considered canon.

Note 2: about the characters and their appearances:
Most of my choices here were dictated not by personal preference (I mean, Mega is tall and boyish...), but by a desire to blend together what The Protomen sing, and what Capcom drew. In detail:

Megaman

I can’t help but envision Mega as young. Very young. By the time this scene happens, he’s been active for only an handful of years or so: he’s still full of noble ideals and good notions. I gave him a young, open face, that somehow reflects his heroic nature, and tried to make him as expressive as possible: his face is like an open book, on which rage and, later, shock are clear for everyone to see. His likeness is that of a teen, with a defined musculature, but still slim and sinewy like a cat. His attire - I had some problems with this. In the very rare official artworks, Mega and Proto wear “western” clothes (hats, trench coats, ponchos, wide pants); but I couldn’t find a way to merge that style with the helmets. And the helmets were a MUST. Salvation came from a leaflet for one of The Protomen’s concerts. On it, Proto wore his classic Capcom attire - grey body suit, red armour and helmet, yellow scarf. Seeing this, I decided on a more “robotic” approach, and went for a blend of Japanese mechas and US super-heroes suits. As a result, Mega wears nothing but the metal of his own body armour. He *might* have worn a coat, or shirt when the battle started, but I think that: a)morphing his arm into a cannon; and b)fighting his way through an horde of robots, burned and shredded it beyond repair. Speaking of the cannon, I somehow regret not drawing it more like a gun or rifle. I preferred to “westernize” the buster that Mega uses in the games, and went for a laser-cannon of sorts. However, I fear it might look slightly out of place within The Protomen’s continuity. :S
Last but not least, his helmet. Again, I tried to blend Capcom’s vision with The Protomen’s. So his helmet is not the upturned cereal bowl from the games, but neither it is the biker’s helmet seen during The Protomen’s concerts.

Protoman Like his brother, Proto looks more human than machine, but that’s because he’s The Ultimate Being: both the perfect man and an unbeatable machine, as The Protomen define him. He wears, predictably, a replica of his classic Capcom suit as described above, complete with the scarf (though tattered and very much abused). However, he wears no helmet - and no visor. Which was the hardest thing for me, who never once drew Proto’s face in her life.His helmet (should) lie on his empty tomb, and I found it hard to believe he’d go and retrieve it, since it’s all but become a symbol of how mankind turned his back on him. At first, I’d thought to draw him with short hair - maybe cut uneven and with the ends burned, as a remainder/result of his first battle against Wily.But I am a fangirl at heart, and I ended up giving him almost the same haircut as always. Also, listening to ACT II gave me the feeling that Proto was built with the likeness of Joe - and I think the longish, haphazardly-cut raven locks would fit Joe perfectly.I chose not to have him wear the visor because the Protomen themselves tell us his eyes are visible. They HAVE to be, since thet have a huge impact on Mega: our hero recognizes those eyes immediately, without having ever seen them before; eyes that shine even in the darkness, and that pull at his heart.
In fact, you might have noticed that Proto’s pupils are white in this doujinshi. I wanted his eyes to be memorable, something that could *really* give Mega pause even from a distance. And white, luminous pupils were the best choice of all. Another reason why I drew Proto visor-less, is that the lyrics stress many, many times how much seeing Proto’s face hit Mega. Drawing the visor would’ve taken much from the scene, making it less powerful. And so, the visor had to go. However, if I’ll go on drawing the comic, I might have Proto put the visor on before the final confrontation. Either he’ll take it out of a pocket, or (cool, but a tad too futuristic) he has a device attached to the side of his head, from whence the visor can come out and retract at will (think of a blend of Vegeta’s scouter, and Sailor Mercury’s visor).

Wily’s Metal Tower
I know: it’s not technically a character, but she still deserved her own paragraph. I decided to draw Wily’s Tower as a jumble of metal parts - cables, conduits, finned tubes, pipes, wires and the likes, with the occasional panel and fibreglass grating - heaped together in the shape of a cylinder.

Wily’s Soldiers, or, as I call ‘hem the “Joes”
Listening to ACT II gave me the impression that these soldiers all look like the first robot Dr Light and Dr Wily built, which had a (green) biker’s helmet for a head, with a blackened blast-shield behind which burned a single red eye. And so, a helmet for a head, a blackened blast-shield for a face and a single burning eye I gave them. In ACT I, Mega - and thus, The Protomen - say that the “Joes” are nothing like him. They’re [machines. They cannot feel pain. They cannot understand what drives Megaman onward. The rage is lost on these soldiers.] (quote). They’re nothing like Proto, who is [a perfect man, an unbeatable machine]. So I designed them to be less human-looking that the sons of Light. The upper portion of their limbs are nothing but flexible steel cables; the lower, mere armour pieces. Instead than having an abdomen, they have a huge cavity. Their spinal cord is made of metal nodes and clearly visible. Tubes attach various parts of their anatomies together, pushing lubricating fluids and/or fuels across their systems. Their pelvis are crude cylinders, their shoulders and hips bare slide-crank mechanisms, rotating discs of metal to which their limbs are attached. I wanted them to be MERE MACHINES, of a creepy sort of cool - or a cool sort of creepy, it depends - and nothing like Proto or Mega.

P.S.=this page is called 000 onyl because this was drawn last, and hastily added before page 001