Mekchan Shi-Shin Kou-Ryu is the combined form of all four Mekchan guardians and as such, this was my biggest piece to date. Lineart alone took days and spanned several sheets of A3. Colouring took even longer thanks to the glossy gold and silver colour scheme. Whilst past CGs could take a week with me procrastinating and getting distracted and in the end only actually result in a few hours of work, this piece really did take a week of full time effort.

Design-wise, aside from my usual Valkyrie infatuated motifs, the major inspiration for Mekchan Shi-Shin Kou-Ryu was a picture of Transformers' Predaking off seibertron.com. In addition, I also injected elements of all four Mekchan into the armour and component design. I wasn't going to be satisfied to just have her look 'awesome' or 'cool'. I wanted her to look 'GLORIOUS'.

Perhaps my only regret is that the picture doesn't fit nicely onto standard paper sizes without cropping. Meh...

A commission piece done for the back wall of the 'Go-Audio Visual' store in Melbourne Central.

Another character created in Soul Calibur III. This dazzling gentleman is my current main tamborine user and sees quite a bit of action.

When given creative freedom, the vast majority of gamers end up trying to create the same most 'baddass' looking character they can. I figured if I was going to add to that list I may as well give him some personality.

People never remember Lord Doomkillzor the umteenth but nobody forgets losing to
The Goon.

An original Transformer design I had intended for Madman Entertainment's 'Design Your Own Transformer' competition, but alas did not make it in time.

For those who don't live in Melbourne, the alternate mode is a Z1 class Tram.

Tram stop accessory sold separately.

For this piece I decided to take a different approach to the colouring.

Rather than cringe over details of each individual piece of armour, I decided to take a more laid back approach and colour entire areas at a time. This resulted in much faster colouring with only minor differences in quality.

Still motivated and in the groove after finishing Seiryu, Mekchan Byakko wasn't long to follow.

Whereas Seiryu was very busy and loaded in armour, gimmicks and other decorations, I wanted a more simplified, sleek design for Byakko.

The upgraded uglier, bigger brother of the KAIFTX1 'FAUST'. I actually had mind to do this design for a while, shortly after completing the 'SENTINEL'.

Colouring for this piece didn't take too long, although it was my first attempt at colouring a mecha in Painter.

Considering that Edgar is a main character in my Magi project, it would make sense that he should get a picture.

Unlike most of the younger characters, Edgar doesn't take long to draw or colour, so I had a pretty good idea of how this would turn out from the start.

Group pic of my Soul Calibur III crew in super-deformed-goodness.

This piece served as another good practice for line-art and speed colouring.

This piece was done as an entry for howtodrawmanga.com's 'Manga without Borders' book competition and the first in a series of Guardian Spirit themed works.

Done in cell-shaded style, Mekchan Suzaku didn't take too long to finish, although has endured numerous touch ups and refinements.

From the day Suzaku was finished I always had a nagging feeling in the back of my head to complete the rest of the team. After a year of university assignments, interruptions and procrastinating, I finally sat down and completed the next guardian in the series, Mekchan Seiryu.


Having just finished playing Valkyrie Profile 2, I was fired up and full of inspiration and ideas for this piece. Overall, I was very satisfied, although the shoulder armour could probably have used some more attention.

A badge design done for local conventions.

Having been positioned in front of the Singstar stage three times in a row, we felt this was more than justified.

A custom character created in Soul Calibur III's 'Create-a-Soul' feature. Despite the limited selection of, in my opinion, 'usable' parts, Evelyn came out rather well. Drawing her took a while due to the constant need to refer to screenshots and limited degree to which I could zoom in.

I don't usually make fanart work but this proved to be very worthwhile execise in developing my technical skills and ideas especially in regards to armour patterns and embroidery.

After completing the Tramsformer I was thinking of other potential Australian icons to spruce up and/or lampoon. A few ideas popped up here and there but it wasn't until I saw Iron Man that I had something I could really work with. Seeing Tony Stark bulldoze his way through an army of soldiers with the Mark I armour inspired me to give a similar treatment to Ned Kelly's historical last stand.

I decided not to apply steampunk elements and instead tried to come up with innovative ways to manipulate the equipment that was available at the time (with the exception of the arc-reactor because I had to and the magazine clips on the leg guns because I was lazy). I'd also drawn dynamite sticks stacked onto the shotgun as well in the original sketch but decided to remove them as it felt crowded and the launcher attachment was sufficient. Of all the gimmicks, I probably like the "hand-gun" the most.

Although I had been intending to do this piece for a while it'd be three years since my last colour piece before I picked up my tablet again and boy was I rusty.

One of the biggest challenges I found when drawing mecha girls is creating a heavy design that still preserves feminine characteristics. It's all good to make a hundered tonne generic mecha but putting all the belly weight into a feminine design just doesn't work as well. Fortunately, I already had a few ideas for Mekchan Genbu before I even started to draw her.

The horned service cap headgear was without a doubt my favourite part of the design (Having recently obtained a former Soviet service cap myself, I was itching for an excuse to draw one). I was also thinking along the lines of a 'horned turtle' and so the horns and blades came naturally. For the rest of the armour, to get that heavy look, I designed the shapes and colours around a tank mindset - dull colours, plated pieces.

The floating panels were meant to represent the 'shell' aspect of the tortoise although I'll admit they were a bit of an afterthought when I got to doing them.