Nellie

Character Design Process

I love mech and cyborg characters, and I really enjoy pairing high tech sci-fi aesthetics with comfy-casual fashion elements. In my early sketches, I looked for interesting shapes and stumbled on the idea to give a mech girl a cute Hawaiian-style shirt tied at the waist, along with a headband to keep her hair out of her face.

At this stage I felt like I really saw her . I added lights to her mech limbs (useful for getting around in the dark) and finalized my linework.

With the initial idea established, I auditioned color options and patterns for the shirt. I gravitated towards bold, primary colors for her.

What would a girl like this use as a weapon? A baseball bat! I see her as a slugger, a rough-and-tumble farmgirl who is both cute and fierce, and needs a weapon as sturdy and reliable as her other mechanical parts.

Mech girl Nellie with her aluminum baseball bat.