Art: "I Stand Alone" ¤ Protoman ¤ PG-13 + Junkie: "Red Light In My Eyes" ¤ Protoman ¤ PG-13
An art-update from me! At last! ♥
This one pic I'm presenting to you on this fine night, requires one long-ish introductory note, if fear. I mean, if you wanna know the story behind the character, and all. If, instead, you just want to see the pic of one GORGEOUS man in an apocalyptic like setting, just go ahead and click the fake-cut. XD;;
To those (few) of you who’re still up here in the notes… believe it or not, the one featured in the pic is Protoman from the Classic Rockman saga. He’s known as Blues in Japanese, but will be referred to as “Proto” or “Protoman” on my LJ to avoid confusion with the Blue from my Rockman-EXE fics. Now, I am well aware that Proto, in the games, looks 11, 12 at most. BUT.
But.
But. I CAN’T help but envision him older, sometimes. Him, and the rest of the cast.
There’s a reason - several ones, in fact - why I do.
1) In the first games, they were 8-bits, short and non-defined; and the art made EVERYONE look like a child. Megaman has the same proportions as Dr. Light - a full grown man. Or should I say, Dr. Light, a grown man, looked as much like a child as Mega did? My point is: maybe - MAYBE - Mega, Proto and Roll were NOT mean to be children at the beginning. That’s something that came afterwards, when it became evident that Mega was… well, TEH most adorable thing since the introduction of the word “adorable” in the dictionary. Besides, the other Robot Masters all look adult. And in fact…
2) In the protomotional art, posters, box art and advertisement made in American for the first games, 20 years ago, be it 20-years-old material, or something released THIS year for Megaman 9, the characters ARE adults.
3) In the Megamix manga, Proto looks older than in the games, as does Mega (even if just a little).
4) Proto and Mega’s EXE-fied counterparts from the Rockman.Exe series also look older.
5) In the Ruby Spears cartoons they are WAY older. 17, or 20 even.
6) In the Megaman Rock Opera Proto is a full grown man. Actually, and I quote, he is “a perfect man”. So you're kinda... you know... FORCED to picture him all gorgeous and such. Mega is also “a grown-up” in there, though I keep picturing him around 16 or so.
7) Given the themes the Rockman series revolves around - battle, battles, bloodshed, evil forces, world domination, battles, madness, battles - AND the themes I infused in my personal reimagining of the series as a whole, they DO work better as older-looking.
All in all, I envision Proto and Mega to be children with adult minds like in the games one third of the time; like they do in the Magamix in the the second third; and as teenagers bordering adulthood/adults in the remaining one. In the following piece, Protoman looks 17-20, or so.
Besides, I NEEDED to post an image of an older him. I have just finished a fic starring him and Kalinka and… and well, it wouldn’t really work for you readers, if you read the story, and imagined him as he looked in the only pic of him I posted so far. I HAD to provide you the right imagery, before I could post the fic. ^^;;
Actually, I’m also seizing the chance to make a… comparative study of sorts. So, other that today’s pic, “I Stand Alone”, please have a look at an old junk piece of a child-looking Proto. Which I scanned and coloured quickly because it happened to have the same setting as “I Stand Alone”: a red-hued, light-suffused desert.
The image of Proto wandering in a desert is one very dear to me. It tells everything about him without using words, really. Deserts are hot, unforgiving, sterile, though; they divulge none of their secrets, to those few who’re brave enough to try and to discover them. The land and the symbol of loneliness, deserts are the realm of silence and toil, where only the strongest survive, where blooming flowers are incredibly rare, and all the more precious for it.
But deserts… they are beautiful too, aren’t they? Scorching warmth, and freezing cold. Clear light, and crisp shadows. And there’s life in desert - sturdy, and stubborn life. There are oasis. There’s water. And flowers than bloom only once in a century.
That said… here comes Proto, in all his GLORY.♥♥♥ ← she might drool helplessly after X in tandem with Zero, but she IS a DIEHARD Proto fan, and of all "Red" in the Rockman Universes.
