Concepts Unearthed – The Beginnings of Mega Man 10
Late last year, we revealed to you the eye opening initial concepts for the Mega Man 9 Robot Masters, and Mega Man 10 was promised in short order. Well… better late than never, right? Right!?
Truth be told, unlike Mega Man 9, which featured wildly different boss concepts to what was finally in the game, Mega Man 10 appears to have been more straightforward from the get go. Not so many drastic changes and gender swaps here, but still some interesting pre-designs nevertheless.
This time I’m going to show you a bit more than I think you deserve *nudge nudge* and translations of commentary by character design Yuto Watanabe. Nevertheless, if and when R20+5 reaches western localization, you should definitely pick it up! Our coverage here just doesn’t do the tome justice.
DWN-073 – Blade Man
At the immediate start I drew him with a helmet that had a cockscomb-like sword extending up, but since the novelty in that wore off, I settled on a design outside of my expectations from my early stage doodles. Likewise, when thinking of other bosses, which the Mega Man series already has plenty of, I paid attention not to mimic a past boss’s design. With Blade man, I decided on making both his hands sabers, instead of just the one, to attempt to differentiate him from the similarly sword themed Sword Man.
DWN-074 – Pump Man
With Pump Man, I’d heard from the planner “I want him to have an action where he pumps water by cranking a lever on his own head.” After deciding where his water spout would be placed, the final design resulted relatively early in planning. When we looked at the bosses side by side at a certain stage there was no one with a bitter, angry looking face, so Pump Man was bestowed that honor.
DWN-075 – Commando Man
The previous game’s “power character,” Concrete Man, featured a design constructed of rounded parts. Since Napalm Man, another military type boss, also featured a rounded kind of design, it was decided early on that Commando Man would feature a design with sharp edges and corners. After that, it was discussed what number of armaments you’d see on him for the attacks he uses in the game. In the end we made his armaments simple, and transferred the chest cannon attribute to the present Pump Man design.
DWN-076 – Chill Man
In the initial plans, Chill Man had been the “power type” character, but while changing around the overall positions of the eight bosses, Chill Man became the cool looking humanoid type character. As there were already enough hero-ish humanoid bosses that had some key symbol or fixture on their forehead, I made him a boss that expresses an interesting design among the other cool ones.
DWN-077 – Sheep Man
In Sheep Man’s initial stages, he was thought up as a character with rounded eyes like Heat Man. Being a sheep he had this sleepy eye image, plus I had thought it was necessary that one or two bosses among the eight have rounded eyes.
Sheep Man gave me the roughest time for a number of reasons. In the end I went with a design that I’d got from Inafune, but with this I feel that it continues the line of animal type bosses like Uranus and Hyper Storm H.
DWN-078 – Strike Man
In the beginning, Strike Man’s designation as “a boss who’s skilled at all sports” was vague, and working out a suitable design was really frustrating. After a while, I got instructions saying “Narrow his theme down to baseball” and “We want his body to be a ball,” so his design was decided as an Air Man type, and from there the present design passed with no objections.
DWN-079 – Nitro Man
Both Nitro Man and Strike Man were devised as Air Man type characters, so Nitro Man was switched to a humanoid type during revision. Along the way, I troubled over his transformation mechanism. A person riding a bike type form was the coolest in my mind, so with that he gained a form representing the rider and the bike separated. To clearly differentiate him from a car, handlebars extend from the top of his shoulders.
DWN-080 – Solar Man
Originally I’d thought of Solar Man as a boss who emits solar rays, like his name suggests. But I heard the staff wanted him to release fire, not sunlight, so I changed the design to one where an artificial sun is produced. Following suit, his head portion became the sun part, and his stature shrunk down. I was surprised at what an incredibly merry character he’d become with the finished sprites.
Tags: concept art, designs, Mega Man 10, Official Complete Works, R20+5, Robot Masters
Filed under: Mega Man News
I enjoy Sheep Man’s final design better than his previous, but for Strike Man and Chill man, i cant say i enjoy their finals as much as their previous designs! All pretty awesome tho,
Funnily enough, one of Chill Man’s concepts looks a lot like a Robot Master I created.
cool stuff, I just beat MegaMan8 last night and I noticed that one of the fan entries they showed in the credits looks almost exactly like MagmaMan in MM9
All of Sheep Man’s beta designs are so dopey and adorable. I love them
Chill Man is pretty interesting. I like the cape he has in one of his sketches. Makes him look menacing.
Is it just me, or the betas actually look better than the final product?
I love some of these concept designs more than the chosen design itself! Solar Man kind of reminds me of a cross between Apollo (that disc in front of his head) and Flash Man (I swear, it’s the head).
Am I the only one that thinks Chill looks a little Russian in most of his designs? I think he looks pretty badass in that cape.
It’s most likely just because you’re used to the final designs and these look different and refreshing.
A lot of these look a bit more complicated than their final designs too.
I like a few of them more, but overall the final designs are great.
I like Chill Man’s final design because it’s pretty unique. It also reminds me of Mr. Freeze from Batman… and that’s never a bad thing. Strike Man’s initial design is awesome though.
Chill Man’s development is especially fascinating to me. I remember at one point the series saw plenty of big, hulking robots in oversized rooms with frost weapons (Blizzard Buffalo, Frost Man, Frost Walrus), so slimming him down was a good call. His final design looks rather Wily-ish, but it would be neat to see one of his robed prototypes developed into a new robot master too. Maybe it could be another one of Dr. Cossack’s creations?
Looks like they were trying to strongly avoid human faces for some reason. Most of the concepts start out with fleshy skin in once place or another, but it’s dropped by the end product. So I do like some of the betas better, like Sheep Man and Commando Man, but a little more humany-wumany features would be nice.
I know for sure that I’ll take Pump Man’s final design over Aqua Man 2.0.
Not to shabby I might say. Blademan having Blades on his shoulders… it might be a small detail but it suits him oh so well.
I also like the Crashman-styled helmet on Chillman’s early design but I suppose this one suits him better… but a robe would be very cool.
Also, One of Sheepman’s designs… looks EXACTLY like a Moloko Virus (MMBN4). That was a nice touch but I think it wouldn’t work for Classic.
And saving the best for last… I am really glad that Nitroman is not the bulky-type. I prefer his Humanoid shape much more. And I have to saw that Wheels on his arms would make him a total bad-ass .. and also a bit tricky to transform.
MM10 does not have a round-eyed Robot Master.
1 = Cutman; 2 = Heatman; 3 = Sparkman; 4 = Drillman; 5 = Gravityman;
6 = Plantman; 7 = Springman; 8 = Aquaman; MM&F = Dynamoman;
as for 9 had two = Plugman & Jewelman.
A lot of the earlier concepts make it look like the robot masters would fit in perfectly with Mega Man 7 or 8. That isn’t a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination, mind you…I just find it fascinating.
That first Blade Man concept is sick. I really dig the blade shoulder pads and the effeminate posture plays into the regal-European persona they kinda made him to have.
I also like how CHill Man originally had a more normal form, closer to Gemini Man, though the final helmet design is very original and works well.
I’ve never cared much for Pump Man’s design but the alternative is far too close to Aqua Man.
And Solar Man…woah…those original designs look bad.