<- Subject To Change - Blog Posts

So I had an idea

To be completely honest, I mostly drew this as a treat for me. We don't see a lot of Roll outside of a cutscene or manning the shops and it just makes sense for her to be the player 2 in-game. Yeah we got Protoman and Bass, but c'mon!

I wanna see this lady charging in, full throttle, wooden chair in hand, and smack Wily's newest machine around like a piñata.

So yeah, player 2 au I guess? There's more info below the cut if you wanna read. Be warned, it's a long one.

First I had to ask myself why would Roll even want to fight when Rock does just fine on his own.

Roll's a coward canonically, but she also has a big heart and is willing to fight if she has to. Maybe after the first Megaman game, Rock came back far more damaged than Dr. Light expected. While this does convince him to build Rush, Roll also volunteers to join Rock in this fight.

Dr. Light was super hesitant, but Roll's reasoning was that if Wily was willing to kidnap the Light Numbers to one up Light, who knows what else he would do? Rock already had a hard time fighting them by himself and the Numbers weren't even built to fight. If Wily was smart enough to reprogram civil servant robots, why wouldn't he reprogram robots built to fight?

Eventually, Dr. Light relented and built Roll her own set of armor and a durable broom. She has a shorter attack range, but in exchange she deals way more damage. She doesn't have the copy chip Rock does, so her armor doesn't change color, but her broom does and can change shape/color depending on which weapon is equipped.

Now onto my thought process during the drawing.

When I was drawing the armor, I wanted to keep a couple things in mind. Specifically, what makes Roll so iconic by herself. She has her hair, the green bow, her dress, and her broom/cleaning products.

One other thing I kept in mind was the various depictions of Roll in combat armor. Many fans have made their own and they all look amazing, but I always thought Roll was more of a heavy hitter up close. Most equip Roll with a buster like Rock, which is a good direction to go in, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. Then I looked at Roll's"official" armors, specifically the armor she wore during the Upon a Star movie and the armor she dreamed of from Megaman 11.

I basically put a chest piece and shoulder armor over the Megaman 11 armor, I removed the buttons on it, both of them had a heart motif on the chest which I thought suited Roll very well so I added that. I also used her hat from the Megaman Fangame Perfect Blue. You may notice her arms don't have the bulky arm guards most robot masters have... Yeah, I have no excuse for that, but Splash Woman doesn't have the guards either sooooo.....happy accident?

They're sisters so they matching!!!

I think the colors were the hardest part. I colored the dress to be more red with a pinker red for the heart and middle of the dress. Originally I had the skirt be a solid pink color and the rest of the armor be red and white, but it looked off to me. I knew I had to add her bow which meant adding green and I think that's what threw off the whole thing. The first draft only had a green bow, and I felt I had to add it somewhere else to make it look more appealing and I immediately went to color the buttons on the heart green. A small callback to Zero that doubles as a parallel.

That kinda makes me wonder if Zero was modeled after Roll and Protoman in this au. Also, what would the Megaman timeline even be like with Roll as a fighter alongside Rock? It's always better when someone has your back and Rock and Roll were always meant to be a pair.

They're twins in this au, not a couple. Just had to set the record straight.

Anyway, speaking of Blues. It makes sense why Protoman wouldn't show up as much in this context. Roll is right there, why would Rock need Protoman's help? I imagine he usually shows up only in situations where Rock and Roll are forcibly separated or shows up to both of them individually. Whether it's because he wants to help them be more independent or test the strength of their bond remains to be seen.

I have more to say about this au, I'll try drawing some expressions and go into more detail regarding Rock and Roll's personalities in the au.