*Something something “TF sona” bandwagon* If anyone, Sprocket comes closest, though she is still her own character. At least I was inspired to pull some doodles out & and sketch a few new ones, so, another OC to post!
Short version is “she’s a nerd of a tank who likes to design vehicles and talks way too much about planes” Long version & babbling under the cut:
Sprocket is a neutral, technically, but does a bunch of mercenary work with a rag-tag group of mechs who are all either neutrals, defected from either faction, or alien. I still have yet to come up with a proper name for them so I just use “Runners” as a working title, as in “Intergalactic errand-runners.” She’s the heavy artillery of the team, but if she had a choice, she’d just hide away somewhere and design spaceships all day. Her faceshield is 100% intended to hide her face to appear colder and more aggressive, because underneath it, she’s just way too expressive, and in her line of work, looking nervous is a Bad Plan. The faceshield also doubles as a kind of “VR headset” though, and it can project a super-detailed modelling/engineering suite into her sensory system. Since she can use gestures to “sculpt,” it looks really funny to watch her from the outside, just sitting there with her four arms waving around. Needless to say, she gets weird looks from her crew all the time. The four arms - comes from a super old drawing I have (that I need to finish) where her second set allows her to uncouple her cannon from her back-mounted turret, and swing it around as its own firearm, and she’s wielding it like a minigun. Like a fool - but since her optical system is tied to the cannon, she technically doesn’t have to raise it to her face to aim it or anything.
Her obsession with aviation/aerospace design: Sprocket was constructed cold, and was actually supposed to be a triple-changer based on her spark - her second mode would have been a jet. (I doodled this up once, for fun: )
( It retains the angularity of her alt mode, and the curvature can be achieved by letting the hex-plating work as a kind of semi-flexible surface if you space each tile apart a little. Swing-wing, and built with the role of the Blackburn Buccaneer or Rockwell B-1 in mind: fly fast, fly low, evade radar and dump as much ordnance as possible! Something chunky and a little clumsy, rather than an elegant turn-fighter. Attack, not air-to-air specialized. The tiny canards are a feature taken from the B-1 because 1) whiskers are adorable, but more importantly, 2) they allow for fast, tiny tweaks in pitch, and when you’re flying so close to the ground, there’s no room for error.) Also, “a tank obsessed with flying” is just funny to me.
(Yes, this was real. Yes, this was also from Russia.) Since she’s 99% nervous energy, as much as possible is done at long range. Sprocket is a good shot, but is incredibly clumsy in close-quarters combat - her strength usually lets get get out of a bad situation, but it’s usually not great.
This is also based on her altmode: the CV90120-T “Adaptiv” light stealth tank. It’s basically an IFV armed with a main battle tank’s cannon (120mm) and is designed to sneak up on targets undetected. Fast in, first to fire, fast out is the plan - armor is sacrificed for mobility.
The Adaptiv prototype has those fancy hex tiles, which are a heat-tile system that allows the vehicle to actively mask its thermal (infra-red) signature - it can take up the signature of anything it wants to, or just blend away into the background.
Nothing else has happened with the project since, as this was back in 2011, but I still really love that vehicle!
