The previous designs for Amber and Shouko were okay, but I wanted to push Amber’s nurse concept more. The army-camo nurse uniform I had before felt like too much. There were so many ideas fighting for attention that I wanted to find a better way to bring them together.
Amber and Shouko
Amber and Shouko are one of the protagonist pairs in Motor City Girls. Amber is the field leader of her team and a combat nurse. She’s also a Gold Raeg—a human who can summon a specific metal through her pores and assemble it into a miniature, sentient, transforming robot.
That robot is Shouko, a Doll who can manipulate electricity and transform into a jet. 
Finding Amber’s Design
Amber actually started with soldier as her main concept. I eventually added pilot, representing Shouko’s vehicle form, and nurse to make Amber more distinctive.
My biggest influences were Guile from Street Fighter, Valentine from Skullgirls, and Genesis from Tuskegee Heirs.
The biggest change was the leg warmers. I’m not even sure where I got the idea for them, but I really like them. Instead of making Amber’s entire nurse uniform camouflage, I moved the camouflage down to the leg warmers. They make her pop without the military element overwhelming everything else.
I think the cleavage is working nicely too. Motor City Girls is my ecchi/erotica series, so Valentine is doing a lot of work in Amber’s design now.
In the end, Amber became much more nurse than soldier, and I think that works pretty well. The soldier influence is still there, but it supports the design instead of controlling it.
Shouko Still Needs Work
Shouko’s influences include Leader-1 from GoBots, Jenny Wakeman from My Life as a Teenage Robot, and the female mecha from DARLING in the FRANXX.
Amber is pretty close to where I want her, but Shouko still needs improvement. I’m trying to make Shouko sexier than Amber while keeping her more angular and mechanical.
I’m also working on improving my line art and clothing while figuring out how I want to fuse manga with retro Western cartooning.
A Girl and Her Robot
Ultimately, I want someone looking at them to understand that this is a girl and her transforming robot partner.
That’s one reason Amber’s pilot jacket is important. It visually connects her to Shouko and Shouko’s jet form.
Amber is getting much closer to what I see in my head. Now I need to push Shouko just as far.