Trend following in Mech Design?

[Mafty]

So at numerous points in Mech Series you can see designs that seem to closely follow previous more unique designs; one term that is used for this is an Expy, or Exported Character. This is where a character is deliberately design as similar to a character from a previous work; sometimes this is a homage, sometimes its a marketing strategy.

You can see at times mech designs in wildly different series seem to be Expy's. For example several of the Mechs in Captain Earth resemble mechs in the fairly obscure Linebarrles of Iron, While others in the same series resemble the Mechs in Gun X Sword. All three are made by different studios; share no mech designers, and aside from being Super Robot Series have nothing in common.

So would they count as Expys or is it just a coincidence due to the fact that if you have so many designs, some are bound to look similar?

[Underrated GM Custom]

Interesting, never heard of the term Expy before.

I haven't seen Captain Earth aside from a few Gattai gifs, are the Mechs very distinctly similar to Kurogane no Linebarrel or Gun X Sword? If that's the case it may be a homage or a reference, similar to how one of the Gurren Lagann music videos had Getter-1 machines showcased.

[Seto Kaiba]

It's a little bit of both.

There are occasions where shows are clearly drawing their inspiration from another, previously-aired title... as in the case of Zeta Gundam's Zeta Gundam, MOSPEADA's Legioss and TLEAD, and Southern Cross's Logan, Auroran, and Spartas having been inspired by Macross's VF-1 Valkyrie.

There are also plenty of stylistic homages around, where the staff throw in a nod or two to a design they particularly like from another franchise or make a nod to their previous or future work like the Orgoid Valkyrie in Macross being a nod to Studio Nue's work on Orguss, having a Zentradi ship with a skull-and-crossbones prow in a nod to their recent work on Arcadia of My Youth, or the Metal Siren in Macross II sharing a Gundam's color scheme.

Then, of course, you have the simple coincidences... where things look similar simply because they're original designs drawn in a similar style.

[MythSearcher]

Having read some portion of Linbarrel, well, you probably got the idea from the large calves.
But I see it as a development from ZoE's designs.
If you follow this thread: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=18364

Linebarrel made that design more masculine by baking larger calves but without sacrificing too much of the elegance by keeping the upper body relatively small and regular in scale.
Captain Earth's impactors seems to like larger forearms which throw the balance right off the scale, and it seems like the just designed the opposition(?) to be more humanoid in shape and scale.

[Mafty]

Yes that particular design is rather distinctive; its hard to describe as humanoids, because Mechs are humanoid to begin with, it looks more like a large versions of the robots we have today. In that case it could simply be that they are all following that contemporary design trend to make the Mech's less Boxy and more Angular.

As for the similarities in mech design in Captain Earth to both Gun X Sword and Linebarrles of Iron; The Earth, Nebula and Flare Engines all resembles the Machinas from Linebarrles, while the Machine Goodfellows show resemblance to some of the more humanoid Armors from Gun X Sword (notably Dahlia of Wednesday).

[MythSearcher]

Yes that particular design is rather distinctive; its hard to describe as humanoids, because Mechs are humanoid to begin with, it looks more like a large versions of the robots we have today. In that case it could simply be that they are all following that contemporary design trend to make the Mech's less Boxy and more Angular.

As for the similarities in mech design in Captain Earth to both Gun X Sword and Linebarrles of Iron; The Earth, Nebula and Flare Engines all resembles the Machinas from Linebarrles, while the Machine Goodfellows show resemblance to some of the more humanoid Armors from Gun X Sword (notably Dahlia of Wednesday).

My only contact with Gun X Sword is SRW and I hated whatever story is presented there and don't like the mecha designs.
I don't really think Captain Earth took too much from that show.
I checked on its fandom wiki and looked at more designs, and pretty sure they are not really that unique that one can consider Capt. Earth's to be like them. In fact, if you look into it, the Machine Goodfellows are all also Linbarrel designs modified a bit with maybe a different scale on different parts. (and those without armour with boxy legs have already been in Front Mission designs as well. Probably we get much more of that kind of design in early shows)

[Kuruni]

The trend that never get old, lion head on chest. Sometime they switch it to eagle or dragon/dinodaur. I think the trend stared by Daltanias, and the latest in the line is Hundred Edge (which was a Gundam).

[MythSearcher]

The trend that never get old, lion head on chest. Sometime they switch it to eagle or dragon/dinodaur. I think the trend stared by Daltanias, and the latest in the line is Hundred Edge (which was a Gundam).

Hundred Edge is not a Gundam.
But you do get Tryon 3 as a Gundam with a lion head on its chest if that is what you mean?

[Kuruni]

Hundred Edge is not a Gundam.

It was, unofficial though.

[MythSearcher]

It was, unofficial though.

Yes, I follow the artist on twitter.
https://twitter.com/HEROSIDE_kk

Hard to include fan art as part of a franchise though.