Toiling over it I think its more of a mentality issue with drawing things I didn't make. This here should not even look close to what I drew previously. Pose with everything far from what I usually draw (should have shown hands for +1 to that and actually was but now realizing i forgot)...

I realized at towards the end of sketching two things: What ever someone is cooking it's making me hungry and if I always make heavy edits when rendering regardless of how good i feel about my sketch, cleaning a traditional sketch to show off seems like asking for failure. Also...

quick doodle. i realized i have a problem, (posing well) devised a solution, (use a good posable figure as reference so i don't have to reference hunt.) then found a new problem (i have to design a char on the fly some of the time since i can't see my favorite existing chars doing it).

I have not found the time to fully sit down on these so it ended up rushed. I do need to think about how the innerframes for the mechs will work so my ideas for the plating functions right. Also design the weaponry they will use visually.

Hopefully the small anotations sorta help. I did some small strokes in each section to try and show what I'm doing with my hand. The top left block is what i had been doing but i seem to suffer with the edges being too defined and not gradiated enough. 1/3?