Sarah Clarity Studios

Chapter 2: Visual Verbs per Genre

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Visual Verbs per Genre for Mecha Concept Artists

A mecha doesn’t just “look like” a genre—it behaves like one. The audience reads behavior through motion, sound, light, and timing, but as a concept artist you often have to imply those behaviors in still images. That’s where visual verbs come in. A visual verb is the feeling of an action encoded into shape, proportion, surface language, staging, and detail placement. “Clank,” “whirr,” “hum,” and “snarl” are not audio notes; they are design instructions. They tell you how to build a silhouette, where to put joints, how to treat edges, what kind of wear to show, and which parts should look like they vibrate, lock, glide, or breathe.

This matters for both sides of mecha concept art. On the concepting side, visual verbs help you quickly generate options that feel unmistakably in-genre, even before the team has final lore. On the production side, visual verbs help you keep consistency across variants, skins, upgrades, and damage states—because you are not only matching shapes, you are matching how the asset feels when it moves.

A useful way to think about visual verbs is to treat them like animation notes you can draw. Each genre toolkit tends to prefer a set of default verbs, and each verb has predictable visual signatures: mechanical clearances, edge treatments, rhythm of paneling, density of greeble, the kind of vents you choose, and the “temperature” of light sources.

How to translate a sound word into a design decision

When someone says “this should feel clanky,” they’re usually asking for visible impact, clearance, and stepwise motion. When they say “whirr,” they want continuous motion and spinning energy. When they say “hum,” they want steady power and low-friction flow. When they say “snarl,” they want tension, aggression, and a sense of restrained force.

You can convert those into a set of dials you can actually control.

One dial is motion segmentation. Clank is segmented: stop, lock, impact. Whirr and hum are continuous: glide, rotate, stabilize. Snarl is continuous but tense: micro-oscillation, torque, vibration, readiness.

Another dial is contact language. Clank likes hard stops, thick brackets, and impact surfaces. Whirr likes bearings, housings, and shrouds. Hum likes smooth enclosures, flush seams, and controlled apertures. Snarl likes exposed tension—cables, tendons, sharp overlaps, and “compressed” shapes.

Another dial is energy exposure. Hum and whirr often show energy as glow, heat haze, or coherent light. Clank hides energy behind armor and shows it through mass and leverage. Snarl shows energy as barely contained: arcing, pulsing, or venting.

Finally, there is maintenance culture. A clean, aligned maintenance culture tends to read as hum/whirr. A harsh, worn culture tends to read as clank/snarl. Genre controls which culture is believable.

Visual verb families you can reuse

Before we break down genres, it helps to name a few verb families you can mix and match.

Clank is heavy, stepped, and audible. It likes thick plates, visible hinges, pinned joints, squared-off armor corners, and large fasteners. It is sold by clear collision avoidance and by surfaces that look like they hit each other.

Whirr is rotational and efficient. It likes turbines, fans, gyros, servo housings, belt drives, and smooth rotational joints. It is sold by repeated circular motifs, radial vent patterns, and the feeling that parts spin behind protective shrouds.

Hum is continuous power. It likes sealed panels, stable proportions, coherent glow placement, and clean routing of conduits. It is sold by uninterrupted lines, quiet zones, and an absence of unnecessary protrusions.

Snarl is aggressive torque. It likes sharpened overlaps, “teeth” shapes, predatory sensor arrays, tension cables, exposed tendons, and asymmetry that feels like a beast leaning forward. It is sold by compressed silhouettes, forward-angled lines, and energy that looks too hot or too alive.

Most mecha designs are blends, but genres tend to privilege certain blends. Your job is to make the blend consistent.

Real-Robot: clank, hiss, ratchet, thunk

Real-Robot defaults toward clank with supporting verbs like hiss (pneumatics), ratchet (incremental actuators), and thunk (hard locks). The genre promise is plausibility, so your verbs must be explainable by mechanics.

On the concepting side, Real-Robot verbs start with weight. If the machine is heavy, you should see bracing and load paths. Use thicker ankles, wider stances, and joints that look like they have limited ranges. Show hard stops and bumpers. When you draw a limb, make it feel like it can only move after a lock releases and a piston pushes. Even if you are not animating, you can imply this with overlapping plates and visible clearance gaps.

On the production side, the main consistency check is whether every variant preserves the same lock-and-brace logic. If one design reads like it glides and another reads like it stomps, you’ve drifted. Real-Robot paneling should support the verbs: larger plates around impact zones, reinforced collars around joints, scuffed edges where plates meet, and maintenance access that feels purposeful rather than decorative.

Light in Real-Robot rarely “sings” loudly unless the IP is deliberately high-tech. When it does, it tends to be functional: navigation lights, sensor glints, status LEDs. The sound words you want the audience to imagine are industrial and mechanical, not magical.

Super-Robot: snap, swoosh, flare, ring

Super-Robot leans toward snap and swoosh with accent verbs like flare and ring. The design is character-first. The audience accepts impossible motion if it looks expressive and intentional.

On the concepting side, encode snap through clean shape hierarchy and decisive edges. Parts should look like they can hit dramatic poses without needing visible bracing. You can still show joints, but they are often stylized, simplified, and “heroic.” Swoosh is sold by long, flowing forms and swept silhouettes—capes, fins, wing-like shapes, elongated forearms, or dynamic shoulder lines. Flare is sold by a few strong energy focal points: chest cores, eye glows, blade edges, aura vents.

On the production side, protect readability. Super-Robot can lose its verbs if panel density becomes too realistic. The moment you add too many tiny seams, the design starts whispering Real-Robot. Establish a rule for how many panel breaks are allowed per body region and keep “graphic zones” clean. Damage is usually stylized and selective; too much grime can undermine the heroic snap.

Super-Robot lighting is allowed to be theatrical. “Ring” can be shown through circular motifs and halo-like emitters, and “flare” through controlled bloom shapes, VFX hook points, and bright silhouettes that still keep the form readable.

Military SF: stomp, clack, whirr, bark

Military SF is a disciplined mix of stomp/clack with whirr, plus a weapon verb like bark. The fantasy is organized force. The machine feels like it belongs to doctrine, logistics, and standardized design.

On the concepting side, verbs are communicated by standardized geometry. Stomp and clack come from armor segmentation, braced joints, and consistent mechanical families. Whirr appears in sensor masts, stabilized turrets, and gyro-like components. Bark is about weapon design: muzzle shapes, recoil buffers, and mounting that visually communicates “this thing hits hard.”

On the production side, consistency lives in the connectors. Military SF assets often share hardpoints, weapon rails, and backpack interfaces. If a new variant introduces a different mounting grammar, the roster stops feeling like one procurement program. Military SF also benefits from consistent marking verbs: stencils, serial numbers, hazard triangles, and unit IDs placed in predictable locations, reinforcing the disciplined feel.

Lighting tends to be functional and restrained, but it can be intense at the moment of action. A Military SF mecha can have a quiet idle state and a violent “bark” moment—design for both by separating idle lights (small, steady) from combat lights (larger, directional, heat-based).

Cyberpunk: buzz, whine, flicker, purr, glitch

Cyberpunk often prefers buzz/whine with flicker and sometimes purr, plus an overlay verb like glitch. The fantasy is tech as culture—corporate sleekness or street-layered hacking.

On the concepting side, decide whether your cyberpunk is corporate or street. Corporate cyberpunk tends toward purr and hum: clean shells, minimal seams, branded panels, and precise glow placement. Street cyberpunk tends toward buzz and flicker: exposed wiring, patch panels, stacked aftermarket modules, and inconsistent light sources. Flicker is an important cyberpunk verb; you can imply it with mismatched emitters, layered screens, scratched lenses, and asymmetrical sensor arrays.

On the production side, cyberpunk easily becomes noisy. You need a rule for where buzz lives. Concentrate cables and greeble in “service corridors” and keep the silhouette’s main read clean. That way you preserve distance readability while still delivering close-up richness. “Glitch” can also be reflected in decal language: QR-like labels, overprinted stickers, warning tape, graffiti, and AR marker patterns that feel like the city has written on the machine.

Cyberpunk lighting is often where the genre is sold. Multiple small light sources, neon accents, reflective wet surfaces, and lens artifacts can communicate buzz and flicker. But the key is restraint and grouping; scattered lights read as random, while grouped lights read as intentional systems.

Post-Apoc: grind, rattle, cough, creak

Post-Apoc is grind/rattle with cough and creak. The fantasy is survival and scarcity. Machines keep moving through brute force and improvisation.

On the concepting side, grind is a material story. Show mismatched thicknesses, welded braces, and plates that look scavenged. Rattle is sold by loose attachments: chains, dangling cables, strapped-on armor, bolted cages, and asymmetry that suggests parts were replaced at different times. Cough is the engine verb: smoky exhaust, soot stains, clogged filters, and heat discoloration.

On the production side, the danger is turning every asset into the same “scrap pile.” You still need a coherent scavenging logic. Decide what the world scavenges most: industrial machines, military wrecks, automotive parts, aircraft bones. That choice controls the fastener language and the geometry style. Consistency comes from repeating your repair motifs—specific bracket shapes, the same kind of welded gusset, the same tie-down straps—so the roster feels like it comes from the same survivor culture.

Post-Apoc lighting is usually practical and damaged. A single headlamp, intermittent indicator lights, or jury-rigged floodlights can sell scarcity. Too much clean glow pushes the design away from the cough/creak feel.

Industrial: whirr, clunk, thrum, click

Industrial mecha is work equipment, so it blends whirr and thrum with clunk and click. The fantasy is function, safety, and repetition.

On the concepting side, the verbs are driven by tools. A crane arm implies whirr and thrum through winches, pulleys, and motors. A cutter implies click and clunk through safety latches and guard housings. Industrial designs are also sold by safety culture: protective cages, pinch-point guards, emergency shutoffs, handrails, and high-visibility markings. These are not decoration; they are the visible language of “this machine is used by workers.”

On the production side, industrial assets need consistent human interaction scale. Steps, ladders, grab handles, harness points, and access hatches should be standardized. If those elements drift, the machine stops feeling like equipment and starts feeling like a toy. Industrial also benefits from consistent paint logic: high-vis base colors, standardized hazard striping, and wear patterns that come from contact with materials—scrapes on tool edges, grease near joints, polished surfaces where cables rub.

Industrial lighting is functional: work lamps, status lights, beacons. You can imply thrum with stable, low-frequency glow zones around power housings, and whirr with repeated circular vent patterns and shrouded rotating components.

Bio-Mech: slither, pulse, rasp, wet-click

Bio-Mech replaces mechanical verbs with organism verbs: slither and pulse, with harsher accents like rasp and a very particular hybrid sound many people imagine as wet-click. The fantasy is life fused with tech—alien, unsettling, or awe-inspiring.

On the concepting side, define what is alive and what is implanted. Slither is sold by continuous forms, overlapping membranes, and flexible segments that imply motion like a spine or tentacle. Pulse is sold by rhythmic cavities, translucent sacs, vein-like conduits, and repeating “heartbeat” motifs in shape and light. Rasp is sold by abrasive structures—barbed plates, serrated edges, chitin ridges—things that look like they scrape or grind as they move.

On the production side, the big challenge is keeping the read clear. Bio-Mech can turn into mush if all surfaces share the same organic texture. You need distinct material zones: hard plate, soft tissue, mechanical implant, fluid system, sensory organ. Consistency comes from repeating your boundary language. Decide how flesh meets metal. Is it sutured? Clamped? Grown over? Bolted through bone? That boundary is the genre signature.

Bio-Mech lighting can be internal and biological rather than electronic. A soft bioluminescent glow, or a pulsing core that shifts intensity, can communicate pulse. Keep it organized: one or two dominant “organs” of light and a few secondary pathways. Random glow spots read like sci-fi decoration rather than living systems.

Concepting side: using visual verbs to generate strong options fast

A practical concepting method is to write a verb stack before you draw. Choose one primary verb and two supporting verbs that match the genre. For example, a Real-Robot might be “clank + hiss + thunk.” A Cyberpunk street rig might be “buzz + flicker + rattle.” A Super-Robot hero might be “snap + swoosh + flare.”

Then, sketch three silhouettes where each one pushes the primary verb harder. For clank, push mass and hard stops. For buzz, push exposed systems and layered modules. For snap, push clean hierarchy and iconic shapes. This prevents you from producing three designs that are technically different but emotionally identical.

Finally, do a quick “verb audit” on your favorite option. Circle the parts that tell the verb story. If you cannot circle anything, the design may be relying on your imagination rather than on readable cues.

Production side: using visual verbs to prevent drift and support downstream teams

In production, visual verbs become a checklist for consistency. For each mecha, you can define an idle verb set and an action verb set. Idle verbs control how the machine looks when standing. Action verbs control how weapons, thrusters, and joints “perform.”

A useful production practice is to create a small “verb sheet” per faction or manufacturer. It can be a paragraph that states the verb stack and the visual cues that support it. For example: “This faction reads as thrum and whirr at idle, bark at action. Keep joints shrouded, vents radial, idle lights small and stable, weapon mounts heavy with visible recoil buffers.”

When a new skin, upgrade, or variant is proposed, you check whether it preserves the verbs. If the new gear introduces a different verb language—like adding exposed cables to a pristine corporate mecha—you either justify it in story or adjust the design so the new elements adopt the existing grammar.

Visual verbs also help cross-team collaboration. Riggers need to know whether joints should feel limited and braced or free and expressive. VFX needs to know whether energy should pulse, hum, or flare. Audio needs to know whether the machine’s identity is clank, buzz, thrum, or wet-click. Concept art is often the earliest place those choices can be aligned.

How to mix verbs when you mix genres

Hybrid projects benefit from deciding which verbs are allowed to dominate. Choose a primary genre and let its verbs control the silhouette and massing, then let accent genres influence surface and secondary motion.

A common successful hybrid is Real-Robot silhouette with Cyberpunk surface: the body still clanks and hisses, but the sensors buzz and flicker. Another is Military SF structure with Industrial tool verbs: disciplined silhouettes, but tool heads that clunk and click with safety guards. Another is Super-Robot iconography with Bio-Mech pulse accents for an “eldritch hero” tone—clean heroic shapes with one pulsing, living core.

When hybrids fail, it’s usually because the silhouette suggests one verb and the surface suggests another in a way that clashes. A clean, sleek hum silhouette covered in random rattling scrap tells two conflicting stories. If you want that contrast, make it deliberate and localized—like a pristine corporate body with a single hacked, buzzing shoulder module.

Closing thought: verbs are the hidden consistency layer

Style guides often talk about shape, edge, value, and palette. Visual verbs are what makes those choices feel alive. They are the emotional physics of the design. When you can name the verbs per genre and encode them into silhouettes, joints, surfaces, lighting, and damage, you can build mecha that reads as the correct genre in a single glance—and still holds up in close-up production shots.

If you want to go further, you can create a small “verb dictionary” for your own practice: one page per verb with the visual cues that communicate it, and example genre pairings. Over time, that dictionary becomes a toolkit you can use on any IP without copying, because you’re designing behavior, not imitating a franchise.