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Description
No plan, no problem (except anatomical ones) THANK GOODNESS ROBOTS DON'T HAVE ACTUAL HUMAN PROPORTIONS

This was made in about 2-3 hours and uses 7 colours + background (plus one that appears for a single frame)

This was drawn with the pencil tool only since photoshop layers annoyed me when I tried to use the paint bucket. The file was then opened with gimp and saved as a GIF to make it animated.

So now that those details are gone
I usually start with a few basic shapes for the body. I then go on to add two rods sticking out of the side, I then cover up the rods completely or almost completely, despite having shaded or added details to them, they're under the shoulders now.

Shoulders are ALWAYS MASSIVE, or at least disproportionate, ya need big strong shoulders for big strong (and heavy) arms!
Having finished this, I go on to the head, Is it blended into the torso? sticking out? IS IT THE TORSO ITSELF? Eyes are not human-like very often but they're usually placed over the "mouth" or over the "chin" at least... They don't have to match, in my "Massive Pixel Robot" (check gallery) one of the eyes is a frickin' cannon! The head is a great place to put down some doodads like antennae or exhaust pipes or even a heatsink shaped suspiciously like a mohawk in this example.

Then we have to draw some parts that we'll cover up soon (maybe), the legs and the part that connects the legs to the torso. On my HotBot (check gallery. again!) I've "hidden" the legs attachment point but it is actually non-existent! Removal of the arms on HotBot would reveal the legs to be cylinders stuck to the main body which kinda works I guess but it doesn't look too good... The legs themselves can be as many jointed as you want. YellaBot's legs are human-like but with really low knees, HotBot's legs are piston-like tubes.
I like pistons because they're tubes and tubes are the easiest thing to shade. This is an image of some steel rods, it's what most of your robot is made of so look at it well. Boxes are harder to do than rods because they don't have instant detail then you shade them, a rod will look awesome shaded with no detail but a box will look boring. BOREDOM IS TO BE AVOIDED. keep your boxes fresh with a bit of dithering in the shading and details, remember those tubes I talked about, what if you stuck one right through the box to add detail? This is surprisingly effective and works well with shoulders and the like since you can make it like the shoulders are pinned right on the robot with them(all of this also works with holes).

Finally there's the artist's nightmare, hands. those dark dreaded digits of doom that make you want to break the pencil/mouse/plastic stick you're holding and trash the drawing... BUT IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER WHEN YOU CAN HAVE CLAWS, LOL. I made a big effort here (half the gif is me drawing the hand). I got a "nice" hand that I kinda like but I do not usually make hands like this. All a robot needs to hold something is a surface and an opposed, motile surface, sometimes it doesn't even need a hand/claw because it has an electro-grasper, levitation powers or it doesn't have room for hands because there's a massive gun there instead (tubes are your friends).

anyhow, once you're done your hands/guns/rocketlaunchers/claws/sword, you can now add details to the 'bot. I'm not gonna go in-depth here but details for me usually include: Headlights, grilles, exhausts, backpacks(I <3 nuclear backpacks), wires, pipes, lights/glows, smoke if I'm doing a scene or there are flames, gears, intake vents and stuff you can suggest in the comments!

A bit of a final word here: anatomy doesn't matter with bots, they can have legs arms and torsos as big, long or armoured as you want so long as it looks good.

and if you're wondering how I pick my colours, refer to this deviation, I made with a colour tutorial. [link]

Description
No plan, no problem (except anatomical ones) THANK GOODNESS ROBOTS DON'T HAVE ACTUAL HUMAN PROPORTIONS

This was made in about 2-3 hours and uses 7 colours + background (plus one that appears for a single frame)

This was drawn with the pencil tool only since photoshop layers annoyed me when I tried to use the paint bucket. The file was then opened with gimp and saved as a GIF to make it animated.

So now that those details are gone
I usually start with a few basic shapes for the body. I then go on to add two rods sticking out of the side, I then cover up the rods completely or almost completely, despite having shaded or added details to them, they're under the shoulders now.

Shoulders are ALWAYS MASSIVE, or at least disproportionate, ya need big strong shoulders for big strong (and heavy) arms!
Having finished this, I go on to the head, Is it blended into the torso? sticking out? IS IT THE TORSO ITSELF? Eyes are not human-like very often but they're usually placed over the "mouth" or over the "chin" at least... They don't have to match, in my "Massive Pixel Robot" (check gallery) one of the eyes is a frickin' cannon! The head is a great place to put down some doodads like antennae or exhaust pipes or even a heatsink shaped suspiciously like a mohawk in this example.

Then we have to draw some parts that we'll cover up soon (maybe), the legs and the part that connects the legs to the torso. On my HotBot (check gallery. again!) I've "hidden" the legs attachment point but it is actually non-existent! Removal of the arms on HotBot would reveal the legs to be cylinders stuck to the main body which kinda works I guess but it doesn't look too good... The legs themselves can be as many jointed as you want. YellaBot's legs are human-like but with really low knees, HotBot's legs are piston-like tubes.
I like pistons because they're tubes and tubes are the easiest thing to shade. This is an image of some steel rods, it's what most of your robot is made of so look at it well. Boxes are harder to do than rods because they don't have instant detail then you shade them, a rod will look awesome shaded with no detail but a box will look boring. BOREDOM IS TO BE AVOIDED. keep your boxes fresh with a bit of dithering in the shading and details, remember those tubes I talked about, what if you stuck one right through the box to add detail? This is surprisingly effective and works well with shoulders and the like since you can make it like the shoulders are pinned right on the robot with them(all of this also works with holes).

Finally there's the artist's nightmare, hands. those dark dreaded digits of doom that make you want to break the pencil/mouse/plastic stick you're holding and trash the drawing... BUT IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER WHEN YOU CAN HAVE CLAWS, LOL. I made a big effort here (half the gif is me drawing the hand). I got a "nice" hand that I kinda like but I do not usually make hands like this. All a robot needs to hold something is a surface and an opposed, motile surface, sometimes it doesn't even need a hand/claw because it has an electro-grasper, levitation powers or it doesn't have room for hands because there's a massive gun there instead (tubes are your friends).

anyhow, once you're done your hands/guns/rocketlaunchers/claws/sword, you can now add details to the 'bot. I'm not gonna go in-depth here but details for me usually include: Headlights, grilles, exhausts, backpacks(I <3 nuclear backpacks), wires, pipes, lights/glows, smoke if I'm doing a scene or there are flames, gears, intake vents and stuff you can suggest in the comments!

A bit of a final word here: anatomy doesn't matter with bots, they can have legs arms and torsos as big, long or armoured as you want so long as it looks good.

and if you're wondering how I pick my colours, refer to this deviation, I made with a colour tutorial. [link]