My Salmonid OC
Title (Name): Intrepid-reporter-of-the-blackest-kelp-forest
Appearance: Extremely scarred, wrapped in bandages. Flattened snout, left eye appears to be replaced by a lens, stitches in the sides of the mouth. Tall, pointy dorsal fin "hair" also inexplicably bandaged.
Personality: Obsessive seeker of truth, with a particular fixation on human technology and history. Believes that the current world is in some way an imperfect reflection of humans, especially Inkling and Octarian societies. Swears he has Memories of the Fifth World War.
Battle: Acts as a King Salmonid wave; uses a massive, flying mech based on human technology (repaired with Octarian technology and modified to use Power Eggs as fuel). Attack patterns use bombing runs that drop inkstrikes, followed by an enormous Splashdown that creates a shockwave that must be jumped over, then using dual splatlings on the ground.
Note: The idea is that he's the Splatoon universe's version of Schwartzwald.
Based on this post. Which is also mine, but I just wanted to explain why I did this in the first place.
His name is obviously referencing the former occupation (reporter) and preferred pen name (Schwartzwald, literally black forest, which is noted in-universe in Big O) of the mysterious Michael Seebach, while the mech is present because you can't have Schwartzwald without Big Duo. Him being on a Salmon Run was just to show off Big Duo, but looking at it again, the anarcho-accelerationist character of the original Schwartzwald would be well-reflected if he regularly tried to attack Inkling society.
The Intrepid Reporter of the Blackest Kelp Forest is not a mindless attacker, let that be absolutely clear. He is trying to make the squids and octopuses think, and to stick it to the higher powers and those whose carefree lifestyles unintentionally tread upon those beneath (octarians and salmonid mostly); he just doesn't particularly care about collateral damage.
A Schwartzwald expy would work as a squid character, but I felt that his look translated better to a salmon, plus his name translated better to Salmonid titles.
If anyone wants to draw this guy, I wouldn't mind help with translating Big Duo into the Splatoon art style. Or redesigning it in general, to be honest.

So far, I figure: forearms painted like salmon, hands as Splatoon propellers or sprinklers, splatlings in the chest holes. Also make the cockpit bigger proportionally, since I want it to be Cohozuna-sized whereas the Bigs are skyscraper-sized. Since it's supposed to be a Human relic, maybe NILS statue detailing for the head?
Big Duo in flight. When prone, it can drop massive bombs housed in its lower legs. It flys slowly and with a wide turning radius, since it's huge; it's a bomber, not a fighter. Hence why it uses inkstrike attacks in flight. It lands so you can actually have a chance to attack it as a boss wave, and to show off other ink-ified versions of Big Duo's attacks, including the dual chest-mounted gatling cannons (although sadly those aren't featured in the linked video) and propeller-hands.






