Black★Rock Shooter (original concept)

Black★Rock Shooter (ブラックブラック★ロックシューター, Burakku★Rokku Shūtā) is an original character designed by huke. The character later became the basis for the song of the same name and subsequent media franchise.

Concept
There is very little setting for Black★Rock Shooter at the time of the character's creation; the only lore available on the illustration's description is that she can shoot 20 rocks per second. Despite common misconception, huke confirmed in an interview with ORICON NEWS that Black★Rock Shooter is not a variation of Hatsune Miku, but an original character of his own design. At the time of the character's creation he only wanted to draw a girl holding a weapon.

In response to a blog comment asking if Black★Rock Shooter is not Hatsune Miku, huke estimated his character to be around 15 years old, which is one year younger than the Vocaloid character.

History
huke uploaded the illustration to Pixiv and his personal blog on December 26, 2007.

At the time, huke was experimenting with different art styles to gauge reaction and feedback. He noticed that his illustrations with blackish colors gained the most attention, and among them, Black★Rock Shooter stood out the most. The highly positive reception for Black★Rock Shooter helped to lift huke from artist's slump.

Songwriter ryo of supercell was inspired by the illustration, and he approached huke to make a music video on Black★Rock Shooter together as a collaborative project. huke then joined supercell and provided artwork and animations for the video. The music video, which was also named "Black★Rock Shooter", was uploaded to Niconico (then known as Nico Nico Douga) on June 13, 2008.