MechWest
MechWest is an American independent animated web series created by David "Dave" Gallagher and co-produced with his son Noah Gallagher. First released on February 14, 2024, the series is set in a steampunk Wild West environment where mechanical automatons live alongside humans. The series has been adapted into a comic book series.
Synopsis
Premise
MechWest follows Pearl West, a cowgirl who comes across a short, one-eyed mech named Six, who she must protect from being kidnapped by Perajian bandits who are hunting Six down because he runs on a special crystal instead of coal. Pearl and Six, along with her half-brother Pico West and, later on, traveling salesman Casey McCroy, travel from town to town.Setting
MechWest is set on a fictional landmass resembling North America, specifically in Meridian, which is bordered by its rival Perajh to the southwest and by Tolmeca to the south, as well as by the larger and smaller portions of the Cheyyone Lands to the west and south respectively. Meridian is divided into the West Territory, the Central Territory, and the East Territory. Throughout the series, Perajians raid towns in Meridian's West Territory in search of Six.Voice cast
Main
- Natalie Rarick as Pearl West, the half-sister of Pico West and daughter of Reed West who likes to take care of mechs.
- Luis Bermudez as Pico West, the half-brother of Pearl West who is a cowboy.
- Greg Melton as Reed West, the father of Pearl and Pico West.
- Truman Florence as Casey McCroy, a mech salesman who runs a business called McCroy Traveling Mercantile. His wagon is operated by a mech named Skip.
- Micah Mason as Hercai, a Perajian airship commander who leads bandits to raid towns in Meridian in order to find Six.
- Felicia Valenti as Araxa, a woman who oversees the Perajian expedition alongside Hercai.
Supporting
- Mike Berlak as Lester Bilke
- Debbie Grattan as Irene Samuels, an elderly woman who lives in Fort West.
- Darrell Brown as Sheriff Quinn, a sheriff who works in Fort West.
- Noah Gallagher as Jed, whose yodeling voice is provided by Faith Ore.
- Faith Ore as Looper
- Henry LeBlanc as Cyrus Childs, who resides in Silverton.
- Brian Hull as:
- * Ida Waxman, the mother of Timothy Waxman and owner of Waxman's Casino.
- * Timothy Waxman, the son of Ida Waxman.
- * Krab, who announces games at Waxman's Casino.
- Abe Hegewald as Jesse Curnutt, a friend of Casey McCroy who is also a traveling salesman.
- Gabriel Ashton Brown as Abigail Gates, the cards champion at Waxman's Casino.
- Chloe Mei-li Bundt as Soraya, a Perajian explorer who makes her first appearance by the end of the third episode.
Production
Dave Gallagher, who worked at Blue Sky Studios for eleven years as a character designer and animator, on films such as Ice Age, Robots, Horton Hears a Who!, and Rio, moved to Utah after Blue Sky Studios was shuttered in April 2021, and founded AnimSchool, which became an online animation program, with audience interest becoming the reason MechWest was started. He later told Cartoon Brew that some of the graduates of this program later worked on the show. The series used Kickstarter and Patreon crowdfunding campaigns to fund the series, and was produced by AnimSchool Studios, a spinoff from AnimSchool.In 2014, Dave Gallagher first came up with the show's visual image by drawing the robot "Six," and collaboration between Dave and Noah Gallagher began in 2020, with both of them establishing the theme and story. They were joined by Noah's friend Clifford Taylor, who began to co-write the series with him, and production began. A trailer was released in 2022. Inspirations for the show include Avatar: The Last Airbender, which was a shared source of inspiration for Dave and Noah Gallagher. Dave Gallagher also said that the series' look was inspired by "classic Disney, Pixar films, Star Wars."
The series features a "mother-daughter voice over team" of Debbie Grattan voicing Irene Samuels, and Natalie Rarick voicing Pearl West. Both Samuels and Rarick are voice actors from Michiana, Indiana. In January 2023, Dave Gallagher said that over 100 people had worked on the series, and that programs such as Maya, ZBrush, Houdini, Cinema 4D, and Redshift were used in the animation.
The first episode, which premiered in February 2024, garnered over 1.9 million views by January 2025, and 2.2 million views by May 2025. Noah also serves as the story editor for the series. Animation World Network reported, on June 27, 2025, that the show's first three episodes had garnered nearly 3 million views on YouTube.
The series has a planned eight-episode first season, with possible crowdfunding. According to multiple reports, the show's team aimed for wide distribution of the series beyond YouTube, with a goal of distributing the series on Netflix, Prime Video, or on broadcast television, but aimed to create a "dedicated fanbase" of fans on the same platform first.
On November 5, 2025, it was announced on the show's official YouTube channel that free episodes would no longer be available on YouTube, and that all episodes have been moved over to the streaming platform Angel Studios in order to pay high production costs due to a limited budget and the amount of time that the crew of eighty part-time people could devote to this "passion project." Noah Gallagher thanked fans for watching the episodes so far and said the show's crew was unsure of how long they could keep going on YouTube. He described Angel Studios as a "stable home" for the series, noting that it ensures that the series will continue and can "go faster," depending on how well the series does on the platform, with five more episodes for season 1 guaranteed, along with a possible second season, with the show's crew retaining "all creative control" even as some content will continue to be posted on YouTube, but not episodes.