It was confirmed at Toyfair that Shadow Striker has a car alt mode.

 

Um... Was this a surprise to you? In the very first image for the show, it showed off Bumblebee with Windblade. She was also mentioned in the description for the show.

 

First off, I have to say that I REALLY like art style for this series. Kind of looks like Animated's style meets IDW G1. Of course, it's sadly possible that these character models might look like complete garbage once we see them in motion, and I'm not that big of a fan of how G1-centric the cast is and how closely these designs adhere to established designs rather than putting more of a unique spin on the looks of familiar characters (like in Animated, Prime, and occasionally IDW) but I elect to remain cautiously optimistic.

As for the individual character designs I have that much of an opinion on, let's start with Grimlock. I'm... perfectly okay with him having a mouth to be honest. From the looks of things, this show's probably doing the Animated/Prime thing of only having battle masks up during fight scenes and leaving mouths visible when these characters have to emote. Honestly, my problem with Grimlock's design is that I wish he looked less, for lack of a better word, human. I know I'm in the minority here, but I actually really like the more monstrous designs of the movieverse Decepticons as well as more traditionally humanoid Transformers, and I think a more bestial appearance would suit Grimlock. Hell, you don't even have to go all the way with that design philosophy. Just do what Animated did, and give him a fanged mouth and have his dino mode toe claws become his fingers in robot mode (although I do still like how they seem to be Wolverine claws in this version). The design here still looks fine, but I just feel it could be better.

With Wheeljack, I must say how surprised I am how influential the TFA stache has been on Wheeljack designs since then (up to the point of ending up on his Masterpiece figure, no less), especially how that version of the character was only an Easter egg in his only appearance on the show. I mean, I like the moustache, but it's still weird how that turned out.

Also, I'm one of the people who actually likes Windblade (in the IDW comics anyway), but there's one thing that's been bugging me: she has literally the same design in every incarnation she appears in. In this case, it's probably another consequence of using the Evergreen designs, but this bugged me when she appeared in NuRID too. To explain what I mean, let's compare her with Bulkhead when he made his reappearance in Prime. While he was still the same basic character as he was Animated, his design still had quite a few differences that made him stand out from his predecessor, and a different alt mode that nonetheless had the same basic theme of "heavy, bulky land vehicle" as the Animated assault truck did. With Windblade, the opposite is the case. Her character can't seem to keep consistent, but her design and alt mode have been uniform throughout all her appearances. It's like I said in this post's first paragraph: I like it when new incarnations play with familiar character designs. Besides, one of the most common criticisms about Windblade's appearance is her admittedly way too overtly Japanese influence, so toying with her design would be a good way to remedy that (I'd think something like Drift's current IDW design would be a good fit: have the Japanese influence still be there, but not be as on the nose as her current onna-bugeisha look).

Also, why does she look so angry in all of promotional art she's in? Is it because she's not in the initial toyline, despite supposedly being a major character in the show? Is she as fed up with the "Windblade is an SJW propaganda Mary Sue cringey fanfiction OC with cooties because I can't come up with an actual argument" complaints as I am? Does she still have her headache from that one Unicron cover? You'd think her bio on the site would at least mention it, but all it really says is that she keeps Bumblebee out of trouble and she's good at fighting. GIVE ME AN ANSWER, HASBRO!!!!

...I might have been a tiny bit facetious on that last point, but yeah, overall the art style looks good, but I just wish they did a bit more with the designs.

 

Why does Wheeljack have a beard?

 

Because the Animated version had a sort of beard design on it, and then if you unscrewed the MP versions faceplate off it had a beard homaging the Animated design.

 

because somehow Cybertronians have always been able to grow facial hair. Remember Alpha Trion, Scourge, and Wreck-Gar from the g1 cartoon?

 

Agreed. The Warrior class were beautifully sculpted and had a good if not decent amount of detail. We need those again.

 

It just screams to me, “I do this shit for fun!” and I love that. She’d be a total fan favourite.

 

Maybe she just has resting bitch face.

 

If Thundercracker doesn't have a southern accent. DISAPPOINTED!

 

I kind of go the other way and wish they'd gone all out and made Wheeljack a greasy motorcycle altmode.

 

I love that Alpha Trion started off with a mustache as a young guy and GREW a beard. The rest had sculpted bits arguably. G1 A3 went from mustache to beard.

 

you want thundercracker to be like his Cybertron counterpart? Cybertron is one of my favorite series but thundercracker was pure shit and annoying.

 

The only reason I won't like this comment is because of how horrifying the idea of Disney buying Transformers is, and you should be ashamed of yourself for even suggesting it.  

Huh. Well whad'ya know.  

 

Looks like the other seekers have a different basic body design than Starscream, which I like. I always liked the idea of seekers having other physical differences besides color scheme.

I guess Skywarp hasn't shown up because he would look too similar to fellow purple bot Slipstream. I don't mind his absence though, he was always my least favorite out of the original Seeker trio. Sure, his power was cool, but his personality of a dimwitted prankster never appealed to me.

 

I\'m really digging the look here, a cool reimagining of classic G1 in a Transformers Animated styling. If we can get a good storyline like Animated had this could be really good

 

I figure Skywarp isn't on the list simply because they already had purple 4 Decepticons. I highly doubt it's meant to be a comprehensive list, I'd bet on him being in the show.

 

I’d rather have acid storm become a person honestly.

 

And besides, it's not like we haven't had toy only characters and vise versa with show character.
(Yes I'm still peeved we didn't get a Glowstrike.)

 

I think this basically confirms that Aligned is dead beyond Rescue Bots.

This is gonna be a new G1 universe.