You might already be familiar with my
Animated Axalon Crew. Obviously they needed somebody to fight, so...
Blackarachnia was astonished to find that the world she and Waspinator were stranded on was inexplicably encircled by numerous stasis pods in a decaying orbit. Using a crashed pod, her technorganic experiments and data collected while on Dinobot Island, she created Terrorsaur. While much more intelligent that his Dinobot predecessor, Blackarachnia was chagrined to find Terrorsaur possessed an abrasive, scheming disposition. Nevertheless, he has formed a strong, if unconventional friendship with his fellow flier, Waspinator. 
Taking a page from Starscream’s play book, Blackarachnia attempted to clone herself a new, fully robotic body using a trio of downed stasis pods. Her technorganic nature interfered with the process, however, resulting in a massive explosion. From the wreckage emerged the Arachnid Sisters: Scorponok and Tarantulas. Dim but enthusiastic, the former inherited the vicious nature of Blackarachnia’s beast mode, coupled with a love of wanton destruction. Tarantulas, on the other pedipalp, embodies the cold and calculating elements of Blackarachnia’s personality, distilled into a dangerous intellect and a perverse fascination with the suffering of others. Although disturbingly reminded of a fun house mirror, Blackarachnia welcomed the pair into her growing ranks, while keeping a very close eye on them indeed. 
After the addition of the Arachnid Sisters, the neurotic Waspinator insisted that Blackarachnia’s next creation be an insect. Agreeing in order to shut him up, she used a stasis pod to damaged for her own uses. Surprisingly, the protoform was able to come online, but with a fractured mind dominated by his beast mode’s instincts. Inferno immediately identified Blackarachnia as ‘the Queen of the colony’, pledging his undying loyalty to her with a fervour outweighed only by his passion for arson. 
While the Autobots prepared the Axalon
mission, reports of Blackarachnia’s experiments reached the scattered Decepticon forces. Realising the substantial power boost granted to Wasp through his technorganic transformation, General Strika sent her best tracker, Quickstrike, to find the missing bots and deliver a mysterious package. Spastic and violent, he was easily convinced to join Blackarachnia’s forces in exchange for the opportunity to kick Autobot aft. 
Group picture!
Alright, so let's address the technorganic elephant in the room: yes, my Scorponok and Tarantulas are ladies. They're easily the most radical reinterpretations for my
Beast Wars Animated series, but hear me out. I really wanted them to be technorganics, but obviously that severely limited my mold choices. I mean, it's Blackarachnia, Waspinator, the Dinobots and that's
it. Since Blackarachnia's mold is so feminine, I decided to just go with it and re-imagine them as clones, like the Animated Seekers. It's fun because, as messed up as
Animated Starscream is,
Animated Blackarachnia is totally coo-coo bananas, which which is reflected in her clones.
In any case, I know this is going to throw some folks. Let's just assume there's an implied "OMGWTFBBQ" in everybody's replies, alright? No reason to belabour the point.
Scorponok uses parts from the Bionicle character Zesk, cut to fit. Her claws are styrene, tape and putty all mixed together. The missile is one of Leader Bulkhead's, with the middle cut out. The original Scorponok's colour scheme was so dull, I decided to play up the dark red from the beast mode. The prehensile hair is a bit of a nod to Medusa of the Inhumans. I seriously love the ponytail of death. It's made from steel wire, and is totally awesome.
I changed my mind on Tarantulas' colour scheme about a million times. There was originally more green and red, but the overall look became too busy. I toned them down to play up the purple with yellow highlights. There was more silver in there briefly, too. I think it ends up working, especially in beast mode. Her claws were originally the grappling hooks that come with Blackarachnia. I didn't give her an overt weapon, 'cause I figure this version of Tarantulas has better things to do than fight on the front lines. That's for suckers! She's got a double dose of sneaky, instead.
Inferno is a repainted Waspinator with the wings removed. The jet of flame comes from another Bionicle set, Raanu, and is attached with magnets. I also added the flames from Raanu's mask to Inferno's back to give the sense of an internal furnace that's always about to overheat. I figure with
Animated's vaguely superpower-feel, he'd probably be able to shoot fire right out of his hands. He loves fire so much, he's on fire
all the time! Sadly, he can't fly, but he's okay with that. There's more stuff to burn on the ground anyway.
Quickstrike is the only one of my Predacons with a vehicle mode, being made from Oil Slick. I needed somebody to bring a certain package to BA, and being a later addition to the cast, Quickstrike was the natural choice. I gave him a wacky two-bladed kusari-gama to invoke his Beast Wars snake arm. It's like fangs! He's very pumpkin/Hallowe'en coloured, which I'm oddly okay with.
There are more details on Terrorsaur over on his
own page. I didn't bother with posters for the unaltered Blackarachnia or Waspinator, but for the sake of argument, Blackarachnia "
has a dangerous obsession", and Waspinator, of course, "
has plans".
Obviously somebody's gonna say it, so, "Where's Megatron?!" All in good time, folks. Gotta flow with the narrative, eh? Speaking of which, metaphorical cookie to anyone who can figure out which two characters are foreshadowed in the bios above. One's pretty easy, one's basically impossible. Balanced!
Sadly, there won't be any additions to the cast for a while. The final year of my degree is rapidly approaching, and my free time will basically be a thing of the past for a while. Don't despair, however! I've already stocked up on all the base figures I need for the rest of this series, so I've pretty much committed myself to getting them done eventually!
