A gallery of Sunbow G1 art. Probably long overdue on my part. I always use backdrops for my photoshoots, and whenever I post a custom I get asked where I got the background. So as well as putting those pieces in here, I'm going to add other backgrounds I've collected from the G1 toon but never got round to using. The main Ark exterior, interior and desert-scape are all large scale images. Originally screen grabs from the toon, I had to upscale them, smooth out all the pixels and rework all the detail, as well as generally tidying them up to be presentable (such as giving the mountains in the distance a blur effect). The other G1 backgrounds here are a selection from the many to be found in the cartoon (mostly season one). In cases where the camera zooms in during a shot, such as the Cybertron planet image, or the waterfall with the Ark in the distance, I have overlaid multiple screen shots to get the most detail in the central area. Although I have touched up the three main images, the base artwork in these and all the rest is as produced by Sunbow for G1. High res Dropbox files for the Ark exterior and interior, Nemesis interior and power station landscape can be found here: Dropbox - Transformers G1 backgrounds HD - Simplify your life This is the periscope-style entrance to the Decepticon undersea base. A rare case of it being painted rather than animated. (Below is what they end up looking like with figures. ~Superquad7)
Panning shots have allowed me to capture a series of screen grabs and compile them into extra-tall and extra-wide panoramic views, giving an overview of a scene which you don't get just by watching it onscreen.
Thanks for uploading these! You know, as much flak as the G1 cartoon gets for its "poor" animation, some of the art is really quite impressive.
Thanks for thanking me Hopefully this will be sort of a library of reference for folks to use if they need any G1 scenery. It's true, a lot of G1 background paintings were well done (especially the Cybertron landscapes, which remind me of the Chuck Jones' futuristic Tom & Jerry shorts). Of course, I've cherry picked the best here, and there was an awful lot of shoddy bad art too, but going through the episodes it's amazing the volume of painted scenery they got through.
It's really cool you did this. Just now I was talking to a friend of mine about TF backgrounds and wondering if I could use them on youtube for my dumb parody videos without getting any sort of copyright claims. I am beginning my next video now and wanted to use the background from early on in TF:TM. I am going to just draw it out crudely probably but since I can't draw it's tougher for me than I thought it would be. Anyway, these are cool. Good job!
You are a fucking god. These are amazing. Do you happen to have an uncropped shot of Cybertron in hi-res? I have the smaller version but would love something bigger.
This is great! Thanks for putting in the time to make these and then sharing them with the rest of us!
These are great, thank you so much for sharing them! I'll be sure to print them out for use as backdrops for the toys.
Ha, yeah I see what you mean! Most of them only once or twice, surprisingly. Some, like the Cybertron planet shot and the first Decepticon undersea base shot, were reused quite often. I'm not sure on copyright, being 30 odd years old and rarely seen since I don't think anyone would jump down your throat for using them. Maybe the movie would be more of an issue. One of these days I should go through the movie for stills. Thanks There is a wider shot, but obviously it's smaller in frame so the details are even more blurry. So you could comp that onto the missing bit, but it would be blurry (note how the left hand side is more blurred than the middle and right, because I've patched in close up shots of the middle/right. I haven't been through every single episode though, so if there's a close up of Cybertron's lower edge anywhere that would be ideal. Cheers
Thanks for sharing these. Helps me to appreciate the thought that went into some of the backgrounds. Was wondering it there were any stills of the inside of the Nemesis?
Very cool that you did this. You might want to add them to this thread though. http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/933178-backrgounds.html
Will these look right printed out for display with MPs? In terms of resolution, I mean. Either way, thanks for doing these! They really look great. I don't suppose you're a GI Joe fan, too? Heh, me too!
Those are really great. You should see if you can get one of the control room in the Decepticon headquarters.
These are simply beautiful man, thanks so much for sharing them. Many of these would definitely look sweet displayed behind some Classics stuff. I'd love to see more, especially from the '86 Movie and maybe some cool spacescapes from Season 3 (I love me some spacescapes ).
