Yeah, this is basically how their faces looked to me:



Bayformers kinda get away with this kind of "skeleton with synthetic muscle actuators" look because their facial proportions aren't human.

But once you apply this method of construction to an entirely G1-esque robot face you'll end, basically, with a human head with skin stripped off.

Which is more humanised than, for an example, Milne's way of drawing their heads because under Milne their underlying anatomy isn't humanesque at all. They don't even have real skulls, just this metal sphere with two sockets for mounting eyes on it. Their supposedly more human faces are just metal masks fixed on front of it.

 

Related to another issue that bothers me: I prefer transformers which have face masks NOT to have faces. They don't necessarily need mouths. They can have speakers or radios for communicating, and shouldn't need to eat or drink as we do. I don't like it when Optimus or Soundwave are revealed to have a face behind the mask. I appreciated that moment in MtMtE when Rung offered his fellow prisoners energex sticks (or whatever), and Tailgate's mask opened to reveal not a conventional mouth. Nice little artistic gesture there.

LOL! fair enough. Maybe my artist sensibilities are winning out over my logical mind here. It worked for me, but I'm fine with more traditional transformer faces as well.

I agree on the teeth especially. I really dislike distinct anthropomorphic teeth in Transformer mouths. One scene in LSotW that irked me was when Twintwist was on the torture table, his face half dismantled, and you saw distinct teeth in his mouth, and an eyeball.

IDK...I see what you're saying about the DF faces, but I'm not sure Milne's generally aren't as humanesque. When Swerve shot his face off, he was left with a skull, complete with holes for his nose (which is silly, since they don't need to breathe).

Which brings up another point: Why would Swerve have a skull? Why would Cybertronians have endoskeletons? Humans need endoskeletons because most of our body is water. Our endoskeleton provides our only solid form.

Transformers are primarily metal and other hard materials. Their surface is naturally hard, even armored. Seems more logical for their primary structure to be that exoskeleton--if there is any differentiation between a skeleton and the other component parts in a species which is primarily metallic. Rather than a skeleton analogy of any form, a *chassis* would be a better analogy for their core structure. In any case, a Terminator-esque endoskeleton does not seem appropriate.

 

You got it kinda wrong. We don't need endoskeletons because our bodies are soft. Insects have exoskeletons and their bodies are also mostly soft inside, also built of water.

We need skeletons because muscles need a system of levers to be attached to, so we can move. Past certain point of weight and size actuators attached to an external shell are no longer optimal.
TFs need skeletons because it's the best way for their hydraulic actuators being attached to something. Industry robots in real life also are, by large, a metal skeletal arms with pistons attached.
That's just engineering. What is optimal, and what is not.

If you build a robot with actuators attached to its casing, then any mechanical damage made to this casing will be also damaging its movement. When actuators are attached to a skeleton and casing is just a shell, then the machine is less vulnerable.

And hydraulic pistons are much, much more vulnerable to damage than stretchy and semi-elastic actuators like our natural muscles or electroactive polymers. They have basically no shock absorption not counting their ends and when you pierce them they leak work fluid and stop working. You can compensate for a pierced piston with increasing pressure, but eventually the machine will run out of work fluid. In comparison, a muscle can operate with many holes in it, albeit less effective.

Not to mention that this casing will have to be thicker and heavier to account for bigger strain because now it's not only a casing made to stop dirt but also has to support actuators, and anything bigger than a large spider ends with a shell too thick and heavy to move. There may be not even enough space to put more pistons in it to compensate for all this weight, but then with more pistons this shell must be even thicker and you have to build your machine even larger... You will end with something very usightly and barely able to crawl. Probably will not be humanoid.
A skeleton may be lightweight and built as a lattice made of fibers and still do the job.

Same for having a skull. Or rather brain casing, for TFs. It's a vulnerable and delicate lump of circuitry, possibly the most vulnerable part of their bodies along with their spark. It's very utilitarian to have it enclosed by a hard shell.

... though it makes little sense to have it in head. Would be making more sense if TF brain casings were in their torso.

Our motoric system may be coming from organic evolution, but it was forced on evolution by a hard set laws of physics and mechanics - what is working for moving a structure bigger than an insect. A terminator-esque skeleton may seem inappropriate at a first glance, but physics-wise it's an optimal solution. That's why we have it and there are no elephant-sized insects IRL.

Then there's a matter of a tech maintenace. If actuators are attached to casing, then many repairs will end with having to dismantle almost everything to get to some small elements inside, instead of just opening casing, doing the job, then closing it.

Here's a nice TF "skull"



Vos has no real human anatomy underneath, just this blank plate.

 

Exactly what I was thinking too.

Are we gathering all of this from the "Shoomer" incident?

That's how I mostly look at TF faces... they're an external mask, with maybe some basic articulators. I could see the mouth being an port for ingesting fuel sources... the eyes as video receptor lenses, obviously... and the nose... well, I guess that hypothetically, their olfactory (and maybe other "electro-magnetic" senses) need a receiver. I think I can stretch the metaphor of the "sensor node" to the head. But I felt like we should stop short of their faces being metal "skin" stretched over a robot skull... at least not in the most conventional way.

Except that, more recently, it seems like everybody has a face under there. Optimus and Brainstorm at the least... though in dialogue, it's also been hinted at that faces are were also sort of a "trend" (see the Orion Pax spotlight). And in Brainstorm's case, I allow that the face serves as an homage to his two appearances between the US and Japanese Headmasters cartoons.

I agree with you about there being no need for faces. There are so many TFs without them.. as a kid I never assumed there were faces underneath all those visors and masks (though admittedly, the G1 cartoon certainly hinted at that with many of the face designs, Optimus not least of all). But seriously... with so many unconventional faces, I figured that how much "face" a TF has might be totally a function of when or where, or for what function, they were built.

Roberts has dialed back that diversity by establishing a "standard" face, with many of the deviations being empurata victims. Interesting idea, but it always seemed too limiting to me.

Yeah, I mean artistically speaking... it's totally subjective. I didn't like them because they felt too "organic", but also just because I think that like a lot of aspects of Don's art, it was detail winning out over dynamism or expressivity in the artwork. I think it's just a subset of my general unhappiness with Don's art from that run (and with that run overall).

Yeah, I get that Roche pushed the envelope specifically to stylistically emphasize the Grand Guignol grotesquerie of the series... it seemed like an exaggeration that fit the content... but overstated for the general canon.

Like I mention above, they still smell and have other detection tools... the nose could be a sensor or that kind of data, rather than a breathing tool.

I get what you're saying, but I think it's simpler than that. It's much the same way there's an infrastructure and an endostructure on most mecha designs, and most machinery for that matter. Like human skin, the outside of the TF is basically protection... armour against the elements and rough handling, protecting the chassis and all the various pistons and conduits and wiring that make everything work underneath. This is all the more relevant to TFs born and/or optimized for combat.

Now, there's no reason why this has to look just like a metal version of a human skeleton, but the principle is the same. A "naked" TF... ie, one without all that dermal plating, might not be quite as tramautized and dysfunctional as a flayed human, but I'm betting they would still feel pretty vulnerable.  

Admittedly, that may just be to make him look creepier.  

zmog

 

Perhaps I was going a little extreme on the whole emotionless robot thing. The gist of what I was trying to say is that I don't want to see writers go too far into trying to make them otherworldly to the point of losing the one thing people liked about the TFs to begin with and that's that they feel more like people rather then just robots. Also people are going to have different ideas of what is sophisticated and intelligent so while some of your ideas of what TFs show feel like may sound awesome,others will think it's just pretentious ideas that's trying too hard to make them feel realistic. I'm all for making them feel more alien in terms of design and characteristics but not at the expense of losing a lot of the empathetic and human like traits we like about a lot of them.

 

I'm no expert on mechanical engineering, so I'll defer to your explanation.  

 

As much as I like Roche's art, it's very hard to me to get past all those detailed teeth with roots an mollars. I get that they may need some kind of teeth, especially if energon cubes are still present in this continuity, but separate teeth are biological feature because they're grown. And not even all animals need them for biting. Turtles and birds are just fine with no fangs and mollars.

I prefer when artists draw them as a set of two metal bars.

If I recall correctly, they usually don't look entirely human. Aside of a mishap that was Heart of Darkness (Galvatron's skeleton looked awfully like a Terminator rip-off), even in LSOTW Overlord had no ribs. They're vaguely humanoid with "bones" needed for limbs and hands, but that's it.
Which makes sense, because muscles attached to ribs are needed mostly for moving lungs, no real reason for TFs to have any equivalent.

But there's another good reason why TFs are built around an internal skeleton. They transform. Their entire bodies are made of parts and panels shifting around a core. It really makes sense to have a firm central structure holding it together.

Yeah, there's a reason why real world engineers are looking into animal limbs and how it can be applied to robotics. So far it proves to be the most effective way of building a limb.

I mean, tanks and other vehicles can get by with being an empty shell only, but they aren't actuated.

 

I guess this is what can prove to us that we are not just dopplegangers of one another, because I couldn't disagree more about Don's art. I'm only familiar with his art in the IDW G1 series (Pretty much just *Stormbringer,* A solo or two, and the Costa ongoing, right?), but I thought his composition was very dynamic in those. His faces weren't necessarily super expressive, but neither were those of my other favorite TF artist, Su. And frankly, I probably prefer the understated facial expressions to the cartoonish exaggerated expressions of Roche and of Milne (who otherwise is probably my third favorite) on MtMtE. Seems like he's been trying to mimic Roche's cartoonishness there more than he did on *Megatron: Origin*, or his solos and the fill-ins he did on Costa's.

(Then again, we could still be dopplegangers, or perhaps mirror universe copies, who differ in minor details. Are you clean shaven? I don't exactly have a goatee, but I do usually have considerable facial hair, so I’m probably the evil one   )

 

Yes. Or I was intrigued by Don's representation of some sort of grill in the mouth where the teeth should be when he first tried that combo style in his postlude issue to AHM, the one focusing on Optimus and Ironhide. THough I hated that it was the IDW comic which established Optimus as having a face beneath the mask.

 

Finally back on a computer only to forget what I was planning to say earlier this morning, as well as most of what I've read, and I don't want to re-read it all, plus there's more shit for me to read now. Damn.

Anyway, I guess my stance is that I'm fully behind the addition of alien natures and complexities to make the Transformers more unique; the use of radio and music in particular is something I'd be really interested in. Especially the inter-Autobot-Radio. Like, technically everyone can be telepaths with one another, that could make for something interesting, right? Plus I like the idea of Cybertronian music just being loud screeching to human ears. Or being like, people music from Rick and Morty. Have I been referencing R&M a lot in MTMTE discussions? Because this is definitely not the first time I've referenced them. Maybe I should cut back, maybe not, who cares? But anyway, I'm fully for stuff like that, but I don't really see the point in removing certain "human" traits that have been established in the past, not because I think it makes them more "realistic" or relate able, but just because I don't see a point. Also I like the bar setting, but wtvr. So yeah, I'm all for add, not so much for subtract, if that makes any sense.

I do agree with the dancing, though. I don't mind its inclusion at a cultural level, but in the specific issues where they had a dance party... yeah. Maybe it was because there was a party in Windblade at the same time, but it felt kind of forced. I loved the way Milne drew CD and RW dancing, but it was especially weird for the context of what had just happened, and what was happening. "Party! Wait, shit, someone died... PARTY!" It was like we were being forced evidence that everyone's friends and everyone is happy. Cept for Cyclonus, but whatever.

Seriously though, I'm interested in hearing more ideas on how to make Cybertronians more unique as alien beings. Other than making them not-sit or whatever. I get the logic behind it, but... they're still Transformers. They still have noses and junk and other things that don't make any sense. Just general ideas for what adds to their mystique is what I'm interested in, I mean. I might even make a thread for it if I wasn't lazy and feeling like I'm about to get bored with the topic real quick.

 

Humanizing the Transformers makes them more relatable.

 

Indeed.

And I've always believed that they basically nailed what the substructure of a Transformer should look like back in '86:

 

"Others", eh?

I find that "pretentious" is often the first defense by people who are intimidated by smart things... like they have to somehow call into question the legitimacy and honesty of interests that they can't quite relate to. It ends up being an ad hominem sort of response... alluding to a falseness or a character flaw in someone, rather than engaging intellectually with their ideas (even to disagree).

So that's why I think your repeated use of the term "pretentious" is, in fact, a bit pretentious.  

The goal, as stated only about a million times in this thread, is not to make them utterly 'realistic', and unrelatably alien to the point of severing any ability to empathize. It is about achieving a balance, one that emphasizes and reinforces the fact that Cybertronians are in fact aliens, ones with VASTLY different qualities, in order to keep them interesting... while still telling stories with enough heart and universal humanity to appeal to people.

Of course, some others might just have a very narrow threshold for what they require in Transformers in order to be "relatable"... some people are into this fiction for very different reasons. I mean, just look at the slash-fiction artists and writers... I'm sure for many of them, an absence of robosex is a deal-breaker.

In other words, why settle for BAD robot fiction, just because some people have small or puerile imaginations?  

Yes, but just what degree and what kind of "relatable" are we shooting for here?
*eyes your avatar*  

Yup. Or even as a shallow grid of mechanisms visible inside the mouth... though I guess that's not very practical either.

Yes... and also no. Now that you mention it, that's probably the most compelling reason why TFs would NOT have a unified interior substructure (or a 'skeleton'... or even one coherent chassis).

Due to the requirements of transformation, Cybertronians would actually
A) have very weird "skeletons" that overall wouldn't resemble humans at all, and
B) have no single, standardized internal structure... since very few TFs actually transform exactly the same way.

It's funny... we went this far into the discussion of skeletons before the obvious cropped up; as transformers, it would be almost impossible for them to have a standardized, anthropomorphic "skeleton".

I mean, unless they're all shell-formers, anyway.  

Maybe... the G1 Specs suggested that all TFs have native "shortwave radio reception" as one of their "normal 7 senses". If all TFs can send and receive by shortwave, then the conventional notion of "telepathy" applies differently. They can send over long distances, but can't any other TF "hear" them too? In terms of being able to speak "silently"... that only really works if they're in the presence of other species who can't perceive radio signals, right? Hmmm.

Or being above or below the human hearing range even... after all, we humans don't exactly have the monopoly on sensory range... even on our own planet!  

I think the "bar" setting works alright as a sight gag... or as a very specific metaphor... but I think it's been really overused over the years. Especially when you consider how many different types of public gathering space we humans have across all the different cultures of Earth... some more variety could be cool.

On a related note, Roberts gave us Relinquishment Clinics, which had 2 different connotations, depending on the point in history. I kind of like the way that you can read in different associations, but at its core, the Clinics are something that is very specific to Cybertronians.

Well as you point out, it was narratively forced as well as conceptually forced. Even in the context of a human cast of characters, having a cathartic, jubilant "80s nite" pub party at the end of that story would have felt like a bit much.

But on the topic of dancing (and by extension, fighting), I've always found it funny how, despite the mechanical physiognomy and the fact that they can transform, we very rarely see anyone exploring how TFs can move in ways that are way different than humans. What about partial transformations? Or dynamic vehicle kibble? Or being able to do things like fully rotate their torso or head 360 degrees?

How would that affect they way you dance... or how you express yourself physically?

I don't really mind them sitting... though upon reflection, they really shouldn't use chairs with backs, since so many of them have wings or kibble that would get in the way. But even if it just means they can divert power away from their gyroscopic stabilizers or something, I could see how sitting might have benefits.

For me, Figueroa has always just been emblematic of that "fanboy" kind of TF art (blame Dreamwave for instilling that association)... his figures always seem big and thick and busy with detailing, but somehow they've always lacked vitality for me.

I've always liked Milne's style, but he had similar issues. His compositions weren't so dynamic, his panel-layouts were cramped, and his character designs were overladen with superflous detail. Megatron Origin is a prime example of this, and I had similar issues with the Drift miniseries.

However, once he came on board with MTMTE, that all changed... and it's true that he probably took a lot of inspiration from Nich Roche's stuff. I agree that Nick Roche is often a little too cartoony and "rubbery", but whatever Milne took from Roche has made his work way more expressive and alive. It's like, in allowing himself to become a bit more "cartoony" he's managed to attain that happy medium between too much detail and not enough. Since he started on MTMTE, I'd say that Milne is hands-down my favourite TF artist. EJ Su might be second. After that... crap shoot.

Yeah, I haven't done facial hair for 15 years. You're probably the evil twin, you hirsute devil you!  

You mean that short story drawn by Figueroa in the All Hail Megatron Coda? In the Orion Pax Spotlight, it seemed to be implied that prior to getting his new body, Pax didn't have a face. Wheeljack just gave him one because it was trendy.  

Works for me.  

zmog

 

I think Beast Wars, Prime, and IDW comics have answered that question. Don't Judge Me!  

 

Yeah, the explosive, manga-esque purple liquid that flies out of Transformers bodies is goofy and no longer shocking. I think it lost that the moment Pharma sliced through Ambulon.

Personally, I'd rather see Transformers dented, and if something cuts through their armor, have some frayed circuitry with electricity arcing from it. Then, to establish when an injury is really serious, they'd leak black oil from a wound. Occasionally.

But "Vague life goo that leaps out at the merest cut as though the robots are really pressurized water balloons filled with the stuff," isn't really cutting it for me anymore.

 

If Bayformers, third parties and MP are any indication how it could work, there would be a lot of origamiforming and panel shifting and it needs to be attached to something solid along with their hydraulics.
Though this skeleton could not be standardised. Probably would look humanoid only in their robot mode.


And I don't like energon leaking from their bodies everywhere. If anything, it should be thick oil. Their bodies are made mostly of hydraulics.

 

Thing is I don't have a problem with some subjects and topics in certain nerd related franchises in a grounded and cool manner done in a more thoughtful manner in fact some of my favourite fiction tackles this, however there's a difference in trying to have things a little more grounded and have more thought put into something and trying too hard to make a fantastical concept fit into realistic terms to the point of making it something else entirely and loses a lot of what people liked about it to being it. In case of the Transformers I have my eyebrows raised a bit when I hear hear things about how TFs simply hugging,and even dancing at some parts are "too human" and "doesn't fit them at all" even though they've shown to have done this dozens of times. It's one thing to question about how the TFs lately have shown a lot of human elements like in MTMTE case's like pop culture references from characters that never went to Earth but saying that things that show empathy like hugging,tears or any sign of emotion don't make sense from them is another. I'm all for balance but we should understand on what really doesn't make sense and what is simply an opinion first.

This isn't me trying to bring down smart concepts or have anti intelligence,what I'm trying to say is that no matter how you try to bring in smart concepts and grounding things down or in some cases try to bring more thought into a topic or subject,this is still a story about a fantastical concept of robot from different worlds fighting each other so we have to accept that there are certain things about it we need to let slide because unless we see signs of them actually existing in real life,we're never going to understand how a race like that actually functions and trying too hard to do so will only come across as trying to be smartly done then it really is. The people behind the Godzilla 98 movie did this exact thing in an attempt to bring "realism" and "smart" thinking on how the monster is done and viewed upon and the movie ended up suffering greatly because of it.

Also about that bit about people being scared of "smart" concepts you said? Like I said in some cases things that are considered to be smart vastly differ from people to people,culture to culture,etc

Honestly I think it depends on what type of origin or biology they have. If we're talking about the TFS being built like in the Sunbow G1 show then yeah you have a point but in other universes where they have a form of carbon based biology or something like that then it does make some sense. I think neither one is wrong just as personal preference.

 

Regarding IDW, I don't think their TFs are too humanized, for the most part. (Obviously there will always be certain writers / issues or even runs that succeed or fail more than others.) They have really done a stellar job of creating a history that is understandable to the reader while involving things that would only make sense to a transforming robot species (like the Militant Monoformer Movement, empurata, the Functionist movement, "Disposables"). This is what makes TFs feel "real" and alien to me, not whether they sit down or hug.

Yeah, it gets a little old when TFs are so up on Earth culture and celebrating Earth constantly but let's face it, there's always been a "gasp! Earth, and especially humans, are SO AMAZING!" vibe with TFs. That was part of the draw for kids, I think . . . that our world was as interesting to TFs as their world was to us.

Personally I could do without it. But oh well, it's part of the legacy.

 

The only instance where they had anything approaching organic biology was in Beast Wars. Otherwise they are metallic beings. Even in Bayformers.

More than this, in IDW every time when TF is drawn without its armor they have clearly machine setup with gear-like joints and hydraulic pistons instead of muscles. Cydraulics are even refered in-universe.
Two instances I can recall is UM doing investigations on Nebulos when he recognized cydraulics as a part of TF anatomy implanted into headmasters and in MTME where UM had his smile actuated with pistons.

There isn't too much of a carbon-based being in an IDW Cybertronian, regardless of preferences. Them bleeding energon in droves comes a bit silly at times. Not even in TFP they were bleeding that much.
Not to mention with their setup energon shouldn't be even the most common substance in their body, because it's just a power source. It's like they don't have anything else but energon tanks inside them.

 

I'm not sure if BW, Prime and IDW has answered that question, really. Are you saying that if IDW had any fewer dance parties, you would find them unrelatable and stop being a TF fan?

The thing people forget is how many new, weird things IDW (mostly Roberts) has also added to the mix... cultural and biological aspects that do relate rather exclusively to Cybertronians as a nigh-immortal machine species. The thing is, these elements rarely alienate anyone. If anything, they tend to spark more interest, and make Transformers, as a species, more distinct and original.

Meanwhile, the inclusion of dance parties and high-school antics has seen a groundswell of discontent among commentators on this forum. If that can be taken as any kind of barometer of public sentiment, I think it shows that pushing "humanization" too far actually DOES cause readers to "switch off".

Yeah, that's getting SO tired now. It's way over the top, and the fuschia goo is just silly now.

Well, humanoid in the overall shape (delineated limbs, etc) but completely alien in terms of the jointing and functionality, I would say... everything would be in all different places.

Well, energon is the great catch-all, isn't it? It can serve pretty much whatever purpose the narrative calls for. It can be energy source, blood, lubricant, alcohol, solid, liquid... you name it...  

zmog