I am procrastinating my final exams, and so I started fiddling with TF Prime Soundwave. I got annoyed with his neck frills. I realize the frills are show-accurate, but it looks so much sleeker in the CGI than in the toy. I tried to imagine what it without the frills, then I had an epiphany. What if Soundwave's "face" has been staring us in plain sight? I'm not necessarily endorsing the idea that Soundwave is hiding some kind of mysterious face behind that visor, and I'm convinced that what we see in the show IS his face. I think of my digibash like a "what-if?" situation, where if I was a character designer eagerly setting up some kind of plot twist involving Soundwave's face, I'd do it by having Soundwave transform his face kibble in a configuration that creates the illusion of facelessness. Think of the pieces moving like Iron Man's helmet, which sort of shifts around to reveal or conceal Tony Stark's face. Or Bayverse Bumblebee's battle mask. Or Animated Shockwave. The neck frills become his mouthplate, and I moved his head vents to where they are in G1 Soundwave. I honestly think this is a plausible transformation. Disclaimer: I didn't take this photo. I did a Google search for Soundwave pictures and saved the clearest one. All I did was move around his face kibble with Photoshop. I did cheat a bit by manipulating the proportions of the face kibble, but not by much. I'm not a Photoshop expert or even an artist, so I know my Photoshop skills aren't too slick. Still, I think this look is pretty cool! Reminds me of Teknoman, Tarn, and Blackout. Hope you guys like it:
While this is really cool looking, I can't see any kind of "face" that you are trying to elaborate on. In short, where's the face?
I think what the OP is trying to convey is a more G1'ish visor/faceplate "face" as oppose to the full on vid screen face.