Hey, been working on some art for the first time in a million years. I'm so out of practice it hurts, but I've suddenly got a ton of time on my hands. I'm not really that happy with it, but hell, if I want to get any better I oughta just keep drawing, and this is something. Plus it's better to be creative than just playing Animal Crossing all day. So here's an Orion Pax design I came up with: I kind of realized that with Optimus Prime, I prefer it if he either A: has always just been Optimus, or B: used to be Orion Pax, but looked and acted completely different before his name-change. So here's a Pax Design heavily based on the sunbow version, since that's pretty much the only version of Orion Pax that actually looked different, but I did do a few things to kind of fuck around with it. I wanted to give him a retro-robot vibe, to kind of give the sense that this kind of guy existed a long time ago while giving off a certain vibe, but I also wanted him to be a bit alien and sci-fi-y at the same time. I also wanted to keep away from making his design too TFA-y. I love the TFA style, but I feel like I've relied too much on mimicking it in the past instead of developing my own style. His proportions are also kind of based on the original G1 toy, hence the way you can kind of see how his arms would fold into the gaps in his torso to make a full-er truck front. You can't really see them but he's got wheels on his hips as well. His colours are kind of based on a hypothetical Marvel colour scheme-- sort of how usually when the face is the same colour as the helmet, and the eyes are often yellow. Also while his body-colours were pretty easy to grasp I had a time trying to figure out what to do with his head. I tried putting the Orion constellation on his helm, although it is only really noticeable if you squint. I kept flipping around the colours, and constantly re-editing the helm. I knew I wanted to make the front of the helm substitute a nose, just because... well, it worked in TFA, right? And it was also to take a step back from a human feature that probably wasn't needed. I ALMOST gave him a flat, G2 Hot Rod-esque robo-mouth, but then I realized I would essentially be shitting on the brand if I passed on the chance to give a robot some delicious lips. As soon as I saw the opportunity, I gave him a third eye in the center of his helmet, and as soon as I did it just stuck. I just thought it was cool. People don't have three eyes, but robots can, right? Annnd here he is in some more toon accurate head colours: And here he is with a more alien-looking head design, because I wanted to experiment more with that kind of thing, but couldn't really settle on it. And here he with a lazily put together background. Cue Megatron going: "WHY HELLLLOOOOO THERE!"
I like the proportions! The upper torso looking as powerful as it does makes a lot of sense if you consider the dock worker origin he had in War Dawn, and the head design is incredibly distinct.
These really add to the already great programs world (which I’m stillll not done reading)! I almost was going to draw my interpretation of Tollenus the other day because I was bored. This are style reminds me of the 80s box art if it were used for the animation.
These are all freaking amazing, especially love that Megatron, would love to see a show animated like this
I really appreciate the kind words here. To be honest, it's been a while since I've seriously spent time on some art, and I've been lacking a lot of love towards my own art. It's something I haven't really had the time for, and most of the time when I try for it I end up giving up half-way because I'm never really satisfied with it. I've tried drawing a Megastorm design and re-doing Arcee like twice in the past month but it just hasn't been clicking. Sure, Anyway here's some explanation for this concept: In the little fanfic that I wrote, a war between the Autobots and Decepticons has ended, and the Great War (the one where Optimus Prime and Megatron are the main players) hasn't started yet. In fact Autobots and Decepticons have been at war since before recorded history in Cybertron's Overworld society. There are multiple societies both below and above ground but none of them have their histories recorded that well due to the repeated destruction and reconstruction of their civilizations. Over the course of these uncountable wars, there would be centuries of peace in-between, with the Decepticons succeeding and governing at points, and the Autobots rebelling and coming back into power. Regardless, a war ends up breaking out between these two factions on Cybertron's surface in some form for one reason or another. In a sense I'm going back to the Autobots being "consumer goods" and the Decepticons being "military hardware". Though they both have the capacities of free will, the Decepticons of the past were actually built to be far more monstrous and threatening than the friendly, blocky G1 Autobots that were theorized to be "sold" to other races to perform manual labour. As such, these ancient Decepticons who once ruled Cybertron were, more or less in my mind, to look like the Movieverse Decepticons-- dangerous and alien looking, and meant to terrify the enemy. Modern day Decepticon frames, as you can see from Megatron's design, are far more "Autobot"-like, though this is more a cosmetic shift as an attempt to synthesize the Transformer races by the Overlords. While the Autobot Overlords rule a great patch of land on the surface of Cybertron, many of their enemies have been cast down into the Underworld-- a vast and wild landscape containing metallic jungles, ruins of the old societies that have been built on top of by the new, as well as several small nations home to other Transformers that were either cast out of Overworld society, or simply developed there independent from them. Grimlock, for one reason or another, has been cast down as some form of punishment, and is forced to travel this landscape. As he takes shelter from the rain in a nearby cave, he encounters a hermit who identifies as "The Last Decepticon", meaning the last of the Decepticons who fought in the previous war against the Overlords-- the Generation of Decepticons who once ruled Cybertron and, supposedly, conquered innumerable planets. Right now he plans to create new war frames for the Decepticons through his hatchling pod system, though he can only power them using the energy stockpile gathered by a hibernating monster sleeping beneath him. I based the character off Movieverse Starscream, obviously. He's not the Starscream of this universe, though maybe you could interpret him a progenitor of the seekers given his alternate form. If my art was any better he would look more complex and terrifying, but this is kind of the most I can do at the moment with work getting increasingly more intense. Still I wanted to do something art related here, and decided if I didn't go through with something like this I would pretty much never draw again. I'm not super happy with this design, but I admit I didn't spend the most time on it either. I hope the idea behind the scene and hopefully some of the tone still translates though.
I got inspired and I finally bought a new mouse, so not tablet quality but I'm not drawing with just a mousepad anymore. Decided to redo that Arcee design because I seriously hate what I did before. I spent more time referring to the original toy inspiration for the design and the marvel colour scheme I was originally trying to go for but struggled with. I also wanted to go for the overboard leia buns that were teased in that extremely early trailer of the 86 movie back when Ultra Magnus still had his diaclone colours. If I do another design sometime soon I'll probably do Primus. I had a vague idea for a piece.
And here's what I have for Primus. Based the pose off a statue of the Roman Jupiter, added in the Keeper and made him a Seeker as to represent angel wings, and obviously his overall design is that of his Marvel Comics version. I was actually going to come up with three interpretations of Primus to illustrate various differing beliefs regarding his existence within the Transformers Mythos. This would be the most popular and accepted depiction of the guy, whereas another idea was to have him look like the depictions of angels in the Old Testament. (IE this except more robotic and Transformer-y) And another which would have looked like Rung, if he was drawn as the "Kilroy was Here" meme and in a jail cell, which would have been the basis of a story within a story in my fic I haven't even written yet that would have been something akin to "The Grand Inquisitor." Anyway Primus in this series would be one of many gods. Fitting in with the theme of Transformers society being Ancient Rome based, Primus would have been part of a triad of gods with the others being the Ultimate Warrior (Like Mars, a god of war) and Energon, a God of fuel (like a replacement for agriculture. Also Energon as it is usually depicted does not exist in this world, and instead fuel is just whatever can be considered consumeable by a robot like oil, electricity, certain types of gase, etc.). In Cybertron society not long before the war, few actually directly worship Primus, and instead veer towards personal and mystical cults depending on the House. And while Primus may be a King of Gods in the original Cybertronian Mythological canon, he is one of many, and is dedicated to by a minority of Houses. An ancient ruling house known as the Primes still worships Primus to this day. Though the Primes have fallen into relative obscurity since the last Great War, Cybertron's muddled history would suggest their ancestor, the great Prime Nova, once ruled Cybertron's Overworld society many wars ago, before being ousted by the Decepticons of ages past. The Primes also believe that Prime Nova was the bearer of the mythological Creation Matrix. The Theoretical core program from which the Matrix-Flame Intelligence Coding Devices were derived from, and the program which was once passed from Autobot Leader to Autobot Leader once every 1000 years. Though there is evidence to these claims by the Primes, current Cybertronian society is not hereditary, and if the Matrix, and Prime Nova did in fact exist, it is clear that neither can be found.
I really like the complete reinvention you’ve done with your storyline here. The movieverse Starscream as the Last Decepticon is especially creepy and I imagine him talking like the Cybertron one but drawn out and pained sounding. The concepts and other character models look great as well.
Thank you. I've always dabbled in fanfiction here and there, but around the time IDW2 started I began wondering about the ways in which the series could be rebooted after how definitive IDW1 felt. The ideas kind of came as a response to a lot of retreading I've felt the franchise has been doing lately. When it came to coming up with a new Transformers Universe, I ended up going back into a lot of the concepts in Transformers lore that were dropped or retconned, and expanding on some key themes for this world. Cybertron being somewhat based on Ancient Rome was an idea that came from state games, as with the original concept of a ruling body of Autobot Overlords, with Optimus Prime not really being special for being a "Prime" since it was just his name. I mean here he's Orion Pax, but that's because I wanted to draw and write an Orion Pax that looked and acted like Orion Pax from the cartoon, and not just Optimus Prime except he has a different name. I like this idea because once you apply this change in the narrative, it completely upheaves the established lore of the Transformers. You take out the Primes from the greater narrative, and suddenly a light goes out on what we know about the Transformers mythos, but now there is a vast unknown that can once again be explored. Energon being the name of the type of cube they used, rather than their actual lifeblood was another, same with Power Cores rather than Sparks as to cement them more as machines. I've also decided to step back by making it so that the Transformers have to be built by scratch based on ancient design specifications, in addition to using data-programs to bring them life in the form of Matrix Flames (think Marvel Ultra Magnus) just to further define them as robots, which I think makes the mystical theme more tangible when they are discussed and integrated into this society, and maybe even a little tragic depending on how you look at it. A lot of other ideas came from trying to think of ways that would make the mythos this mysterious thing, and to bring a sense of wonder to Cybertron that I feel was the intent of Ruckley's pitch for IDW2. The answer seemed so obvious that I'm surprised it hasn't even been tried in the franchise yet. Make Cybertron bigger. Like literally bigger. The Autobots and Decepticons are one country on Cybertron's surface. Perhaps a continent. Make Cybertron so massive, so vast, that it has literally not been completely explored by the society of Transformers we follow, with a sprawling surface and even more dense and chaotic Undergrid. Maybe there will be a colonization of the "New World" by Cybertronian standards, who knows. I also thought it would be interesting to make the setting both Pre-War and Post-War at the same time. Like it's pre-war for most of the characters we know, but from their perspective the Autobot/Decepticon war is over, even though we know there will be a ramp up to yet another war since Megatron, uh, exists currently. Probably the millionth Great War that has plagued Cybertron's history at that. But this inbetween time seems interesting to me since you can combine elements from IDW1's phase 2 in a unique way. Anyway here's Windblade In terms of her design I based it heavily off the generations toy, and even designed her legs so that they wouldn't be noticeably hanging on the "roof" of the jet mode when she transforms. I also referenced the intent behind her original design to base her off an onna-bugeisha, despite the designer only giving her the hair and makeup and making her body fairly generic. In fact I think it's the hair-helmet that makes the canon Windblade look so out of place regardless of where she shows up, so I dipped her head in some diaclone here by giving her a helmet that can sort of be seen as a mix between Sunstreaker and Prowl. Her mask in the above art is based on one of the concept designs for her. I think it's funny that when people speculate on how to improve Windblade, the answer is usually to make her a cute anime girl, but I decided to go in the opposite direction. So here's the deal with Windblade. She is a devout worshipper of The Ultimate Warrior (IE: The Last Autobot as Bludgeon, and those like him sees him) and acts as a lictor and protector of her House. She is from Kaon, which is literally the worst city-state on the planet, but she has nonetheless pledged her loyalty to it, and seeks to rid it of criminal scum and dishonest people whenever she is called upon by Kaon's Overlord to do so. She doesn't proclaim to be a master of metallikato, but she will still gladly proclaim that she is a practitioner of metallikato and that your movements are sort of in slow motion. She is valiant, and loyal, and may sometimes participate in gladiatorial sport when she doesn't have to fight people for real. She's also a bit old. Not Kup old, but she saw the tail end of the last war, and is probably about the same age you would imagine someone like Ultra Magnus to be. Her favourite hobby though, is masks. She designs them, makes them and paints them. Her face paint isn't a Camien thing (she's not even Camien here) it's just a thing she does herself. Thing is, when you are a metal person with a metal face and masks are also made of metal... that's a little messed up right? Well, that's the point. In a human society changing your face has some stigma to it, but if it can be done with such ease in a robotic society to the point where you likely wouldn't even recognize it as a mask, it would probably be far more common for people to be accepting of the trade. If you would like to wear a faceplate, what's stopping you? The way I look at it, masks would be something like an equivalent to tattoos. Mostly accepted but some older bots might furrow their brows. We actually don't get to see what Windblade's actual face looks like, because she's proud of what she makes, and has an entire collection of masks she likes to try on depending on the mood. Here are some examples of how Windblade's look could change between days: (Last one probably not) Usually she might just mess around with the face paint though. This idea started with a different idea in which Windblade would change her face paint now and then, but then I realized that didn't take advantage of the fact that she is a robot and decided to do something that couldn't be done in a story about humans. It also fit in perfectly with an idea of an arc I had for her.
Yoooooo this is so cool One of my biggest frustrations with Windblade as a character is that no matter what media she shows up in, her design never meaningfully changes so she sticks out like a sore thumb pretty much every single time, and this is a massive improvement because it's not just something different, but a logical line of thought based on the character's original inspiration. The way the wings can fold up to become a big cloak is incredibly cool, as is the whole mask swapping idea and the... Sunstreaker ears, I suppose. It clearly draws inspiration from the Thrilling 30 toy but takes the ball and just runs with it. I salute you, good sir.
“Your moves are kinda ... just a little bit ... maybe ... IN SLOW MOTION!” I like the Windblade mask with the red eyes the best so far. Interesting story for her character as well. The uncloaked design has lots of cool details too.
