Ha ha munkey 

 

GO BACK I WANT TO BE MONKEY

 

Whos the guy that decides \"yeah the red balls on top ofnthe thighs can be blue\"

 

All the Kingdom BW concept arts are trash besides Optimus Primal. Blackarachnia especially looks terrible. I wish they hired somebody else to do the BW designs. 

 

Neat

 

This is actually turning into one of my favorite threads.
I've been a professional artist for 21 years and sometimes I forget just how clueless the public can be about the the various artistic roles that take place in any industry.

This thread is a wonderful reminder that people just love being snarky for basically no reason at all about things they "love". And it is almost always done without even the tiniest shred of education on the subject at hand. While my skin has grown very thick over the years about my own art, sometimes a rare comment can still punch through if I am heavily invested on a project. Threads like this make it really easy to never let anyone get to me.

 

My question is what's the point in concept art and on brand that's almost 40 years old which hasn't had any new ideas for almost 20 years. What's left to conceptualise? All these people are doing is their own interpretations of characters have already been made just have to be redesigned. The concept work is already done there's no point in doing this other than to give an artist a job.

 

Because this specific toy isn't the only thing that artist is doing, for starters. This artist most likely focuses on Transformers, but also does other toylines not being reported on a Transformers website.
Also, you are ignoring the subtle differences that are absolutely different. For example, the chest piece is completely different on Kingdom Primal vs. the original 1996 toy. Everything needs an update at some point in time. Decision makers need to decide if it will be a toy that looks a LOT like the tv series or a lot like the original toy or something in between. An example here would be something like the Energon Megatron. It was obviously inspired by G1 Galvatron, but was not completely like that character. So in that case, someone made a choice to be only make it around 20-30% like G1 Galvatron.

In this case, they decided to make it very close to the original character's representation on screen. They need to present something to the modelers and engineers what envision the decision makers wanted.
This concept art will be reviewed by an internal team and they will say things like "more of a scowl on the gorilla face" or "nice, we like that you left the faceplate off", etc. The decision makers are not always 100% up to speed on past iterations on something and leave it up the concept designer to be the filter between the producers and modelers and engineers.

The workflow typically goes something like this:

*Someone says "We need a toy of Optimus Primal".
*A reference folder is created by the artist to be inspired by - this will include screen caps of the show, past toys, etc
*A designer starts thinking about play features (flip out guns, lights and sounds, does it need to mesh well with other gimmicks of the line such as Weaponizers etc)
*The concept designer starts making a design that figures out solutions to various problems the engineers don't want to think about. What does the face look like? Again, things like "does it have a faceplate or not?"
*Once they get approvals on the concepts, which translates to "Yes, this looks like the kind of Optimus Primal WE want to make", then it gets passed off to modelers and engineers to solve other things about the toy, like transformation, etc.

A toy can look like LITERALLY ANYTHING. They can make Optimus Primal with ONLY having his mutant head. They can make Optimus Primal not an ape at all, but some other animal altogether. They can do anything they want. The concept artist serves as a middle point between the decision makers (producers/designers/etc) and the modelers/engineers. Some of these concepts seem strange to you and seem like no concept art is needed, but that's because you don't know the process and its not a part of your life. Someone, for example (probably this artist?) made Paleotrex and gave him Primal's old mace as a head. That is something he didn't have to do as it doesn't serve the play feature at all and only fans will see the resemblance. The designer only says "he needs a mace weapon here", but its the concept artist who says "Oo! Wouldn't it be cool if I made Paleotrex's head Primal's old mace".

There are many moving pieces that happen when creating anything.
You'd be surprised how much industrial design and concept art needs to happen for a frickin screwdriver. Just make a screwdriver, right? Look at that one over on the shelf and make a new one, right? EVERY product on the shelf needs thorough artwork behind it. It is part of the process.

The process doesn't require the end user to understand the process, but the process exists for a reason.

*Note: I do not work in toy design. But I work in video games as an artist myself and I work in a similar pipeline. I also have many friends who have worked for Mattel and Hasbro and have personally asked questions myself over the years about what differences, if any, exist in their pipelines vs my own. I don't have to deal with engineering, for example, so I know next to nothing about that side of things. but I do know concept art quite well.

 

You're not describing the concept phase of a project.

 

There are multiple types of art that fall under the name "concept art". These drawings arent for shocasing a new idea, they are mainly for giving the 3d designers clean and undisputed refrence images.

 

Lol new ideas.

 

Well seeing as this is for a generations line, they are about making the old ideas better. BUT, there really is a severe lack of new ideas with all the evergreen stuff and boring rehashes.

 

Yes I am lol.
I have 21 years of experience working directly with concept artists and being one myself at one point in time.

While any company may structure things differently, what I describe above is absolutely a workflow that is used. Keep in mind concept art for something like a movie is a little different than for a product such as a toy.

 

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeees!

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His legs look too thin, but the rest of the design is great. 

 

Would have been cool to see a year ago to generate hype. A bit late at this point and don\'t care.

 

The final product did a pretty good job of sticking to the design. My only real nitpicks are that his hand isn't painted black and the tail can't be removed from his forearm. Both would have been incredibly easy to do.

 

That’s certainly a purple T-Rex.

 

Terrific breakdown of the process. Thank you.