Umm, sorry, NO. That is not the combined mode.

If you have the movie's CAM version, slow down the play during the Sideways chase scene. On one cel (when they are next to each other, shooting at Sideways) you can clearly see the third Bike Sister in almost the same pose as on this drawing - albeit it is the purple one, not Chromia.

I'm thinking that the artist was given a screencap from that scene, and used it for reference.

 

What happened THERE?

 

Arcee got a Pretender shell, I guess.

 

With the best will in the world, you're going to have to excuse my editorial laugh. It's only the "same pose" in the most basic manner - she's sticking her arm out while her body's bent to stage-left. Of all the possible stories behind this panel, whether it depicts a combined mode or one of the sisters, this is far from the most likely.

 

why is it as tall as ratchet then.

 

yes there is

look at the page where they are looking at prime's body

it is stood next to ratchet

and is clearly half blue half purple

and the head looks nothing like the individual ones

 

Artistic license/error. And stop yelling.

 

Drawn the same way, twice? Featuring distinct design elements of at least two of the bikes? And colored with the colors of two of the bikes?

 

Mostly in regards to being the same size as Ratchet. And what "distinct design elements" are we talking about here? I see the purple bike's back-spikes, and that's it. Just because one of the spikes is colored blue, and the face looks different in two shots at different distances doesn't mean it can only be the combined form.

 

Oh, yeah, we've lost the other image, sorry - in the first image, the robot's entire right arm is lifted wholesale from the concept art of the Arcee sister, while it's left arm is the laser sword from the Flareup sister's art. (And yet, the arm that comes from the Arcee sister is the arm that would be blue in the second image! I won't deny that the coloring is screwed up!)

 

Okay, I'll concede that you may be right...

 

Okay, upon inspection, I can say with confidence that the robot illustrated in the comic is supposed to be the 3rd sister, extrapolated from this concept art. The images of them are the same, except flipped, and the comic version has Arcee's gun arm pasted and rotated on in place of Arcee herself.

 

I think the question is - was this piece of concept art created by sticking pieces of other art together? Because, the comic book art doesn't just look like Flareup - length of the sword not withstanding, the torso is a *direct lift* from this exact piece of art. So, unless the concept art was stuck together from other art, then the comic was drawn specifically based on this piece of combined art.

 

I... WHOA WHAT THE FUCK!?!? is anyone else seeing this picture?!
A..am I just imagining naked asian chicks, or have I been hacked!?