the renders in the last few posts are hardly HD. they are grainy and fuzzy in a few places on the images.
Speaking as someone who grew up with the Bay films, it really depends on the design for me, I actually prefer some of the G1-inspired designs in BBM. For Soundwave I vastly preferred his BBM model because his DOTM model was so bland in colouration and design to me that he could easily pass off as another genericon (his ROTF model was fine actually, but was still in a boring grey colouration). Maybe if Bayverse Soundwave in DOTM had the iconic blue colouration or the shoulder cannon or even just a mouthplate I wouldn't have minded it, but to me DOTM Soundwave is among the worst of the Bayverse designs, as it's busy and boring. Ditto with Starscream, though at least Bay's Screamer is distinctive enough as a triangle-shaped mess and isn't as bland to look at as Bay's Soundwave in DOTM. For Optimus, as much as I like his design in the first three Bay movies, I also preferred the BBM design as he actually looks and feels strong, how rounded out the edges on his design, as well as his face looks better IMO. As much as I like ROTF's Ravage design, BBM's Ravage design wins out to me, especially with the head and how much more menacing he looks. For Shockwave it's a sidegrade to me, I do actually enjoy both designs, maybe except that they should tweak his arm cannon so that his barrel would be larger. I do like how Arcee looks in BBM better overall, just her proportions should (and hopefully by the sequel, will) be tweaked a bit. Ditto for Wheeljack, though with Que's design in DOTM the bar wasn't set high to begin with. For Ratchet and Ironhide....Yeah I do prefer the Bayverse designs for them overall, as those two were some of the best designs in the Bayverse in my opinion. That being said, the BBM designs for them are growing on me (Hopefully in BBM 2 Ratchet wouldn't just be a clone of Ironhide design-wise).
Reading the artist's comments and referring to the bottom image, he says this was designed before a director was attached to the film. Thank Primus for Travis Knight saving us from that.
That's such a weird-looking design. Even by Bay aesthetic standards. Bay's designs can look cluttery, but at least they tend to look consistent. This would probably look pretty good if the yellow pieces broke up into smaller parts, but they're too chunky in comparison to more detailed portions, like the face. I also don't get why the face is so over-detailed. I guess they were trying to incorporate G1 elements, but they're not well-incorporated. It's like they just slapped stuff over the existing 3D model instead of going in and altering it. I'm curious if this was ever seriously considered, or if it was just a "proof of concept" type thing. Considering he was only given three days to work on this design, I would guess it was never seriously considered.
IMO it just doesn't seem to work, is like it's trying to blend the agressive design of Bay's era bee with the roundness of the beetle, it just doesn't seem to match, they could've gone with a different body type ala Skids, then evolving into the more muscular body that he had at the beginning of the first movie, if they kept the B. Procter designs. This one just seems to bulky for a beetle, like you just don't know where the mass came from
Had some of my Pacific Rim 2 figures out and realized a shitload of assets and parts are reused/modified from the Jaegers of that movie on the Cybertron scene guys. As if it wasn't obvious that they were all but throwaway cameos, the fact that I can almost identify each piece used shows they really threw these guys together. Be really interesting to see if any of these characters return in a future film, and what they'll look like with wholly original designs.
Aside from OP/Bee and the seekers, I'd really prefer it if they did some new, more complex-looking designs. The Cybertron scene works well for what it is and the time they had, but upon closer inspection the designs are pretty lazy.
That's exactly what they want. Seriously. Like, I have no problem with G1 or homages, but guys... common, evolving is part of life!
