How would you like to see the Transformers faces animated in the upcoming movie? Keep in mind that it will have to look realistic enough to not be out of place with the rest of the bot. I thought that the smooth and flexible looking faces in the cartoons and comics wouldn't translate well to live action (no Terminator 2 Transformers, please!). ...But what about if the face was comprised of really thin pieces of inflexible metal that slid back and forth on top of each other? Hopefully my drawings below give you some kind of idea of what I'm talking about. You can see that the pieces that slide over the static eye lense could convey emotion that we'd want the bots to show. I wouldn't want the seam lines to show up that much though... Since the face would all be one color, you might only see the seams in certain lighting. I think that would be nifty? What do you guys think? Any better ideas?
I suspect they may do something like that for close-up robot faces. The use of 'flexible CGI faces' never bugged me much when used in Beast Wars/Machines. the flexible CGI robot bodies did get on my believability nerves from time to time though.
i say go with mimetic poly alloy: liquid metal. seriously, go with the BW style. those worked okay. plus, we need to emphasize that the TFs are actually a lot like human despite being robots. human-like facial expression would reinforce that.