On Twitter, Transformers artist extraordinaire Nick Roche has shared some concept artwork that he did for Hasbro. This concept artwork is for the Autobot Sandstorm, which was used for the Generations Sandstorm toy. Check out the tweet with the cool artwork that inspired one of the best Voyager Class toys of the year so far! And check out our site gallery to see how the concept compared with the final version.
Tman978
Wow. That is really really close. The gun is damn near identical.
JetBrawn
The toy head was the perfect melding of G1 toy and cartoon, with lots of molding details carried over from the toy.
lucas maximus
my friend, i do not think this word means what you think it means….
i don't know what you're talking about. i've transformed springer and sandstorm tons of times and not even a hint of breakage. just because it happened to your dotm toy doesn't mean it'll happen to others with a similar transformation. stop telling people this toy's going to break when it hasn't even happened to your springer or anyone else's as far as we know.
nice art by the way. hopefully we do get an appropriate head soon. headrobots' plate is full so maybe venksta or beelzeboss sometime soon?
Bumblethumper
Last Stand of the Wreckers came out in early 2010, so Hasbro presumably had plenty of Springer material to work from by the time this got the go ahead.
I still say Sandstorm is as mediocre as Springer is exceptional.
Electro Rush
Me too, largely for the same reasons. I love the Springer toy so much but the Sandstorm just isn't doing it for me when I see it on the shelf.
JDK
I haven't heard of this problem anywhere, and I haven't had it myself. The tabs you're referring to have worn down a little bit, but I think you have an exceptional case. But I could be absolutely dead wrong! I'm not trying to argue at all, I just don't want someone who's excited about these figures to cut them up out of the box and end up with floppy legs.
ironscythe
Be advised, the joints that fold their lower legs in half WILL break unless you shave the edges off the angles (you will see what I mean when you get them). It's the same engineering as Nitro Bumblebee from DOTM, and I don't know about anyone else's experience with the toy, but mine lost his shins after the 20th transformation. The plastic around the pin-hinges mid-shin could not handle the stress of snapping across their own angled surfaces. I took preemptive measures to make sure this didn't happen to Springer.
Also, I am reserved about Sandstorm. He seems very cluttered and top-heavy compared to Springer, and his legs are just skinny without the wheels to fill them in.
DecepticusPrime
so thats why sandstorms tail piece pegs into his back in a standing position…which looks completely derpy on the toy but makes a bit more sense now..
SPLIT LIP
Pure awesome.
I want Springer and Sandstorm so bad.
Lumpy
it does.
RedAlert Rescue
A gun of that shape might fill in a gap on the nose of the Helicopter quite well.
If you squint a bit the general shape seems quite suited to Transformers Animated.
Lumpy
totally.
woah, what? that's even more awesome. Love both of those toys so much, and now I love them even more. I love seeing design sketches like this.
artiepants
I really, really like Nick's work when he draws less cartoony like that.
Raiju
I'm sure some enterprising 3P (HeadRobots, Beezleboss, Dr. Wu, etc.) will give us an add-on kit to make Sandstorm look more IDW-ish.
That said, cool drawing!
MegaDolrailer
Always found it ironic how us getting a LSOTW Springer resulted in us getting a Sandstorm that's not the LSOTW design, but cool nonetheless!
Ra88
Veeery cool. So good it outshines an already brilliant remold in fact.
Kaijumaster
Very nice, though I would have preferred the face masked version from LSOTW
mattwhite924
Don't forget that it seems that Springer was based off these images, instead of the other way around. It's crazy how well this turned out for both characters.
JetFormers
Really, really cool.
General Tekno
It really is pretty cool seeing just how much of this design is in the final toy despite engineering changes, like the wheels on the legs becoming fake wheel detailing.