This week we have a really amazing selection of new Bumblebee Movie concept art courtesy of ILM artist Stephen Zavala via his Instagram account.
We can share for you concept art and sketches of several characters seen in the epic Cybertron battle in the movie. We will add Mr Zavala’s comments for each art which reveal interesting details about the creative process and design of each character:
- Brawn By Stephen Zavala – It was really fun designing this guy for the movie (and the one who gave me the least headaches). Amazing work by the whole crew that brought the Cybertron sequence to life. We literally only had a couple of months to develop that epic intro. Hope you dig!
- Wheeljack By Stephen Zavala – Opposite to Brawn, this was the troublesome one. It was the first I designed (mostly cause it was a specific Travis Knight request). Originally it had a different head (which I hate, seriously why I made it super small?) but Alex Jaeger and Thang Le fixed it and looks way more awesome in the end! I remember trying to explain the chest car piece in Cybertron terms and then I was like, this is Transformers, there’s no need for such explanations, don’t think to much about it, just go with it. Hope u dig!
- Ironhide By Stephen Zavala – Because we were so short on time we decided to use Ironhide clones to populate the scene, only with different heads and color schemes to suggest other Transformer Soldiers. Ratchet is literally the same but with a white color paint job and a slightly different helmet. Even though I did Ironhide first and became the basis for the Autobots army, he went to become more of a BG characters and Ratchet took his place as the first Transformer we see on screen. Alex Jaeger did the final details on this character giving him a more interesting head and detailed chest piece.
- Ratchet By Stephen Zavala – Which is basically Ironhide so not much to say besides that!
- Arcee By Stephen Zavala – My fav character to work on. Funny how in the cartoon all female characters look very anthropomorphic compared to the male transformers (a product of their time after all) so this was my attempt on making her really feel like a robot trying to retain the main elements that made the character recognizable from the original design. And as you all know I hate heels on female character designs just for the sake of it, so of course I avoided the lazy trope on this one too. There’s a pretty fun story behind her inclusion for this movie but that is a tale for another day.
- Shockwave By Stephen Zavala – Gosh did I love working on this guy. As always tried to retain the essence of the original G1 design. A lot of you have been asking how I did this. It’s mostly painting and photos here and there. I didn’t have a lot of time (Shockwave was approved literally in around 2-3 days after a couple of iterations) so there was no time to fool around with crazy 3D models. I’ll see if I can do a little video or something to show how these were done.
- Ravage By Stephen Zavala – A collab piece with @karl.lindberg this weird wolf/cat looked amazing on screen when coming out from Soundwave’s chest. The compact cassette version was developed by Alex Jaeger too. Fun character to develop! This one also has a funny story behind its inclusion but again that is a story for another day! Hope you dig and be sure to check out Karl’s work!
Thanks to all our 2005 Boards members who shared the images in our forums. You can also check out our previous round ups Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7. Click on the bar to see all the images after the jump and then sound off on the 2005 Boards!
Digger
Yeah that’s so cool. I love that kind of panel hair thing.
MindChamber
Im digging Ravages whisker like panels, in that last shot
Venixion
Round? Sure. I can see round. Toys having loose limbs and not being able to stand properly? Sure, I get that too. But flabby implies fat and loose muscle definition and robots can't get fat to my knowledge.
Dark Prime
Venixion
I know what the word means, but I'm not sure how it can apply to a robot.
Digger
Bulky yeah but not fat.
Dark Prime
bulky, fatty
Venixion
Flabby? I'm not sure what you mean by that?
Dark Prime
It kinda felt like the G1, WFC/FOC and the Universe (2013) one
Body:G1
Detail:Cybertron
Paint Illustration: Universe
and these are some of my favorite versions of the character
Digger
Well at least it’s not like the final.
Dark Prime
the concept, its really flabby
Digger
Oh wow I see that as well.
BigRed
Those are Shatter's feet. Arcee was made out of Shatter's CGI model, you can see other Shatter parts on her cgi model like elbows and other internals.
Digger
Huh, never knew. Actually yeah cause it doesn’t look weird.
Unpronouncable Name
↑ that's why I love the Bayverse
ReadyParzivalOne
the only thing good that came out of this moive… these amazing designs
Venixion
Her feet kinda remind me of people who wear socks with their sandals/flip flops.
Lovecraft
Nobody is gonna mention that Arcee has the creepy Bayverse toes when pretty much everyone else has boots?
Venixion
And good distribution too!
*crosses fingers wishing and hoping*
@Capperclawed *cue Boomhauer tangent*
Capperclawed
Man, nothing says "these designs were g1 inspired" Quite like having Wheeljack be as wide as a goshdang barge