Cheetor joins the growing list of Kingdom characters to receive the Ken Christiansen concept art treatment.
What do you think of this bot mode and alt mode in comparison to the final products? Sound off on the 2005 boards!
by AzT under Generations / Classics
Cheetor joins the growing list of Kingdom characters to receive the Ken Christiansen concept art treatment.
What do you think of this bot mode and alt mode in comparison to the final products? Sound off on the 2005 boards!
AzT
ken_christiansen_art
Preview of some of the upcoming figures I got to help out on! Hopefully I'll be able to share concepts when these guys officially release. *note – I just did the earth mode retool concepts on Mirage and Sideswipe, not the originally release cybertronian modes.
Suboptimal Optimus
Now i know I've already deviated this thread with the Beast Wars character design wall of text 'essays' before (maybe I should rewrite this stuff and post it elsewhere?) but I want to bring up those pieces of maybe-fanart-maybe-concept-art (but if I am not mistaken it was just fan art) for a moment and why I believe they fail at parts of the BW aesthetic of the era, despite being very good designs.
These designs are almost there for the Transmetal look but they forgot to add the inverted organic elements except maybe on Scorponok, who is too blurry for me to tell. Tigatron looks amazing and while I'd buy such a figure in a heartbeat, it still doesn't work as an era-accurate Transmetal because it lack this clash of color and weird inside out robot mode. All it would need is tiger fur of another, clashing color such as orange or beige for the chest and it would be closer to the design on Transmetal Cheetor. Blackarachnia is cool (beast and 'vehicle' mode are perfect) and clearly went for a 'sexy' design inspired by her Beast Machines look but its not quite there. The idea is neat but innacurate to Transmetals, meaning her organic part shouldn't look human-like but rather like gross spider parts. Admittedly likely very curvaceous and sexy spider parts, but still a spider nonetheless. Finally these admittedly quite good designs are missing a key element of Transmetals and that is where the splash of weird color is the vacuum metal flakes. Tigatron lacks this entirely and Blackarachnia and Scoroponok do have a color that COULD have been that nice shiny metal (gold for Blackarachnia and green for Scorponok) but they are placed on the arachnid limbs which would likely not be a good place for it on a toy, as the vacuumized metal is generaly not on limbs, especially not a place which would be a contact point with the ground.
PolyWraith
That is hottt hahaha.
Actually, that is really cool concept art. I've seen one or two of those early concepts recently and was very impressed. I mean even the coloration on those is just super neat. Wouldn't that be wild if we actually got a figure or two based on early FD concept art?
Suboptimal Optimus
Star Wars was a big inspiration to The Movie (well, inspiration is putting it mildly) but I think the guy was clearly drawing inspiration from similar sources of science fiction overall. His stuff remind me of the same old golden age of pulp and early cinema. Got a big Metropolis or old pulp comic cover vibe.
Edit: Here, have an early draft of what would become Ultra Magnus that Dery ended upusing as inspiration for Orion Pax.
PolyWraith
Cool. I'd say a lot of the Floro Dery designs are very "Darth Vader" (esp Galvatron and Orion Pax) and am guessing Floro liked Star Wars, or at the very very least, was inspired by the same artwork and design that the SW concept artists were inspired by.
Scorpio
At this stage kind of wish Kingdom was an animated series, with the lack of the trailer I'm concerned they are holding off as the line is potentially doing better without Kingdom to potentially stain the legacy of Beast Wars that is contributing to a lot of the sales.
Lmao
Suboptimal Optimus
It's a joke Jobby the Hong made in reference to how Masterpiece figures these days got a nasty habit of tucking away a humongous amount of hideous jumbled kibble, ruining the figure's silhouette form any angle other than the front.
ScorponokIsHere
………yikes
Suboptimal Optimus
Hah. Jobby The Hong Reference…
Verno
I do indeed. In a franchise that's entire premise is 'one thing can be two things', is it too much to think that the designers could have taken what is quite a large piece of plastic and get it to do something else? You know, it "transforms" a bit to help reduce the kibble (and show off the nice spine piece underneath) and improve Dinobot's iconic accessory.
#BackLivesMatter
Suboptimal Optimus
Since I brought up the Season 1-2 G1 versus The Movie/Season 3/Floro Dery design, I may as well discuss those too in the context of character design:
I think an important aspect of early Transformers design is that they were pre-existing, being the Japanese-designed Diaclone and Microman figures primarily. They were very robotic, cubic designs that just scream 'robot' or in some cases a very cubic and hard-line super robot from Japan. A lot of these character designs got simplified and streamlined during the Marvel Comics run and Sunbow cartoon which created what I consider the iconic Transformers look. In that era, everything was hard shape and geometric lines and what they turned into were mostly realistic objects or vehicles.
Floro Dery's Movie/S3 designs (by that I mean those he had a lot more input creating as opposed to adapting!) are quite a departure by comparison and have a style I'd almost call retro-futuristic and humanizing. Transformers sporting human faces were nothing new, but they always stood out a bit from the otherwise mechanical body. Floro's designs love smoother curves giving his robots a very retro-scifi or almost 'raygun' or comic book-esque designs. Its hard to put into word so this post will include images down the line. There's a lot more ovals and arches in his design whereas these were way less present in the Diaclone designs. Looking at designs like Hot Rod/Rodimus, Kup, Orion Pax, Ariel and Galvatron (which if I am not mistaken he worked on) give them a more rocket age scifi look as well as some odd humanizing touches. It seem a lot of his robots have colors and the geometry of their arms and legs implies almost a mimicry of human clothing that just isn't there in the old Diaclone cuboids. They are less robotic and more 'big metal people'. Paradoxically to this metal people look he seem to love weird button, panels and planes on his robots just to add detail like Galvatron's robo-abs looking like buttons, contrasting with clearly a design meant to evoke a belt and trouser/trunks.
Then there is the alt mode, which are all space age vehicles and not remotely realistic but rather retro scifi too. But I didn't need to bring it up as that is obvious.
PolyWraith
@Suboptimal Optimus Ah yes…I had the OO toy back in the day, but I'd forgotten about those lil black chunks. Definitely molded fur. Cool!
Suboptimal Optimus
I think had Beast Machine figures been design better and more coherently that they could have looked way better. Their beast mode, in my opinion, are excellent: a well balanced fusion of the organic and mechanical. Not an artificially induced fusion of their original season 1 forms or a forced mutation of Transmetals but a true fusion down at the cellular level. Excellent concept marred by weird toy designs, bad engineering and an art style many find grotesque.
As for Optimal Optimus: go look at pics of his original figure and not the Titanium or POTP version. Those black spots have molded fur. Its just very hard to see in most lights in photo and just a thing you need to see for yourself on the toy. Its very subtle but its there.
PolyWraith
Very compelling, to think about Beast-era bodies actually being an upgrade. Ideas like the whole "using food instead of energon" advancement (from a comic I haven't read) give a lot of potential to BW characters. Very cool.
I don't like Floro's character's color schemes, but I do like the smoother aesthetic he brought to the table a lot. Someone should share some of their thoughts on his character designs, too.
Love this.
Color contrast between the modes is one of my top five favorite aspects of BW bot design. I absolutely love the contrast you see on Cheetor and Terrorsaur (in the show) and I especially love the red on Polar Claw and Ironhide's toys.
Also:
Suboptimal Optimus
Ayup: Obscure Transformers Website – Other Files
BigRed
Finding out that BW's toyline's art style was inspired by manga like Guyver is eye opening. Lots of the sculpts in BW, specially the first two years, look straight out of that series and it's very fun.
Suboptimal Optimus
So yeah, BW designs: in my opinion a lot more unique than people give them credit. Its not just G1-with-fleshy bits!
PolyWraith
Don't stop @Suboptimal Optimus !! You are speaking my language!
Suboptimal Optimus
Continuing my analysis of Beast-era designs, for fun:
Suboptimal Optimus
Yes but the key visual difference of the Beast Era-characters is a bit more subtle and lie in the robot mode which I believe some of the modern redesigns slightly miss the cues on such as the Forged to Fight design or some of the IDW depictions. The difference isn't immediately notable at first as you may look to a BW character and "Well, what's so different from G1 beside the fleshy animal parts?". The difference is more subtle but it is well known if you read up on the interviews and concept designs of BW as a toyline. Guyver and the legendary HR Giger were discussed in those concept stages, with the robot mode of Maximals and Predacons being more subtle organic.
Yes, on a surface the BW characters share a similar design and body shape as Autobot and Decepticons, looking like a robot partially made of/wearing the parts of its alternate form but the difference is on the exposed robot parts. They are more detailed, either smooth with organic curves (BW Megatron) or interlaced with detailed and complex mechanical parts (Rattrap) or a bit of both (Dinobot and Rhinox come to mind). Another key element of early BW designs are contrasting colors, with the robot mode being a color which is different from the Beast Mode and help further delineate both modes while also forming a cohesive and pleasant whole through color contrast. So Optimus Primal, for example, has the grey-black fur of his ape form complimented by the navy blue Optimus-esque helmet and the white and red parts of his exposed robot mode. Only a few BW characters have robot mode parts the same color as their beast mode, such as Waspinator or Blackarachnia (and I'm talking show model here, toys are a different story). Transformers changing their palette in different form is nothing new (see: Sideswipe gaining more white in robot mode versus a solid red and black car mode) but BW did it a lot more even if early figures had some unflattering kibble.
I think Beast Wars design cues become more distinct when you put them aside a G1 character with a beast mode, such as Dinobots and Predacons or the Decepticon headmasters. At the same time however they are not a complete break from the art style of Transformers, merely a variation. I think this is why, by comparison, Beast Machine designs were a lot weirder and disliked.
Edit: Of course, once you go past the first two years of the toyline and season 1 of the show, you get into even crazier and unique styles, like the variations of Transmetal (1, 2 and the one-off 'super' of Optimal Optimus) and Fuzor. In fact, Optimal Optimus, my favorite design as one can tell from my username) is the design which push the further the BW stylings to their limit by going back to many G1 cues. It is the closest to a G1-styled 'mechanimal' like the Dinobots and Predacons.