Artist Ken Christiansen, via his social media channels, have shared images of his concept art of the Transformers War For Cybertron Kingdom Rhinox.
We have images of Rhinox robot mode from back, front and side plus the big rhino beast mode. As usual, these are early ideas that were modified to make a fully transformable figure, but they give us a good perspective of the creative process involved with this toy.
See the images after the jump and then sound off on the 2005 Boards!
grindcore138
It's just part of the design process, there's not really anything to get. "You know what a rhino looks like, you know what Rhinox looks like, make a new Rhinox" isn't exactly helpful direction for the people that work on creating the actual toy.
BLOODRAGED189
Seems like they could just use the show or the Thrilling 30 figure lmao, at least to me this just seems like fan art of the character that has little to do with any particular figure of them. Maybe I just don't have a keen enough eye to tell apart different takes on "modernized" aesthetics though.
I didn't read the whole thread, but it seems like mostly people pointed out that it was a drawing of a rhinoceros, I'm talking about the robot mode. Maybe there are elements it specifically shares with the final toy ("make sure you add a lot of detail on this part" or something) or something, but I don't see them. Either way, I have no complaints about artists getting paid for work. I don't think it's a bad thing, I just don't get it.
SPLIT LIP
Odd considering how many times it's been explained in this thread and every other thread.
JomasterII
As someone who's done concept art in the past, LITERALLY THIS.
Novaxmaximal
good art, for which is in my opinion the best rhinox
Verno
Cool art, taking some heavy cues from the wonderful T30 design.
It's a shame the toy designers shat the bed with the actual figure.
Houndini
The concept art is just to give designers a basis to work off of, hence "concept."
BLOODRAGED189
I will never understand these pieces of "concept art", they don't even look like a toy let alone the toy we ended up getting. It would make sense if it were an original character or an original version of a character, but the Beast Wars ones looks just as much like the cartoon as they do these concepts.
PloverNutter
So it's his fault the Kingdom Rhinox head is so off. For some reason they copied the head in this art exactly but ignored almost everything else.
JT-bob
The art looks great, but zero consideration of how to execute that beast mode into that bot mode with the tiny beast legs becoming the massive bot limbs. The bot art really hits it out of the park for me, a lot of the ideas were re-interpreted when taken to reality and they didn't translate as well because some things only look good drawn. The drawing from the back is outstanding, if Hasbro could have executed that, it would have been mind-blowing. I like the figure we got, but it does feel like they took the wrong messages away from the concept art.
MadMaximus
And yet they decided to go with this designView attachment 29412457
PolyWraith
I actually think Rhinox was a bad design from the very start (meaning, 1996).
Mainframe gave him a reeaally good head but overall (1) he's a bland bot, colorwise, and (2) seems like beastformer design is tough enough, but the designers might have tried a little too hard on Rhinox. His first toy was a shellformer when there probably was simpler ways to do it. I look at Polar Claw and TM Rhinox, big and chunky in both modes but no shellforming. And no Rhinox toy has been made since that gets his legs right. The overall engineering and design of his transformation just seems to work against both his modes. I'm not a toy designer but that's my observation.
You don't see those same issues with Primal or Rattrap or Megatron toys. Even most Fuzors have interesting transformations that work really well, and their designs hold up in toy, illustration, and animated forms. Some BW toys were designed well (transformation, build, color scheme) from the start, others weren't.
To me, Rhinox just wasn't a standout design from the BW line and that still shows. Rhinox looks so amazing in boxart / illustrations (as evidenced by this Instagram post), but his toys come out funky and his animation model was the most boring looking Maximal on the team (although his character and personality made up for it obvs). I want Rhinox too look good and be fun as a toy, but I don't think it's truly happened yet.
Hopefully I don't sound ranty, just been thinking this for a while and wanted to put these thoughts out there. Playing the contrarian a little bit and wondering if anyone feels similarly, etc.
Bass X0
Ah, yes. This is the quality artwork I wanted from a modern Beast Wars comic. Can you imagine?
BWIguanusfan2
I love the chunk and the beef of this rhino, its unfortunate it the went with a blander, more like his og toy, take but what we got was pretty ok.
Pandacron
I don't get how it's always supposed to be the independent concept artist to blame for the final toy not looking like you wanted. Surely some responsibility must lie with the brand manager, design team leaders, numerous designers, engineers, and sculptors working under them, in a process involving tons of back-and-forth to settle on details.
But sure, blame the guy who literally just got told by Hasbro "draw us a Rhinox to pin on our board" and then dared post on Instagram.
Houndini
I'm glad they changed the robot mode around a bit in the final product, I hate the narrow jaw/chestplate that was on T30, and for some reason this concept art has it too. Only thing I wish was kept is the color, Kingdom Rhinox looks great, but I would have preferred a richer green like on this art to make him pop even more.
Is there anything in the forum rules about spam? I am so tired of seeing this horribly unfunny joke in every fucking thread.
G1 Grimlock
Brain and the Brawn
Trevor Belmont
So, who's to blame for Rhinox' 14 Rhino toes in Robot mode? Emiliano Santalucia (T30 concept art) or Ken Christianson? I blame Ken more because it's hard to tell if Emiliano really drew 4 or 3 toes for each Rhino foot. Still, Ken didn't contribute much to the T30 art except making it worse with its dumb toe error.
Now I'm really impressed with the toy designers of Kingdom Rhinox. They made an amazing toy! The only one who fucked up is Ken. Mostly the head and toe issue, the lazyness and weird beast mode. Man, even I could've done better
bellpeppers
Yup.
Looks like Rhinox alright.
Stuck with my T30 tho.