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(ZMFTS) Zob's Huge Collection of TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE Style Generic Background Character Profiles
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Zobovor
Apr 24, 2012, 2:10:40 AM4/24/12
to
So, as many of you no doubt know, I'm a big fan of the generic
background characters of the G1 cartoon. While a lot of people just
dismiss them as animation mistakes and pretend they don't exist, I
embrace these characters and celebrate them, coming up with new names
and personalities for them and trying to puzzle out what role they
might play in the cartoon universe. When possible, I've immortalized
some of these guys in three-dimensional form as Heroes of Cybertron
figures or, rarely, as repaints of G1 toys, but this isn't always
practical and there are a lot of really interesting background
characters I've never really done anything with, due mainly because
there was never a PVC figure made for them.
Well, about a year ago I started documenting a lot of these guys,
systematically naming them and fleshing out TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE
style profiles for them. I had some tentative plans to do full-blown
profiles for them, complete with illustrations, but my timing was bad
and this idea happened right when I was in the middle of switching
computers, and the new operating system made it impossible for me to
run my old, familiar image editing software. Well, I've spent enough
time with Adobe Photoshop now that I finally felt comfortable taking
on this huge project, scanning and splicing and editing and coloring
Transformers animation models for almost 30 different background
characters. There are a couple of characters from Marvel Comics in
there, too.
All of these guys make valid appearances in the cartoon, though of
course since we typically only see them in one mode or the other, I
had to do a little guesswork as to what they might look like when they
were transformed. The rules of the game were that a) I couldn't
violate what we actually see on the screen; b) I based the colors of
the transformed-mode on the character whose colors were originally
used; c) I allowed myself a smalll amount of creative license for the
modes we didn't actually see. (Some years ago, I had done some much
older, hand-colored models based on some of these background
characters, and I disagree with some of the choices I made even back
then. So, the way I look at these guys continues to evolve.)
What I'd like from you guys is to look at this as fan fiction, carving
out some time to sit down, read the profiles, and tell me what you
think. Which characters are your favorites? Which ones do you not
really care for? Which ones would you want to see as Hasbro toys?
What I'd probably rather not do is argue with you guys about the color
choices I made, since I'm sure some of this stuff is open to
interpretation. I just did what felt right and made sense to me,
based on how the animation models were designed and how the Hasbro
toys functioned.
The link is here:
http://zobovor.tripod.com/tfu_revisited.html
And now, a few notes about each character, because they are all my
babies and I am a doting father. However, if you feel you need to
choose between reading this and reading the profiles themselves,
please read the profiles. Or, conversely, don't read them and just
look at the pretty pictures. Even though, you know, I spent all that
time on them and everything.
Anyway.
Backbreaker is a Soundwave-colored-like-Reflector from "More Than
Meets the Eye" part 2. I hadn't noticed him until a couple of months
ago, otherwise I probably would have done a PVC figure of him. I was
trying to come up with a function for this character that had yet to
be filled, and I liked the idea of a no-nonsense combat trainer, sort
of a Sgt. Slaughter for the Decepticons.
Ballistic is an Onslaught-colored-like-Metroplex from "Five Faces of
Darkness" part 3. (I discovered him years ago and was calling him
Maul-Rat for a while, sort of a reference to Metroplex being an
oversized shopping center, but I wanted the character to have a more
serious-sounding name.) There are probably enough miscolored
Combaticons to make an entire team of them, so I created a fictional
team called the Invadicons, which also includes Mad Dog and
Whirlybird.
Bouncer is, of course, the miscolored Springer from the third season
opening titles. (In AKOM's defense, Springer really does look a lot
like Kup.) It was a silly placeholder name that I decided to roll
with and made him the literal "bouncer" for Autobot City. I
deliberately made him a somewhat more powerful character, since a lot
of the movie-era Autobots tended to have inflated tech specs stats,
and there had to be *some* reason why he got to lead the charge with
Rodimus Prime and Ultra Magnus every time the show started.
Breakneck is one of the miscolored Sweeps from "Five Faces of
Darkness" who shares a color scheme with Breakdown. How the animators
could mistake a Sweep for a Stunticon is beyond me, but there you go.
I wrote up a piece of fan fiction called "Exile" in which the ghosts
from the Decepticon crypt imprint upon some of the Sweeps and other
Decepticons and, in the process, transmute their colors. My rationale
is that each of the differently-colored Sweeps took on some of the
characteristics of the Decepticons they now resemble. Breakneck was
just a name that helped me to remember that he was the "Breakdown
Sweep" so I decided that he must travel at breakneck speeds.
Compass is a Trailbreaker-colored-like-Gears. He's in a scene with a
whole slew of miscolored Autobots—Optimus Prime in Sideswipe's colors,
Hound colored like Ironhide, etc. In the defense of the animators,
the characters are drawn very small and we see them all from the
back. To me, there's a reason why these background characters don't
show up too often, so in the case of Compass, he's a wilderness junkie
who probably got lost in the forest and eaten by a bear or something.
Deadbeat is a character from the comics, appearing on the cover of
issue #41 in that huge battle scene. He's drawn like Red Alert, but
we all know that Red Alert was never featured in the original Marvel
Comics version of TRANSFORMERS, so it's obviously somebody else
entirely. There are so many heroic Autobot types that I wanted to
turn that on its ear and come up with a character who's basically a
total loser. And yeah, I know that a Red Alert colored like Sideswipe
is...well, basically Sideswipe, but the characters are drawn
differently so that makes him kind of interesting. Also, I made him
orange to reflect Marvel's color pallette.
Earsplitter is another Sweep, this one colored like Soundwave. Many
years ago, I did a digital repaint of the Scourge toy in this color
scheme and pretended to post him for sale on eBay in a gag that
probably only Derik Smith fully appreciated. Unfortunately, I think
he just ended up as a mix of Blaster and Brawl. There are a lot of
official characters out there and it's hard to avoid stepping on one
of them sometimes.
Eye Spy is a miscolored Chromedome that's kind of hard to spot, since
Pointblank is right behind him in the scene, and the animators just
sort of colored both of them the same color as some sort of weird
amalgam of a vehicle. I really enjoyed creating the character and his
Headmaster partner, but putting his profile together was tough since
the Chromedome model I had from IDW's The Ark was a retouched version
with some really thick pen lines, so I did a lot of tweaking to it.
Fearmonger is a Sweep colored like Dirge. There are lots and lots of
generic characters colored like Dirge for some reason—there's one
designed like Cyclonus, another like Starscream, yet another like
Soundwave...hard to keep up with 'em all.
Finish Line is a Beachcomber colored like Wildrider from "Five Faces
of Darkness" part 5. I had fun writing his character but on a visual
level, he's so boring. I hate the color grey.
Flightplan is a flying Constructicon! Specifically, one from "The
Rebirth" part 1 that shares a design with Scattershot. He appears
with the other Constructicons so he's obviously a new member of the
team. I decided that he could serve as a weapons platform for
Devastator (the Scattershot toy is really big, nearly as tall as
Computron, so this could work with the toys, too).
Freefall is the "Wildrider Sweep" from "Five Faces of Darkness."
Again, boring. Grey.
Gnaw-Jaw was one of the guys that got me excited about this project.
He's a Headmaster Horrorcon but he's decked out in this amazingly
bright and cheerful yellow color scheme (he's Apeface colored like
Sureshot). I love everything about him—the colors, the profile I
wrote, and his Headmaster partner.
Gunpoint is the name I gave to the Decepticon from HEADMASTERS #1 who
looks like Fasttrack, the little vehicle for Scorponok, even though
he's colored like Optimus Prime. You don't get a color scheme like
that by accident, so clearly he thinks he's very important.
Mad Dog is the guy from "Surprise Party" who looks like Swindle but is
colored like Hound. His name is a silly canine joke. (I think for a
while I was maybe calling him Dogpound.)
Meltdown is the Hot Spot colored like Ultra Magnus from the very end
of "Ghost in the Machine." I made sure to play up all the things that
his toy can do in his profile write-up.
Nightwatch is the Prowl colored like Bluestreak from The Transformers:
the Movie. Yeah, I know, same toy, but the two characters are
designed differently, so putting a Bluestreak color scheme on a police
car makes it kind of interesting. Well, maybe not.
Payback is the Sweep colored like Swindle. I just wrote his profile
recently because somehow he slipped through the cracks when I was
creating these guys last year.
Pictureshow is a Reflector team who is colored like Starscream. We
see him briefly in "More Than Meets the Eye" part 2, a little tiny
Starscream-colored robot right next to the full-sized Starscream.
There's something really fun about a wrong-colored Reflector to me,
for some reason.
Potshot is that grey-colored Shockwave from the "Five Faces of
Darkness" opening titles. I've never been able to precisely identify
the color scheme they used for him—it reminds me of Megatron, but
Megatron didn't have a black helmet or a blue window in his chest. I
really don't know.
Powerhouse is a fun little discovery I made somewhat recently—Rumble
colored like Brawn! And yes, his tech specs function is a horrible
joke, but I couldn't help myself.
Razorfang is the Skullcruncher-colored-like-Weirdwolf from "The
Rebirth" part 2. He took a little more effort than usual since The
Ark supplied only his Japanese animation model, not his Sunbow one, so
I actually scanned Skullcruncher's TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE and undid the
embellishing to the line art to try to come up with a clean drawing of
him. It's not perfect, but it worked for my purposes.
Red Eye is the Reflector-colored-like-Ironhide from The Transformers:
the Movie, the one that people always assume *is* Ironhide. It's not,
though. Also, I think he looks really cool. I want a toy of this
guy.
Reels wasn't on my list of characters I wanted to do, but I threw him
in at the last minute. He's the Autobot cassette from "Five Faces of
Darkness" part 5 who is designed like Eject/Rewind but colored like
Frenzy. In the style of some of the other smaller 1986 Autobots, I
made him a complete mental case.
Salvage makes a technical appearance on the show, as Long Haul's foot
miscolored as Grimlock's foot. He's from "Five Faces of Darkness"
part 1 and watches Motormaster give up his last spare energon cube.
Speed Demon is a guy who worked better in concept than execution.
There's a purple-colored Sideswipe in "Divide and Conquer," and I
figured those aren't normal Autobot colors, so I made him an ex-
Decepticon. I followed Shockwave's color scheme pretty faithfully but
he turned out rather ugly. Which is a shame, since he's a purple
Lamborghini, something that would have filled me with joy at age ten.
Stampede is that Tantrum-colored-like-Headstrong from "Five Faces of
Darkness" part 2. I think perhaps the other Predacons use him as an
emergency backup when one of them isn't available to form Predaking.
Sundown is a character who looks like Snarl but is colored like
Rodimus Prime, from "Five Faces of Darkness" part 3. He's also a
Decepticon, so I decided he was an ex-patriot Dinobot.
Warhead is a guy who looks like Optimus Prime but is colored like
Pinpointer or Spoilsport or somebody. He's completely ridiculous.
Since he appears with all the other guys who went to Nebulos, I
decided that he must have gone there as well and became a
Targetmaster. I envision a theoretical toy of this guy as a redeco of
Optimus Prime, probably without vacuum metalized parts, and using the
screw hole at the top of the truck cab to mount a Targetmaster weapon.
Whirlybird is the Vortex-colored-like-Blades from "The Rebirth" part
3. There's another miscolored Vortex in Octane's colors that I call
Spindive, who I might do later. There are still lots of generic
characters I haven't even touched yet, believe it or not. However,
I've been coloring models non-stop for, like, the past week, and I
really need to take a break now. It's hard work!
Zob
background characters of the G1 cartoon. While a lot of people just
dismiss them as animation mistakes and pretend they don't exist, I
embrace these characters and celebrate them, coming up with new names
and personalities for them and trying to puzzle out what role they
might play in the cartoon universe. When possible, I've immortalized
some of these guys in three-dimensional form as Heroes of Cybertron
figures or, rarely, as repaints of G1 toys, but this isn't always
practical and there are a lot of really interesting background
characters I've never really done anything with, due mainly because
there was never a PVC figure made for them.
Well, about a year ago I started documenting a lot of these guys,
systematically naming them and fleshing out TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE
style profiles for them. I had some tentative plans to do full-blown
profiles for them, complete with illustrations, but my timing was bad
and this idea happened right when I was in the middle of switching
computers, and the new operating system made it impossible for me to
run my old, familiar image editing software. Well, I've spent enough
time with Adobe Photoshop now that I finally felt comfortable taking
on this huge project, scanning and splicing and editing and coloring
Transformers animation models for almost 30 different background
characters. There are a couple of characters from Marvel Comics in
there, too.
All of these guys make valid appearances in the cartoon, though of
course since we typically only see them in one mode or the other, I
had to do a little guesswork as to what they might look like when they
were transformed. The rules of the game were that a) I couldn't
violate what we actually see on the screen; b) I based the colors of
the transformed-mode on the character whose colors were originally
used; c) I allowed myself a smalll amount of creative license for the
modes we didn't actually see. (Some years ago, I had done some much
older, hand-colored models based on some of these background
characters, and I disagree with some of the choices I made even back
then. So, the way I look at these guys continues to evolve.)
What I'd like from you guys is to look at this as fan fiction, carving
out some time to sit down, read the profiles, and tell me what you
think. Which characters are your favorites? Which ones do you not
really care for? Which ones would you want to see as Hasbro toys?
What I'd probably rather not do is argue with you guys about the color
choices I made, since I'm sure some of this stuff is open to
interpretation. I just did what felt right and made sense to me,
based on how the animation models were designed and how the Hasbro
toys functioned.
The link is here:
http://zobovor.tripod.com/tfu_revisited.html
And now, a few notes about each character, because they are all my
babies and I am a doting father. However, if you feel you need to
choose between reading this and reading the profiles themselves,
please read the profiles. Or, conversely, don't read them and just
look at the pretty pictures. Even though, you know, I spent all that
time on them and everything.
Anyway.
Backbreaker is a Soundwave-colored-like-Reflector from "More Than
Meets the Eye" part 2. I hadn't noticed him until a couple of months
ago, otherwise I probably would have done a PVC figure of him. I was
trying to come up with a function for this character that had yet to
be filled, and I liked the idea of a no-nonsense combat trainer, sort
of a Sgt. Slaughter for the Decepticons.
Ballistic is an Onslaught-colored-like-Metroplex from "Five Faces of
Darkness" part 3. (I discovered him years ago and was calling him
Maul-Rat for a while, sort of a reference to Metroplex being an
oversized shopping center, but I wanted the character to have a more
serious-sounding name.) There are probably enough miscolored
Combaticons to make an entire team of them, so I created a fictional
team called the Invadicons, which also includes Mad Dog and
Whirlybird.
Bouncer is, of course, the miscolored Springer from the third season
opening titles. (In AKOM's defense, Springer really does look a lot
like Kup.) It was a silly placeholder name that I decided to roll
with and made him the literal "bouncer" for Autobot City. I
deliberately made him a somewhat more powerful character, since a lot
of the movie-era Autobots tended to have inflated tech specs stats,
and there had to be *some* reason why he got to lead the charge with
Rodimus Prime and Ultra Magnus every time the show started.
Breakneck is one of the miscolored Sweeps from "Five Faces of
Darkness" who shares a color scheme with Breakdown. How the animators
could mistake a Sweep for a Stunticon is beyond me, but there you go.
I wrote up a piece of fan fiction called "Exile" in which the ghosts
from the Decepticon crypt imprint upon some of the Sweeps and other
Decepticons and, in the process, transmute their colors. My rationale
is that each of the differently-colored Sweeps took on some of the
characteristics of the Decepticons they now resemble. Breakneck was
just a name that helped me to remember that he was the "Breakdown
Sweep" so I decided that he must travel at breakneck speeds.
Compass is a Trailbreaker-colored-like-Gears. He's in a scene with a
whole slew of miscolored Autobots—Optimus Prime in Sideswipe's colors,
Hound colored like Ironhide, etc. In the defense of the animators,
the characters are drawn very small and we see them all from the
back. To me, there's a reason why these background characters don't
show up too often, so in the case of Compass, he's a wilderness junkie
who probably got lost in the forest and eaten by a bear or something.
Deadbeat is a character from the comics, appearing on the cover of
issue #41 in that huge battle scene. He's drawn like Red Alert, but
we all know that Red Alert was never featured in the original Marvel
Comics version of TRANSFORMERS, so it's obviously somebody else
entirely. There are so many heroic Autobot types that I wanted to
turn that on its ear and come up with a character who's basically a
total loser. And yeah, I know that a Red Alert colored like Sideswipe
is...well, basically Sideswipe, but the characters are drawn
differently so that makes him kind of interesting. Also, I made him
orange to reflect Marvel's color pallette.
Earsplitter is another Sweep, this one colored like Soundwave. Many
years ago, I did a digital repaint of the Scourge toy in this color
scheme and pretended to post him for sale on eBay in a gag that
probably only Derik Smith fully appreciated. Unfortunately, I think
he just ended up as a mix of Blaster and Brawl. There are a lot of
official characters out there and it's hard to avoid stepping on one
of them sometimes.
Eye Spy is a miscolored Chromedome that's kind of hard to spot, since
Pointblank is right behind him in the scene, and the animators just
sort of colored both of them the same color as some sort of weird
amalgam of a vehicle. I really enjoyed creating the character and his
Headmaster partner, but putting his profile together was tough since
the Chromedome model I had from IDW's The Ark was a retouched version
with some really thick pen lines, so I did a lot of tweaking to it.
Fearmonger is a Sweep colored like Dirge. There are lots and lots of
generic characters colored like Dirge for some reason—there's one
designed like Cyclonus, another like Starscream, yet another like
Soundwave...hard to keep up with 'em all.
Finish Line is a Beachcomber colored like Wildrider from "Five Faces
of Darkness" part 5. I had fun writing his character but on a visual
level, he's so boring. I hate the color grey.
Flightplan is a flying Constructicon! Specifically, one from "The
Rebirth" part 1 that shares a design with Scattershot. He appears
with the other Constructicons so he's obviously a new member of the
team. I decided that he could serve as a weapons platform for
Devastator (the Scattershot toy is really big, nearly as tall as
Computron, so this could work with the toys, too).
Freefall is the "Wildrider Sweep" from "Five Faces of Darkness."
Again, boring. Grey.
Gnaw-Jaw was one of the guys that got me excited about this project.
He's a Headmaster Horrorcon but he's decked out in this amazingly
bright and cheerful yellow color scheme (he's Apeface colored like
Sureshot). I love everything about him—the colors, the profile I
wrote, and his Headmaster partner.
Gunpoint is the name I gave to the Decepticon from HEADMASTERS #1 who
looks like Fasttrack, the little vehicle for Scorponok, even though
he's colored like Optimus Prime. You don't get a color scheme like
that by accident, so clearly he thinks he's very important.
Mad Dog is the guy from "Surprise Party" who looks like Swindle but is
colored like Hound. His name is a silly canine joke. (I think for a
while I was maybe calling him Dogpound.)
Meltdown is the Hot Spot colored like Ultra Magnus from the very end
of "Ghost in the Machine." I made sure to play up all the things that
his toy can do in his profile write-up.
Nightwatch is the Prowl colored like Bluestreak from The Transformers:
the Movie. Yeah, I know, same toy, but the two characters are
designed differently, so putting a Bluestreak color scheme on a police
car makes it kind of interesting. Well, maybe not.
Payback is the Sweep colored like Swindle. I just wrote his profile
recently because somehow he slipped through the cracks when I was
creating these guys last year.
Pictureshow is a Reflector team who is colored like Starscream. We
see him briefly in "More Than Meets the Eye" part 2, a little tiny
Starscream-colored robot right next to the full-sized Starscream.
There's something really fun about a wrong-colored Reflector to me,
for some reason.
Potshot is that grey-colored Shockwave from the "Five Faces of
Darkness" opening titles. I've never been able to precisely identify
the color scheme they used for him—it reminds me of Megatron, but
Megatron didn't have a black helmet or a blue window in his chest. I
really don't know.
Powerhouse is a fun little discovery I made somewhat recently—Rumble
colored like Brawn! And yes, his tech specs function is a horrible
joke, but I couldn't help myself.
Razorfang is the Skullcruncher-colored-like-Weirdwolf from "The
Rebirth" part 2. He took a little more effort than usual since The
Ark supplied only his Japanese animation model, not his Sunbow one, so
I actually scanned Skullcruncher's TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE and undid the
embellishing to the line art to try to come up with a clean drawing of
him. It's not perfect, but it worked for my purposes.
Red Eye is the Reflector-colored-like-Ironhide from The Transformers:
the Movie, the one that people always assume *is* Ironhide. It's not,
though. Also, I think he looks really cool. I want a toy of this
guy.
Reels wasn't on my list of characters I wanted to do, but I threw him
in at the last minute. He's the Autobot cassette from "Five Faces of
Darkness" part 5 who is designed like Eject/Rewind but colored like
Frenzy. In the style of some of the other smaller 1986 Autobots, I
made him a complete mental case.
Salvage makes a technical appearance on the show, as Long Haul's foot
miscolored as Grimlock's foot. He's from "Five Faces of Darkness"
part 1 and watches Motormaster give up his last spare energon cube.
Speed Demon is a guy who worked better in concept than execution.
There's a purple-colored Sideswipe in "Divide and Conquer," and I
figured those aren't normal Autobot colors, so I made him an ex-
Decepticon. I followed Shockwave's color scheme pretty faithfully but
he turned out rather ugly. Which is a shame, since he's a purple
Lamborghini, something that would have filled me with joy at age ten.
Stampede is that Tantrum-colored-like-Headstrong from "Five Faces of
Darkness" part 2. I think perhaps the other Predacons use him as an
emergency backup when one of them isn't available to form Predaking.
Sundown is a character who looks like Snarl but is colored like
Rodimus Prime, from "Five Faces of Darkness" part 3. He's also a
Decepticon, so I decided he was an ex-patriot Dinobot.
Warhead is a guy who looks like Optimus Prime but is colored like
Pinpointer or Spoilsport or somebody. He's completely ridiculous.
Since he appears with all the other guys who went to Nebulos, I
decided that he must have gone there as well and became a
Targetmaster. I envision a theoretical toy of this guy as a redeco of
Optimus Prime, probably without vacuum metalized parts, and using the
screw hole at the top of the truck cab to mount a Targetmaster weapon.
Whirlybird is the Vortex-colored-like-Blades from "The Rebirth" part
3. There's another miscolored Vortex in Octane's colors that I call
Spindive, who I might do later. There are still lots of generic
characters I haven't even touched yet, believe it or not. However,
I've been coloring models non-stop for, like, the past week, and I
really need to take a break now. It's hard work!
Zob
Gustavo Wombat
Apr 24, 2012, 5:12:12 AM4/24/12
to
Grr. Google bad! Keeps saying "error posting"
On Monday, April 23, 2012 11:10:40 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> The link is here:
>
> http://zobovor.tripod.com/tfu_revisited.html
>
> And now, a few notes about each character, because they are all my
> babies and I am a doting father.
I find myself switching back and forth between the character profiles and these notes. If I were doing this, I'd put the notes on the profile page somewhere, if only so I could explain how clever I am in case someone missed it.
> Anyway.
>
> Backbreaker is a Soundwave-colored-like-Reflector from "More Than
> Meets the Eye" part 2. I hadn't noticed him until a couple of months
> ago, otherwise I probably would have done a PVC figure of him. I was
> trying to come up with a function for this character that had yet to
> be filled, and I liked the idea of a no-nonsense combat trainer, sort
> of a Sgt. Slaughter for the Decepticons.
Somewhere in the Decepticon base, I expect to see a shelf of dozens of miscolored Soundwaves in tape player mode. Before every mission, someone stops, considers the mission goals and the various different attributes of each, gives up and just grabs one or two from the shelf.
Perhaps there's just not enough Energon for them all to be active at once.
> Ballistic is an Onslaught-colored-like-Metroplex from "Five Faces of
> Darkness" part 3. (I discovered him years ago and was calling him
> Maul-Rat for a while, sort of a reference to Metroplex being an
> oversized shopping center, but I wanted the character to have a more
> serious-sounding name.) There are probably enough miscolored
> Combaticons to make an entire team of them, so I created a fictional
> team called the Invadicons, which also includes Mad Dog and
> Whirlybird.
I like the name Maul-Rat better. G1 had a fair number of cringeworthy names, and that has absolutely the right cringe.
Of course, he also shares his color scheme with a serving of coleslaw, and as an Onslaught redeco, Cole-Slaughter would be fun.
The personality seems more like a Marvel comics character than a Sunbow cartoon character. Not only does it crib a bit from Rat-Bat, but the sharpness of his flaws and shortsightedness is something we see more in the Marvel comics.
> Bouncer is, of course, the miscolored Springer from the third season
> opening titles. (In AKOM's defense, Springer really does look a lot
> like Kup.) It was a silly placeholder name that I decided to roll
> with and made him the literal "bouncer" for Autobot City. I
> deliberately made him a somewhat more powerful character, since a lot
> of the movie-era Autobots tended to have inflated tech specs stats,
> and there had to be *some* reason why he got to lead the charge with
> Rodimus Prime and Ultra Magnus every time the show started.
You know, I always thought Kup was drawn off-model in the opening titles.
I like this one a lot. Again, there is something a bit more Marvel comic-ish about this -- the character is defined by his role, rather than the role being something that flows from the character.
> Breakneck is one of the miscolored Sweeps from "Five Faces of
> Darkness" who shares a color scheme with Breakdown. How the animators
> could mistake a Sweep for a Stunticon is beyond me, but there you go.
> I wrote up a piece of fan fiction called "Exile" in which the ghosts
> from the Decepticon crypt imprint upon some of the Sweeps and other
> Decepticons and, in the process, transmute their colors. My rationale
> is that each of the differently-colored Sweeps took on some of the
> characteristics of the Decepticons they now resemble. Breakneck was
> just a name that helped me to remember that he was the "Breakdown
> Sweep" so I decided that he must travel at breakneck speeds.
I'm not sure if this is my favorite of the bunch so far, or my least favorite. The idea of a Sweep not being identical to the others bothers me -- the Sweeps are supposed to be identical, that's their entire gimmick -- and I think someone who shares the body type for no particular reason would work better. Perhaps spacefaring hovercraft were very popular back in 2005.
Still, the character is really well realized on this one.
> Compass is a Trailbreaker-colored-like-Gears. He's in a scene with a
> whole slew of miscolored Autobots—Optimus Prime in Sideswipe's colors,
> Hound colored like Ironhide, etc. In the defense of the animators,
> the characters are drawn very small and we see them all from the
> back. To me, there's a reason why these background characters don't
> show up too often, so in the case of Compass, he's a wilderness junkie
> who probably got lost in the forest and eaten by a bear or something.
He's very Beachcombery and he's ugly. Still, I have to respect any character who gets lost in a forest and eaten by a bear.
A cartographer would also be very useful using his knowledge of the terrain to his advantage during battle, but would have problems fighting somewhere unfamiliar where he doesn't have those advantages.
> Deadbeat is a character from the comics, appearing on the cover of
> issue #41 in that huge battle scene. He's drawn like Red Alert, but
> we all know that Red Alert was never featured in the original Marvel
> Comics version of TRANSFORMERS, so it's obviously somebody else
> entirely. There are so many heroic Autobot types that I wanted to
> turn that on its ear and come up with a character who's basically a
> total loser. And yeah, I know that a Red Alert colored like Sideswipe
> is...well, basically Sideswipe, but the characters are drawn
> differently so that makes him kind of interesting. Also, I made him
> orange to reflect Marvel's color pallette.
But, isn't Red Alert already a total loser?
>
> Earsplitter is another Sweep, this one colored like Soundwave. Many
> years ago, I did a digital repaint of the Scourge toy in this color
> scheme and pretended to post him for sale on eBay in a gag that
> probably only Derik Smith fully appreciated. Unfortunately, I think
> he just ended up as a mix of Blaster and Brawl. There are a lot of
> official characters out there and it's hard to avoid stepping on one
> of them sometimes.
There's a bit too many Decepticons that are so irritating that no one wants to be around them.
> Eye Spy is a miscolored Chromedome that's kind of hard to spot, since
> Pointblank is right behind him in the scene, and the animators just
> sort of colored both of them the same color as some sort of weird
> amalgam of a vehicle. I really enjoyed creating the character and his
> Headmaster partner, but putting his profile together was tough since
> the Chromedome model I had from IDW's The Ark was a retouched version
> with some really thick pen lines, so I did a lot of tweaking to it.
A perfectly plausible G1 character.
> Fearmonger is a Sweep colored like Dirge. There are lots and lots of
> generic characters colored like Dirge for some reason—there's one
> designed like Cyclonus, another like Starscream, yet another like
> Soundwave...hard to keep up with 'em all.
This is a really fun character.
And now that we have a Trio of faux-Sweeps, I'd be tempted to make them another set of Seekers (who may have encountered Unicron at some point, and served as the template for the Sweep design)
And I would love a Dirge Patrol. A whole bunch of Transformers who idolize Dirge, and adopt his color scheme, much to the dismay of everyone else who just think of Dirge as "the conehead who isn't Thrust or that other one"
> Finish Line is a Beachcomber colored like Wildrider from "Five Faces
> of Darkness" part 5. I had fun writing his character but on a visual
> level, he's so boring. I hate the color grey.
I really like the character, but I'm not sure it fits the grey Beachcomber. And Beachcomber looks pretty good in grey.
> Flightplan is a flying Constructicon! Specifically, one from "The
> Rebirth" part 1 that shares a design with Scattershot. He appears
> with the other Constructicons so he's obviously a new member of the
> team. I decided that he could serve as a weapons platform for
> Devastator (the Scattershot toy is really big, nearly as tall as
> Computron, so this could work with the toys, too).
I don't want to think about what part of Devastator he transforms into. Oh, fine, he's the mighty phallus.
> Freefall is the "Wildrider Sweep" from "Five Faces of Darkness."
> Again, boring. Grey.
The incompetent and stupid character that is a danger to himself and others is a bit overused. Where are our brilliant yet hapless robots, and our stupid yet skillful robots?
> Gnaw-Jaw was one of the guys that got me excited about this project.
> He's a Headmaster Horrorcon but he's decked out in this amazingly
> bright and cheerful yellow color scheme (he's Apeface colored like
> Sureshot). I love everything about him—the colors, the profile I
> wrote, and his Headmaster partner.
He's another Decepticon that all the other Decepticons avoid. I'm sure there must be some that other Decepticons avoid, but there are an awful lot of them in the canon already. Then again, they seem to come in Season 3 and later, so maybe the best Decepticons have all been destroyed and they are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
He fits the "triple changers are insane" theme, and he's well done. And the contrast between the Decepticon and his Nebulon partner is very nicely done -- a less practiced hand might have made the Nebulon a psychiatrist.
I like him a lot, so don't take this as criticism, but I'd swap things around and make the ape gentle and refined and the robot more emotional, passionate and animalistic. Polite apes are just funny.
And if you're going to go the Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde route (it's a classic for a reason), it might be nice to have the good Doctor be the real monster -- a high functioning psychopath pretending to have emotions -- while the monster is more emotional, passionate and violent, but also fiercely loyal.
> Gunpoint is the name I gave to the Decepticon from HEADMASTERS #1 who
> looks like Fasttrack, the little vehicle for Scorponok, even though
> he's colored like Optimus Prime. You don't get a color scheme like
> that by accident, so clearly he thinks he's very important.
I hope some other Decepticon shoots him, mistaking him for Optimus Prime.
> Mad Dog is the guy from "Surprise Party" who looks like Swindle but is
> colored like Hound. His name is a silly canine joke. (I think for a
> while I was maybe calling him Dogpound.)
I know the foam gun is probably a reference to foaming at the mouth, but I cannot help think of Megatron's inglorious defeat at the hands of Fire Retardant Foam. It's good that someone has recognized the potential and weaponized it.
> Meltdown is the Hot Spot colored like Ultra Magnus from the very end
> of "Ghost in the Machine." I made sure to play up all the things that
> his toy can do in his profile write-up.
The tires on his legs need to be colored.
> Nightwatch is the Prowl colored like Bluestreak from The Transformers:
> the Movie. Yeah, I know, same toy, but the two characters are
> designed differently, so putting a Bluestreak color scheme on a police
> car makes it kind of interesting. Well, maybe not.
This one is so ugly I'm not sure he exists. If he was fully animated, I would be certain he was an animation error, but without legs, I have to question your decision to leave them white. And to have obvious transformation panels in different colors.
He could have a very traditional Black and White cop car color scheme, from what we can see.
Nice character description though.
> Payback is the Sweep colored like Swindle. I just wrote his profile
> recently because somehow he slipped through the cracks when I was
> creating these guys last year.
My god, were any Sweeps colored correctly?
Ok, I'm getting a bit of profile fatigue, so I'll stop here tonight.
On Monday, April 23, 2012 11:10:40 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> The link is here:
>
> http://zobovor.tripod.com/tfu_revisited.html
>
> And now, a few notes about each character, because they are all my
> babies and I am a doting father.
> Anyway.
>
> Backbreaker is a Soundwave-colored-like-Reflector from "More Than
> Meets the Eye" part 2. I hadn't noticed him until a couple of months
> ago, otherwise I probably would have done a PVC figure of him. I was
> trying to come up with a function for this character that had yet to
> be filled, and I liked the idea of a no-nonsense combat trainer, sort
> of a Sgt. Slaughter for the Decepticons.
Perhaps there's just not enough Energon for them all to be active at once.
> Ballistic is an Onslaught-colored-like-Metroplex from "Five Faces of
> Darkness" part 3. (I discovered him years ago and was calling him
> Maul-Rat for a while, sort of a reference to Metroplex being an
> oversized shopping center, but I wanted the character to have a more
> serious-sounding name.) There are probably enough miscolored
> Combaticons to make an entire team of them, so I created a fictional
> team called the Invadicons, which also includes Mad Dog and
> Whirlybird.
Of course, he also shares his color scheme with a serving of coleslaw, and as an Onslaught redeco, Cole-Slaughter would be fun.
The personality seems more like a Marvel comics character than a Sunbow cartoon character. Not only does it crib a bit from Rat-Bat, but the sharpness of his flaws and shortsightedness is something we see more in the Marvel comics.
> Bouncer is, of course, the miscolored Springer from the third season
> opening titles. (In AKOM's defense, Springer really does look a lot
> like Kup.) It was a silly placeholder name that I decided to roll
> with and made him the literal "bouncer" for Autobot City. I
> deliberately made him a somewhat more powerful character, since a lot
> of the movie-era Autobots tended to have inflated tech specs stats,
> and there had to be *some* reason why he got to lead the charge with
> Rodimus Prime and Ultra Magnus every time the show started.
I like this one a lot. Again, there is something a bit more Marvel comic-ish about this -- the character is defined by his role, rather than the role being something that flows from the character.
> Breakneck is one of the miscolored Sweeps from "Five Faces of
> Darkness" who shares a color scheme with Breakdown. How the animators
> could mistake a Sweep for a Stunticon is beyond me, but there you go.
> I wrote up a piece of fan fiction called "Exile" in which the ghosts
> from the Decepticon crypt imprint upon some of the Sweeps and other
> Decepticons and, in the process, transmute their colors. My rationale
> is that each of the differently-colored Sweeps took on some of the
> characteristics of the Decepticons they now resemble. Breakneck was
> just a name that helped me to remember that he was the "Breakdown
> Sweep" so I decided that he must travel at breakneck speeds.
Still, the character is really well realized on this one.
> Compass is a Trailbreaker-colored-like-Gears. He's in a scene with a
> whole slew of miscolored Autobots—Optimus Prime in Sideswipe's colors,
> Hound colored like Ironhide, etc. In the defense of the animators,
> the characters are drawn very small and we see them all from the
> back. To me, there's a reason why these background characters don't
> show up too often, so in the case of Compass, he's a wilderness junkie
> who probably got lost in the forest and eaten by a bear or something.
A cartographer would also be very useful using his knowledge of the terrain to his advantage during battle, but would have problems fighting somewhere unfamiliar where he doesn't have those advantages.
> Deadbeat is a character from the comics, appearing on the cover of
> issue #41 in that huge battle scene. He's drawn like Red Alert, but
> we all know that Red Alert was never featured in the original Marvel
> Comics version of TRANSFORMERS, so it's obviously somebody else
> entirely. There are so many heroic Autobot types that I wanted to
> turn that on its ear and come up with a character who's basically a
> total loser. And yeah, I know that a Red Alert colored like Sideswipe
> is...well, basically Sideswipe, but the characters are drawn
> differently so that makes him kind of interesting. Also, I made him
> orange to reflect Marvel's color pallette.
>
> Earsplitter is another Sweep, this one colored like Soundwave. Many
> years ago, I did a digital repaint of the Scourge toy in this color
> scheme and pretended to post him for sale on eBay in a gag that
> probably only Derik Smith fully appreciated. Unfortunately, I think
> he just ended up as a mix of Blaster and Brawl. There are a lot of
> official characters out there and it's hard to avoid stepping on one
> of them sometimes.
> Eye Spy is a miscolored Chromedome that's kind of hard to spot, since
> Pointblank is right behind him in the scene, and the animators just
> sort of colored both of them the same color as some sort of weird
> amalgam of a vehicle. I really enjoyed creating the character and his
> Headmaster partner, but putting his profile together was tough since
> the Chromedome model I had from IDW's The Ark was a retouched version
> with some really thick pen lines, so I did a lot of tweaking to it.
> Fearmonger is a Sweep colored like Dirge. There are lots and lots of
> generic characters colored like Dirge for some reason—there's one
> designed like Cyclonus, another like Starscream, yet another like
> Soundwave...hard to keep up with 'em all.
And now that we have a Trio of faux-Sweeps, I'd be tempted to make them another set of Seekers (who may have encountered Unicron at some point, and served as the template for the Sweep design)
And I would love a Dirge Patrol. A whole bunch of Transformers who idolize Dirge, and adopt his color scheme, much to the dismay of everyone else who just think of Dirge as "the conehead who isn't Thrust or that other one"
> Finish Line is a Beachcomber colored like Wildrider from "Five Faces
> of Darkness" part 5. I had fun writing his character but on a visual
> level, he's so boring. I hate the color grey.
> Flightplan is a flying Constructicon! Specifically, one from "The
> Rebirth" part 1 that shares a design with Scattershot. He appears
> with the other Constructicons so he's obviously a new member of the
> team. I decided that he could serve as a weapons platform for
> Devastator (the Scattershot toy is really big, nearly as tall as
> Computron, so this could work with the toys, too).
> Freefall is the "Wildrider Sweep" from "Five Faces of Darkness."
> Again, boring. Grey.
> Gnaw-Jaw was one of the guys that got me excited about this project.
> He's a Headmaster Horrorcon but he's decked out in this amazingly
> bright and cheerful yellow color scheme (he's Apeface colored like
> Sureshot). I love everything about him—the colors, the profile I
> wrote, and his Headmaster partner.
He fits the "triple changers are insane" theme, and he's well done. And the contrast between the Decepticon and his Nebulon partner is very nicely done -- a less practiced hand might have made the Nebulon a psychiatrist.
I like him a lot, so don't take this as criticism, but I'd swap things around and make the ape gentle and refined and the robot more emotional, passionate and animalistic. Polite apes are just funny.
And if you're going to go the Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde route (it's a classic for a reason), it might be nice to have the good Doctor be the real monster -- a high functioning psychopath pretending to have emotions -- while the monster is more emotional, passionate and violent, but also fiercely loyal.
> Gunpoint is the name I gave to the Decepticon from HEADMASTERS #1 who
> looks like Fasttrack, the little vehicle for Scorponok, even though
> he's colored like Optimus Prime. You don't get a color scheme like
> that by accident, so clearly he thinks he's very important.
> Mad Dog is the guy from "Surprise Party" who looks like Swindle but is
> colored like Hound. His name is a silly canine joke. (I think for a
> while I was maybe calling him Dogpound.)
> Meltdown is the Hot Spot colored like Ultra Magnus from the very end
> of "Ghost in the Machine." I made sure to play up all the things that
> his toy can do in his profile write-up.
> Nightwatch is the Prowl colored like Bluestreak from The Transformers:
> the Movie. Yeah, I know, same toy, but the two characters are
> designed differently, so putting a Bluestreak color scheme on a police
> car makes it kind of interesting. Well, maybe not.
He could have a very traditional Black and White cop car color scheme, from what we can see.
Nice character description though.
> Payback is the Sweep colored like Swindle. I just wrote his profile
> recently because somehow he slipped through the cracks when I was
> creating these guys last year.
Ok, I'm getting a bit of profile fatigue, so I'll stop here tonight.
Optim_1
Apr 24, 2012, 1:50:22 PM4/24/12
to
On 24 avr, 02:10, Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
I like your Bob Budiansky-inspired G1 names for the characters.
Earsplitter would be a cool alternate name for Soundwave like White
Noise.
I think the generic model in TF: Movie still looks like Ironhide
rather than Reflector.
I didn't know that the miscolored extra Starscream in MTMTE was
actually Reflector. You have a good eye.
I like your Bob Budiansky-inspired G1 names for the characters.
Earsplitter would be a cool alternate name for Soundwave like White
Noise.
I think the generic model in TF: Movie still looks like Ironhide
rather than Reflector.
I didn't know that the miscolored extra Starscream in MTMTE was
actually Reflector. You have a good eye.
Velvet Glove
Apr 24, 2012, 2:07:05 PM4/24/12
to
Just as a head's up, there's no link to Stampede on your page. Since
you included him in your notes, I figured out what the html link would
be, but if you're going from the index, you can't find him.
Enjoyed this, although I think I'm more interested in your thoughts
behind the designs than the designs themselves... I guess I'm a meta-
fan. But I've always liked seeing your fan characters.
Velvet Glove (also it might be nice to have a 'next' link on each
page, but I suppose that would get fiddly as you create more)
you included him in your notes, I figured out what the html link would
be, but if you're going from the index, you can't find him.
Enjoyed this, although I think I'm more interested in your thoughts
behind the designs than the designs themselves... I guess I'm a meta-
fan. But I've always liked seeing your fan characters.
Velvet Glove (also it might be nice to have a 'next' link on each
page, but I suppose that would get fiddly as you create more)
Ultra Magnotron
Apr 24, 2012, 2:39:53 PM4/24/12
to
Dude this is awesome! I'm glad you were able to finally put this
all together.
--
The Transformers (G1) Subtitles:
http://www.box.com/s/931509f9d6b565d675d8
My Transformers Prime Calendar:
http://tfprime.timeshout.com/?how=month&std=2012-03-07&end=2012-03-21
all together.
--
The Transformers (G1) Subtitles:
http://www.box.com/s/931509f9d6b565d675d8
My Transformers Prime Calendar:
http://tfprime.timeshout.com/?how=month&std=2012-03-07&end=2012-03-21
Zobovor
Apr 24, 2012, 6:13:58 PM4/24/12
to
On Apr 24, 11:50 am, Optim_1 <opti...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I think the generic model in TF: Movie still looks like Ironhide
> rather than Reflector.
He's got a "box" on his back that Ironhide doesn't. It's the
> I think the generic model in TF: Movie still looks like Ironhide
> rather than Reflector.
viewfinder for his camera mode. I stand by my decision!
Zob
Zobovor
Apr 24, 2012, 6:25:25 PM4/24/12
to
On Apr 24, 3:12 am, Gustavo Wombat <GustavoWom...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I find myself switching back and forth between the character profiles and these notes. If I were doing this, I'd put the notes on the profile page somewhere, if only so I could explain how clever I am in case someone missed it.
I thought about it but I didn't want to disrupt the styling of the
> I find myself switching back and forth between the character profiles and these notes. If I were doing this, I'd put the notes on the profile page somewhere, if only so I could explain how clever I am in case someone missed it.
profile pages. Even just throwing in the tech spec numbers seems
disingenuous. (I was going to include short Hasbro toy package style
write-ups after every profile, but I seem to have misplaced my
handwritten notes.)
> There's a bit too many Decepticons that are so irritating that no one wants to be around them.
least one Soundwave characteristic, and Soundwave being hated by
everybody else wasn't really something that was ever played up in the
canon, despite being in his tech specs. I guess maybe his sonic
weapons are a sufficient Soundwave shout-out, though.
> I don't want to think about what part of Devastator he transforms into. Oh, fine, he's the mighty phallus.
> The incompetent and stupid character that is a danger to himself and others is a bit overused. Where are our brilliant yet hapless robots, and our stupid yet skillful robots?
to behave like a Stunticon somehow, so I figured instead of causing
traffic accidents, he would just crash into stuff from the air. I can
fiddle with him a bit.
> I like him a lot, so don't take this as criticism, but I'd swap things around and make the ape gentle and refined and the robot more emotional, passionate and animalistic. Polite apes are just funny.
> The tires on his legs need to be colored.
episode, sir. I did take some liberties with the colors for his
vehicle mode, though, if that makes you feel a little better.
Transformers have wheels that change color from one mode to another
all the time. Scrapper, Hot Rod, Hoist...)
> This one is so ugly I'm not sure he exists.
say, Compass or Gnaw-Jaw? As for his colors, I just went with
Bluestreak's color scheme. I agree his vehicle mode isn't very
pretty, but based on what I had to work with for his robot mode...
> My god, were any Sweeps colored correctly?
Zob
Zobovor
Apr 24, 2012, 6:13:07 PM4/24/12
to
On Apr 24, 12:07 pm, Velvet Glove <goo...@kernowgirl.co.uk> wrote:
> Just as a head's up, there's no link to Stampede on your page. Since
> you included him in your notes, I figured out what the html link would
> be, but if you're going from the index, you can't find him.
He's not finished yet. Funny story about him—I wrote most of these
> Just as a head's up, there's no link to Stampede on your page. Since
> you included him in your notes, I figured out what the html link would
> be, but if you're going from the index, you can't find him.
profiles about a year ago, but he must have fallen through the cracks
or something, because I had this page saved to my hard drive called
stampede_tfu.html but there was no content in it. I knew that I must
have assigned the name to somebody but I couldn't remember who. It
finally dawned on me about three days ago. He's going to have to wait
until the next batch because I'm really burned out now. (I get really
excited about project ideas and then there's typically a window of
about a week or two before I get fed up with the idea and want to do
something different. I think I missed that window by about two days,
because I was really struggling with the last few characters. I also
saved the boring ones for last, which meant I was doing all these guys
in a row with Wildrider's color scheme. I get that not everybody can
be rainbow colors, but I just hate coloring things grey.)
> Enjoyed this, although I think I'm more interested in your thoughts
> behind the designs than the designs themselves... I guess I'm a meta-
> fan. But I've always liked seeing your fan characters.
background characters because it adds to the cartoon we already know
and love. I mean, the guys are standing right there in the scene. I
see a lot of fan characters that supposedly have these big, important
roles, or relationships with major characters, and what I want to know
is, how come we never saw them before? I tend to make most of these
background characters either really unimportant or crippled with at
least one serious flaw, which is sort of my in-universe explanation
for why we never saw them again. (I think a lot of the guys from
"Five Faces of Darkness" were killed during the Quintesson-Decepticon
assaults on Cybertron and Earth.)
> Velvet Glove (also it might be nice to have a 'next' link on each
> page, but I suppose that would get fiddly as you create more)
be the next "issue" with its own index page. Besides, everybody's web
browser has a "back" button, right?
Zob
Velvet Glove
Apr 24, 2012, 7:01:05 PM4/24/12
to
On Apr 24, 6:13 pm, Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
> (I get really
> excited about project ideas and then there's typically a window of
> about a week or two before I get fed up with the idea and want to do
> something different.
I tend to find that I have a week or so where I can't focus on
> (I get really
> excited about project ideas and then there's typically a window of
> about a week or two before I get fed up with the idea and want to do
> something different.
*anything* but the project I want to do. Which isn't very good if I
don't have the time to sit down and work on that project (as happened
today or yesterday). Generally, I manage to capitalise on that period
of intense motivation, but there have been things that have been left
hanging for months because my enthusiasm waned.
Basically, I totally understand.
> Thank you. For some reason, I feel more comfortable fleshing out the
> background characters because it adds to the cartoon we already know
> and love. I mean, the guys are standing right there in the scene. I
> see a lot of fan characters that supposedly have these big, important
> roles, or relationships with major characters, and what I want to know
> is, how come we never saw them before? I tend to make most of these
> background characters either really unimportant or crippled with at
> least one serious flaw, which is sort of my in-universe explanation
> for why we never saw them again. (I think a lot of the guys from
> "Five Faces of Darkness" were killed during the Quintesson-Decepticon
> assaults on Cybertron and Earth.)
I wrote Pygmalion, set during the Quintesson occupation of Cybertron,
I referred to Forever is a Long Time Coming and that Five Faces of
Darkness flashback for background Autobots and used those for a
reference for created characters. Nobody but me could possibly
recognise who they are, but I felt better for knowing they do actually
appear in the cartoon! Similarly, I like re-using the planets
mentioned or shown in the cartoon.
Velvet Glove (to be fair to the fan characters with significant roles
that we never saw before, it's not like the cartoon itself wasn't
guilty of this every few episodes or so...)
Shin Hibiki
Apr 24, 2012, 9:06:01 PM4/24/12
to
Zobovor <zm...@aol.com> wrote:
> http://zobovor.tripod.com/tfu_revisited.html
Brilliant, sir.
>Bouncer is, of course, the miscolored Springer from the third season
>opening titles.
Man, I never even caught that. Really digging this one. I
should get a spare Warbot and go to town.
>Breakneck is one of the miscolored Sweeps from "Five Faces of
>Darkness" who shares a color scheme with Breakdown.
Thank you for not using the stupid "head sticking out" vehicle
mode on these.
>Which is a shame, since he's a purple
>Lamborghini, something that would have filled me with joy at age ten.
It does for me even at this age.
- Shin Hibiki
----
The race ain't over yet, baby
It's only just begun
They thought they had it won, baby
But soon we'll have 'em on the run
> http://zobovor.tripod.com/tfu_revisited.html
Brilliant, sir.
>Bouncer is, of course, the miscolored Springer from the third season
>opening titles.
should get a spare Warbot and go to town.
>Breakneck is one of the miscolored Sweeps from "Five Faces of
>Darkness" who shares a color scheme with Breakdown.
mode on these.
>Which is a shame, since he's a purple
>Lamborghini, something that would have filled me with joy at age ten.
- Shin Hibiki
----
The race ain't over yet, baby
It's only just begun
They thought they had it won, baby
But soon we'll have 'em on the run
Gustavo Wombat
Apr 25, 2012, 1:35:32 AM4/25/12
to
On Tuesday, April 24, 2012 3:25:25 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> On Apr 24, 3:12 am, Gustavo Wombat <GustavoWom...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I find myself switching back and forth between the character profiles and these notes. If I were doing this, I'd put the notes on the profile page somewhere, if only so I could explain how clever I am in case someone missed it.
>
> I thought about it but I didn't want to disrupt the styling of the
> profile pages. Even just throwing in the tech spec numbers seems
> disingenuous. (I was going to include short Hasbro toy package style
> write-ups after every profile, but I seem to have misplaced my
> handwritten notes.)
You've got the screenshot from the cartoon at the bottom, below the navigation buttons, as if it were a footnote. And these blurbs have the same footnotey quality.
> On Apr 24, 3:12 am, Gustavo Wombat <GustavoWom...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > I find myself switching back and forth between the character profiles and these notes. If I were doing this, I'd put the notes on the profile page somewhere, if only so I could explain how clever I am in case someone missed it.
>
> I thought about it but I didn't want to disrupt the styling of the
> profile pages. Even just throwing in the tech spec numbers seems
> disingenuous. (I was going to include short Hasbro toy package style
> write-ups after every profile, but I seem to have misplaced my
> handwritten notes.)
> > There's a bit too many Decepticons that are so irritating that no one wants to be around them.
>
> Well, Earsplitter has got Soundwave colors so I had to give him at
> least one Soundwave characteristic, and Soundwave being hated by
> everybody else wasn't really something that was ever played up in the
> canon, despite being in his tech specs. I guess maybe his sonic
> weapons are a sufficient Soundwave shout-out, though.
> > I don't want to think about what part of Devastator he transforms into. Oh, fine, he's the mighty phallus.
>
> Did you read his write-up? He's a big, stationary Targetmaster gun.
> > I like him a lot, so don't take this as criticism, but I'd swap things around and make the ape gentle and refined and the robot more emotional, passionate and animalistic. Polite apes are just funny.
>
> Oh, yes. That is perfect. Consider it done.
> > The tires on his legs need to be colored.
>
> They are. They're colored white. (I can't violate what we saw in the
> episode, sir. I did take some liberties with the colors for his
> vehicle mode, though, if that makes you feel a little better.
> Transformers have wheels that change color from one mode to another
> all the time. Scrapper, Hot Rod, Hoist...)
> > This one is so ugly I'm not sure he exists.
>
> You question Nightwatch's existence based on sheer ugliness, but not,
> say, Compass or Gnaw-Jaw? As for his colors, I just went with
> Bluestreak's color scheme. I agree his vehicle mode isn't very
> pretty, but based on what I had to work with for his robot mode...
I think there's a decent case to be made for being more flexible with the color scheme to make him less terrible.
> > My god, were any Sweeps colored correctly?
>
> In "Five Faces of Darkness"? Rarely.
Gustavo!
Gustavo Wombat
Apr 25, 2012, 2:54:52 AM4/25/12
to
On Monday, April 23, 2012 11:10:40 PM UTC-7, Zobovor wrote:
> Payback is the Sweep colored like Swindle. I just wrote his profile
> recently because somehow he slipped through the cracks when I was
> creating these guys last year.
So, one of the things that alway bothered me with the tech specs was all the weapons that don't kill and maim. Hallucinations are fine and all, but it's almost a defensive weapon, as it just confuses the attacker. So, um, very authentically done.
> recently because somehow he slipped through the cracks when I was
> creating these guys last year.
The character himself is nicely done. I like that he is motivated almost entirely by petty vengeance. I would hope that he has a special list for people who don't trust him because he looks like Swindle.
> Pictureshow is a Reflector team who is colored like Starscream. We
> see him briefly in "More Than Meets the Eye" part 2, a little tiny
> Starscream-colored robot right next to the full-sized Starscream.
> There's something really fun about a wrong-colored Reflector to me,
> for some reason.
And, perhaps something about why the one was following Starscream around.
One thing I'm not sure about is why you infer an entire Camera team from one Reflectoclone.
(And again, Decepticons that cannot work together).
> Potshot is that grey-colored Shockwave from the "Five Faces of
> Darkness" opening titles. I've never been able to precisely identify
> the color scheme they used for him—it reminds me of Megatron, but
> Megatron didn't have a black helmet or a blue window in his chest. I
> really don't know.
> Powerhouse is a fun little discovery I made somewhat recently—Rumble
> colored like Brawn! And yes, his tech specs function is a horrible
> joke, but I couldn't help myself.
> Razorfang is the Skullcruncher-colored-like-Weirdwolf from "The
> Rebirth" part 2. He took a little more effort than usual since The
> Ark supplied only his Japanese animation model, not his Sunbow one, so
> I actually scanned Skullcruncher's TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE and undid the
> embellishing to the line art to try to come up with a clean drawing of
> him. It's not perfect, but it worked for my purposes.
> Red Eye is the Reflector-colored-like-Ironhide from The Transformers:
> the Movie, the one that people always assume *is* Ironhide. It's not,
> though. Also, I think he looks really cool. I want a toy of this
> guy.
> Reels wasn't on my list of characters I wanted to do, but I threw him
> in at the last minute. He's the Autobot cassette from "Five Faces of
> Darkness" part 5 who is designed like Eject/Rewind but colored like
> Frenzy. In the style of some of the other smaller 1986 Autobots, I
> made him a complete mental case.
> Salvage makes a technical appearance on the show, as Long Haul's foot
> miscolored as Grimlock's foot. He's from "Five Faces of Darkness"
> part 1 and watches Motormaster give up his last spare energon cube.
> Speed Demon is a guy who worked better in concept than execution.
> There's a purple-colored Sideswipe in "Divide and Conquer," and I
> figured those aren't normal Autobot colors, so I made him an ex-
> Decepticon. I followed Shockwave's color scheme pretty faithfully but
> he turned out rather ugly. Which is a shame, since he's a purple
> Lamborghini, something that would have filled me with joy at age ten.
His face should be black, which would help the robot mode a lot. And Shockwave usually has pale gray hands in the cartoon.
I agree that the execution falls flat. You created Drift.
What if he wasn't a former Decepticon? What if he just liked purple -- and kept having to point out that Alpha Trion had purple, so there's a proud Autobot tradition of purple. Everyone distrusts him because of his color scheme, and expects him to turn traitor.
> Stampede is that Tantrum-colored-like-Headstrong from "Five Faces of
> Darkness" part 2. I think perhaps the other Predacons use him as an
> emergency backup when one of them isn't available to form Predaking.
> Sundown is a character who looks like Snarl but is colored like
> Rodimus Prime, from "Five Faces of Darkness" part 3. He's also a
> Decepticon, so I decided he was an ex-patriot Dinobot.
He needs flames down his sides.
> Warhead is a guy who looks like Optimus Prime but is colored like
> Pinpointer or Spoilsport or somebody. He's completely ridiculous.
> Since he appears with all the other guys who went to Nebulos, I
> decided that he must have gone there as well and became a
> Targetmaster. I envision a theoretical toy of this guy as a redeco of
> Optimus Prime, probably without vacuum metalized parts, and using the
> screw hole at the top of the truck cab to mount a Targetmaster weapon.
Surly mover is one of the many, many underutilized character types.
> Whirlybird is the Vortex-colored-like-Blades from "The Rebirth" part
> 3.
> There's another miscolored Vortex in Octane's colors that I call
> Spindive, who I might do later. There are still lots of generic
> characters I haven't even touched yet, believe it or not. However,
> I've been coloring models non-stop for, like, the past week, and I
> really need to take a break now. It's hard work!
Reels and Red-Eye are my favorites from this batch. None of them quite hit the level of Brain Drain, but there are a lot of really good characters here.
Gustavo!
Zobovor
Apr 28, 2012, 1:38:31 AM4/28/12
to
On Apr 25, 12:54 am, Gustavo Wombat <GustavoWom...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> One thing I'm not sure about is why you infer an entire Camera team from one Reflectoclone.
Because that's just how Reflectors work. They operate in teams of
> One thing I'm not sure about is why you infer an entire Camera team from one Reflectoclone.
three. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to transform into anything. I
mean, I don't necessarily assume that for every Soundwave there must
also be a Buzzsaw somewhere, just because Hasbro sold the toys
together. But, I mean, really. A guy that transforms into one-third
of a camera? What is this, Sky Shadow's "Best First"?
> He's tan. But this does not help me identify the color scheme.
to fit somehow. So, yellowish-grey.
> > Stampede is that Tantrum-colored-like-Headstrong from "Five Faces of
> > Darkness" part 2.
> I don't think this one exists.
Now, now. You can't be selective over which miscolored characters
exist and which ones don't. They all exist. The guy is in the
episode quite clearly. Uh, as long as you're focusing on the very
left edge of the screen. And pause your DVD at just the right
moment. Ahem.
> He's hideous. And I don't think he would have a trailer -- he'd be a cheaper toy without it, and more distinctive.
> Surly mover is one of the many, many underutilized character types.
addressed next time? I have a handful of ideas about some of the
other background guys, but I think most of them are blank slates. And
I'm prepared to completely rewrite Whirlybird and Freefall and maybe a
couple of others because I'm not really satisfied with the way they
turned out. Between these guys and the various PVC repaints I've
done, I think I've probably created over 100 Transformers characters.
It's so hard to avoid accidentally making a clone of somebody else,
especially when a lot of the G1 characters are painted with such broad
strokes. If he's an angry Decepticon, suddenly he's Brawl or
Tantrum. If he's a vain Autobot, he's just like Sunstreaker or
Warpath. So many good characterizations are already taken!
Some other random notes that may be of interest to Velvet Glove and
others: With the Headmaster characters, I made sure that the
Transformers were named after some part of the head (Gnaw-Jaw and Eye
Spy and Razorfang) while their Nebulon partners had names that were
thinly-veiled references to English words (I wanted Gnaw-Jaw's partner
to have a name that was similar to "banana" so he became Banax; Eye
Spy's partner is a garbageman who deals with crud so he became Grud;
Gormus is a gormet chef). Targetmaster Transformers (sing it with me:
they've got the power to surprise!) have weapon-themed names, as do
their Nebulon partners, hence Warhead and Hollowpoint. I really enjoy
writing profiles about Transformers with Nebulon partners because you
get to deal with two personalities and how they relate to each other.
There is at least one more generic Headmaster out there (there's a
scene where Mindwipe, I think, is colored like Snapdragon) so I'll get
to do at least one more of these some day.
What would be a good name for a Sunstreaker clone who's colored like
Bumblebee? My working name for him was Butterfly but I don't know if
I can make that work as anything besides a placeholder name.
> I love these, these are great. Well, except for Whirlybird. But I can't love them all. That would be creepy.
>
> Reels and Red-Eye are my favorites from this batch. None of them quite hit the level of Brain Drain, but there are a lot of really good characters here.
FortuneCity, but they've been remarkably unhelpful in giving me
instructions on how to transfer my web site over to the new server. I
guess they figure now that they've already got my money, it doesn't
matter what happens to my free site. Worst-case scenario is that my
site disappears and I'll have to upload the files somewhere else one
at a time. I've got everything saved on my hard drive, so nothing
will really be lost. Shame, though, to see the ZMFTS! disappear after
all this time. I thought buying web space would save it but evidently
that's not the case.
It may be perhaps upwards of a year before I do another batch of these
guys, even though there are lots and lots left. I actually have a
baby due in June so I expect my fan activities may be curtailed in the
months that follow. Either that, or I'll hide downstairs with my four-
year-old and create things like crazy while he plays video games and
my wife does all the baby care. (Yeah, as if.)
Zob
SteveD
Apr 28, 2012, 8:12:22 AM4/28/12
to
On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 23:54:52 -0700 (PDT), Gustavo Wombat
<Gustav...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>So, one of the things that alway bothered me with the tech specs was
>all the weapons that don't kill and maim.
I always assumed that such weapons had a generic laser-gun (or kinetic
<Gustav...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>So, one of the things that alway bothered me with the tech specs was
>all the weapons that don't kill and maim.
accelerator) functionality, and the specialized effect could be toggled.
-SteveD
Zobovor
Jan 22, 2015, 10:16:56 PM1/22/15
to
On Tuesday, April 24, 2012 at 12:10:40 AM UTC-6, Zobovor wrote:
> Nightwatch is the Prowl colored like Bluestreak from The Transformers:
> the Movie. Yeah, I know, same toy, but the two characters are
> designed differently, so putting a Bluestreak color scheme on a police
> car makes it kind of interesting. Well, maybe not.
Hey, I just found another example of this character in the show (he's in "Heavy Metal War"). It's a nice, full body shot, so while my guess of what he looked like from the waist down was mostly accurate, I'll have to tweak his profile illustration slightly to reflect this new discovery.
> Nightwatch is the Prowl colored like Bluestreak from The Transformers:
> the Movie. Yeah, I know, same toy, but the two characters are
> designed differently, so putting a Bluestreak color scheme on a police
> car makes it kind of interesting. Well, maybe not.
In case anybody's curious (and I've actually been asked about this in e-mail; apparently I have fans), I do plan on doing another batch of obscure background characters, probably the last two virtual "issues" of TRANSFORMERS UNVIVERSE: REVISITED. I'll reorganize the individual issues to be alphabetical, and the bulk of the last addition will be (mostly) background characters I've already celebrated in three-dimensional form (like PVC figures or Robot Heroes or G1 repaints).
Of course, I'm also digging into the G1 cartoon right now and doing an exhaustive documentation of all its background music, and I'm working on a very special kitbash, AND my wife's birthday is coming up, so I'm juggling a lot of different things at the moment.
Digging through the entire G1 cartoon from start-to-finish is probably something I haven't done since the show aired on the Sci-Fi Channel. I mostly use my DVD's for research or to make screen captures, but documenting the music forces me to actually pay attention and watch every episode. I'm still making new discoveries, if that can even be believed. It's kind of exciting.
Carry on, citizens. Nothing more to see here.
Zob
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