Megatron - Tank Mode

This one got banged out really fast...

Wow, I'm making excuses already.  It's not that I don't like the direction, but it's only a good first step.  It's a tank with a little bit of character.  Megatron needs to be a tank (or whatever his alt mode would be) with A LOT of character.

The assignment was to envision a near-future tank, so I did a few quick sketches, got feedback from Siebenaler, and actually only did a colored line art pass, because of a time crunch.  After the presentation and following feedback, I was asked to render it fully, with no changes, along with the Prime truck, that was also initially done as colored line art, for the same pitch.

Of course, in all the details I managed to put in the alt mode, I was already planning on transformation logic, how to split the treads, how to recompose the barrel and turret elements into the arm cannon, and other character themed things to try to modernize the early era Megatron.  That's why there are a lot of flat panels - the vague idea I had at the time was to do blockier G1 style over armor, but a sleek under structure.  Alas, I never got the assignment to do the bot mode of Megatron, (and have never actually seen the bot counterpart to this project) and was asked to move on to other characters.

Maybe someone else got to do the second pass, and really punch up the character of the tank, a little more than what you see here.  Looking at it now, I would want to redesign the top of the turret, widen the overall tread stance, and break up the rectangle top view, by pulling in the front center, and maybe making the back end a little more robust, and this, and that, and tweak those...

But that's the thing with concept art, it's a long road of redesigns to find the right look.  Especially in this series of assignments, try a bunch of different stuff, and throw it all into a pot and see what comes out.  The current incarnation of Megatron is a Cybertronian Jet, if that's any indication!

Ok, I have one more character to post next week, and it's actually both bot and alt modes, stay tuned!



In the meantime, the Facebook Like Drive continues:

If you're a Facebook user, I invite you to enter into the Like Drive I have going on for the next two weeks, on the Bad Flip Productions page.  Participants can win some free art from me; here's the announcement:

For two weeks, I'll be running a Like Drive on the Facebook page.  It's been up for two years, and I've done NOTHING to promote it, other than letting it exist. Give me a break, I'd much rather being drawing than marketing!

All the rules are posted in the picture, which will be the cover art on the Facebook page for the next two weeks.  Recommend the page to five friends, (or you could just share the page on your timeline!) say you did so in the comment section of the above cover photo, and you're entered!

Here's a helpful link to get you started!

Facebook Page!

And stay tuned to the blog for the next couple of weeks, I got the green light to post a few more 'Aligned Continuity' Transformers concepts.  But be prepared for the watermarks.  It's the only way I can get these fully rendered images out on the internet...